King Petracha kept dozens of French hostage to discourage any attempt at a return.
But General Desfarges, leader of the French East India Company (CFIO) forces, ashamed at his failure, had no desire to return to France without some kind of victory to restore his name.
He proposed to the CFIO in Pondicherry, the company’s enclave in India, that the CFIO should invade and occupy Phuket.
This, he argued, would win France a valuable asset – “the centre of the tin trade” and might also free the hostages in Ayutthaya. It was agreed that he should try.
In April 1689, 322 French troops boarded three French frigates, Oriflame, Siam and Luovo, which were also loaded with “trade goods lacking in those parts” to barter for provisions en route.
The French soldiers showed little enthusiasm for the return to Siam and had to be surrounded by other CFIO French troops in Pondicherry – France’s enclave in India – to prevent desertions while they were herded aboard.
This rather quixotic expeditionary force left Pondicherry on April 10, 1689.
When the force arrived off the Malay Peninsula their first problem was that no one on board had been to Phuket before, so no one knew which of the many jungly islands on the west coast was actually Phuket.
The fleet reportedly stopped at several islands to ask directions to ensure that they invaded the right one.
The locals on Phuket, who had probably by now got word of their approach, had no doubt adopted their normal defence plan – clearing off to hide in the jungles and hills or fleeing to Phang Nga – and then waiting for the French to go away and stop bothering them.
When the three French warships did eventually reach Phuket, it was June, the rainy season was upon them and it was hot, humid and uncomfortable. The fleet (probably) entered Tharua harbor and sent an armed expedition ashore to Thalang. But “they found the whole place flooded, without habitation, and saw no one.”
Moreover, several officers reportedly still disagreed that the island they were invading was actually Phuket as they did not recognize it from their maps.
General Desfarges then sent an emissary, one Siamese hostage and a letter north to Ayutthaya to offer a deal; he would leave Phuket alone and free his other Siamese hostages if the French prisoners in Ayutthaya were freed and peace declared.
When this letter reached Ayutthaya, King Petracha rejected the offer and had several of the hostages killed, including the French Bishop of Ayutthaya.
He then sent word back to Desfarges that more would be killed if he continued his aggression.
“Fear for [the French hostages’] safety deterred Desfarges from taking any drastic action at Phuket.”
While Desfarges deliberated rather hopelessly on what to do next, the French fleet lay at anchor just off Phuket, probably close to Koh Rang in Sapam Bay.
Dr. Koening, a Danish botanist and diarist who visited Phuket in 1783, some 80 years later, wrote of passing “French Island” as he sailed into Sapam Bay. It is speculated that the name Ko Rang today is just a shortened version of “Ko Farang” or “Ko Farangcaise”.
From Pondicherry, the ketch Saint Joseph was sent after the invasion fleet with more supplies – “wine and other refreshments.” But this crew, too, was unsure about which island was Phuket.
They appear to have arrived in Patong Bay – on the opposite side of the island from the French fleet – and they also found the island deserted.
They “fired cannon shots as a signal to our people who might be there” and sent men ashore to hunt for any locals to ask them, first, if the island was actually “Jonsalam” (Phuket) and second, whether they might have seen a French invasion fleet anywhere recently.
Reportedly they “found a local man who assured them that nothing had been seen of them [the three ships probably in Phang Nga Bay].”
They then cruised around the islands looking for their compatriots and firing off their cannons but never found the three other French warships, so “Finally, meeting no one, they decided to return.”
The now dispirited French troops sat on their three hot, dank ships through the rainy season with no one to attack. They were probably watched covertly by the Phuket locals sitting in their jungle hideouts in the surrounding hills.
Meanwhile, in Pondicherry, “People were sick of the whole enterprise … those who had so passionately advanced this voyage had nothing to say.”
After some six months the French force met a Portuguese ship and a Chinese junk with some Europeans on board who informed them that a new war had broken out in Europe and that France was now at war with both the English and the Dutch.
With their sails starting to rot and their vessels in no shape to fight a British or Dutch brig if they passed by, even General Desfarges “recognized that it was not prudent to stay longer in those parts.”
In December 1689, “with nothing gained but the knowledge that his invasion had merely increased the term of suffering of the French prisoners,” Desfarges decided to return to Pondicherry.
To add insult to ignominy, his sorry fleet was chased much of the way back across the Bay of Bengal by a lone Dutch ship.
After leaving Pondicherry to head back to France in 1690, one of the expedition’s two remaining ships was captured by the Dutch. General Desfarges died from sickness on the way, possibly haunted by the prospect of the humiliation he would face in France.
The last remaining expedition ship, the Oriflame, got within sight of France when she encountered an Atlantic storm that wrecked her on the Brittany coast. Everyone drowned with the exception of two young officers, the last remnants of the great French expedition to colonize Siam and convert Southeast Asia to Catholicism.
Adapted with permission from A History of Phuket and the Surrounding Region by Colin Mackay. Available from bookshops or from Amazon.com. See also historyofphuket.com