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whom His Majesty had sent for the instruction of these idolatrous people converted every day a great number of them in making them make solemn and public abjurations, and who by this good example led one to believe that the King of Siam would lead after himself all his subjects to our creed, did not fail from the very beginning to employ all means to prevent the great progress. As during the lifetime of the King, who was clear sighted, they could not succeed in their intentions, they took advantage of the time during which the King could no longer act, and death was on the point of depriving him of life.
His Siamese Majesty having fallen dangerously ill in May 1688, one Opra Petracha a man of great merit amongst the Siamese mandarins, pushed by the Dutch to aspire to the Crown of his King, took measures to execute his intentions, which was not difficult for him. As he had refused the highest charges of the state, with which the King wanted to honour him on several occasions, with a view of simply applying himself to Religion, taking upon himself the duties of a true priest, he approached first the most distinguished amongst them, who seeing that the chief reason for this pernicious design consisted in a true zeal for the Siamese Religion assisted him at once so that he should be raised to the throne. Their blindness went so far that having had assembled a great many people to whom they communicated the resolutions which they had taken regarding the nomination of their new King, they allowed the people to go to all parts of the town proclaiming openly that Opra Petracha was the most worthy of all nobles of Siam to become their king, not taking into consideration that their party had not yet bee formed and that such attempt might lead to the abortion of their designs. What induced the people to declare themselves so openly was that the majority of them had received great help from this Opra in gifts which he constantly bestowed on them. His son whom he had raised to the first dignity of the Kingdom next after the Princes of the blood, which is what they call Oya, seeing the necessity there was to do everything nithe interest of his father amongst the friends and the
