Page:Great & wonderful revolution in Siam (1690).pdf/15

 not, without some Indignation, bear the specious Discourses of the Jesuits, who would persuade those Oriental People, that all the Pains they took, the Fatigues and Dangers they had endur'd in coming so far to live amongst them, proceeded from no other Principle, but the strong desire they had of doing them good, which was pretended to be the Motive that induced them to come and exercise amongst them those Arts and Sciences that are best understood and practised in Europe, such as Physick, Surgery, Astronomy, and the Mathematicks, by the means whereof they hoped to render them capable of being taught the way to Heaven.

On the contrary, they saw that those Missioners had fallen upon the fame treacherous and intriguing Methods to overturn their Government, that they had formerly practised in Japan, where they made it more their Business to subject that Kingdom to the Spanish Domination, (which was then the most potent, and furthest extended in the World) than to bring it under the Obedience of Jesus Christ his Laws. Notwithstanding that the Doctrin of the Gospel had made so great a progress in that vast Empire, that some Princes of the Blood, several of the chief Nobility, and some hundreds of thousands of the People had declared for the Christian Religion, and enroll'd themselves amongst the Professors of it.

These were the Reflections that the Grandees of Siam entertain'd themselves with on this Occasion, but they were willing to stay till the death of the King, before they attempted the shaking off this Foreign Yoke. In