to your own discretion; keeping in mind the advantage
which may result from remaining for £ o such a time as will
afford you an opportunity o f attaining a competent knowledge
of the character o f the Court, the manners o f the
people, and the resources of the country.
15.—After accomplishing the objects o f the Mission, as
far as Siam is concerned, it will be necessary for you to return
to Singapore or Prince of Wales’s Island, and there
await the favourable monsoon, to prosecute your mission to
Cochin China. In your voyage from Siam to the Straits
o f Malacca, an opportunity will be afforded you. of exaT
mining, and reporting upon, the condition and resources of
the tributary and petty States upon the shores of the Gulf
o f Siam ; but you will be careful to satisfy yourself, in the
first place, that your holding communication with these
chiefs will not excite the jealousy of the Siamese Government,
nor give cause o f complaint to the Dutch, that we
are interfering with the settlements which they may have
formed in that quarter.
16.— The Governor-General in Council contemplates the
probability of your reaching Cochin China in the month of
May, with the commencement of the westerly monsoon.
17.— In your intercourse with a Court so jealous of
strangers, and so reluctant to enter into any intimate intercourse
with the nations of Europe as that of Cochin China,
much care and circumspection will be necessary. Should
the Mission be so far countenanced that you are called to
the Court, you will endeavour to prolong your stay at the
capital, that you may thus be afforded an opportunity of
acquiring an acquaintance with the genius and habits of
the Cochin Chinese Court, and of availing yourself of such
favourable occasions as may from time to time occur, for
disarming the jealousies o f the Cochin Chinese, and for inclining
them to cultivate a more intimate connexion with
our nation. His Lordship in Council is not unaware, that,
in the endeavour to attain the objects of your mission at
Cochin China, you will have to contend with the previously
established, and possibly adverse influence o f other European
nations at that Court. It will be your especial duty,
however, as far as practicable, to make yourself acquainted
with the views and policy o f those nations, and the footing
on which they stand with the native Government ; also
avoiding, however, any appearances that may countenance
the erroneous belief, that your mission is directed towards
objects o f a political nature.
18. Looking to a successful reception o f your mission
at Cochin China, it is supposed that you may be detained
in that country until the beginning of July. A t this period
it will be impracticable, or difficult, to return to the
westward against an adverse monsoon by a direct passage.
19.—Your easiest route will therefore be by the established
Eastern passage, which, without inconvenient loss
o f time, will enable you to touch at Manilla, the Sooloo
group of Islands, the independent portion o f the Spice Islands,
with such other countries by the way as are not
under the control of other European nations. These countries
are all imperfectly known, and a knowledge of their
social condition and commercial resources is intimately connected
with the great object which the Government have in
view by your mission—the extension of the commercial relations
o f the nation in general, and more particularly o f its
Asiatic possessions. It is not the wish of the Governor-
General in Council, however, that you should enter into
any negotiation with the rulers of those countries. The
expediency of any extension of the views o f Government in
that direction will be matter for future consideration ; and
it is probable that the deliberations o f his Lordship in
Council may be materially influenced by the information