jealous of Faulcon declared that he had invited the French, only for the purpose of furtherance of his schemes and to place him on the throne that was the summit of his ambition. It is quite possible that feeling himself exposed to the envy of the court, he might have wished to have raised some barrier against the designs of his foes and that in protecting the French, he was actuated by regard for his personal safety rather than by that of his master's prestige.

Whatever his ideas may have been on that point there is no doubt that he was fully alive to the advantages which would accrue to the kingdom from commerce. Otherwise the Dutch, the masters of the Malay Peninsula, would have been the arbiters of the fate of the Indies the kings of which needed an alliance to counterbalance the power of these formidable republicans. Their dangerous proximity was the lure the minister made use of to bring the king round to his ideas.