The king, who had always been a zealous and bigoted Buddhist, had now become more despotic and selfish and averse to foreign intercourse than ever, monopolized himself what little trade there was, and settled down into a narrow policy that would exclude all nations but China from the products of his dominion. Neither of the friendly embassies which visited Siam this year――that from America in March or that from England in August――could obtain an audience even, much less gain any concessions in matters of trade or residence or protection of the interests of their people. The English ambassador, the celebrated Sir James Brooke (“Rajah Brooke”), mortified and insulted by the reception given him, withdrew, threatening to return with a fleet and force that should compel respect. War seemed so imminent that the proposition kindly made to the mission families to retire with the ships of the embassy, lest hostile measures entered upon should subject not English residents only, but all speaking the English tongue, to a fate like that of Dr. Judson when the war broke out with Burmah, was seriously considered, though not accepted. Very dark were the prospects of all the missions now. The native teachers were arrested and imprisoned, and threatened with the ratan and with fetters; the Siamese servants left in a panic; none came to hear preaching or applied for books. But the darkest hour is just before day. Just then, in the overruling providence of God, a mortal though lingering illness seized the king, and for months all things were in suspense till, in April, 1851, his long reign ended and he “entered into Nipan,” as the Siamese say when royalty expires. Upon the throne, as his successor, was now placed, by the concurrent voice of the grand council of princes and nobles, the Prince Chow Fah Mongkut, and Siam entered upon a new era in her history; for this remarkable man by his devotion to study during the twenty-seven years of his seclusion from public affairs in a monastery, while his inferior half-brother, who had artfully supplanted him, reigned with so strong a hand, and by his intimate association with the American missionaries, and especially by his having been long under the almost daily tutelage of one of them, had become emancipated from many of the prejudices of his countrymen, and prepared to set the wheels of progress in motion.