spend most of his time in Bangkok. In 1841, there were total of 4,300 recorded Catholics in Siam with 1,700 Vietnamese Catholics in St. Francis Xavier Church in Bangkok, 700 Portuguese-Cambodian Catholics in Immaculate Conception Church, 500 Portuguese-Siamese Catholics in the Santa Cruz Church and another 500 at Holy Rosary Calvário Church and 800 Vietnamese Catholics in Chanthaburi. In 1849, during the Cholera epidemic, King Rama III ordered the Christian churches to release domesticated animals and feed them to make merits to appease the diseases according to Buddhist beliefs. Missionaries did not comply and incurred the anger of the king. Pallegoix then decided to release the animals per royal orders. King Rama III was satisfied but ordered the expulsions of eight priests who refused to comply. In 1852, King Mongkut personally wrote to the expelled eight missionaries urging them to return and promising not to impose Buddhist beliefs on missionaries in the future. Pope Pius IX issued thanks to King Mongkut by papal briefs Pergrata Nobis (1852) and Summa quidem (1861). In 1828 saw the arrival of first two Protestant missionaries in Bangkok: British Jacob Tomlin from London Missionary Society and German Lutheran Karl Gützlaff. Tomlin stayed only for nine months and Gützlaff stayed until 1833. Protestant missions in Siam was then very nascent. American Presbyterian missionaries from ABCFM and Baptist missionaries arrived in this period. American missionaries were called 'physicians' by the Siamese because they usually practiced Western medicine. Though their missionary works were largely unclimactic, they contributed to Thai history by the introduction of Western sciences and technologies. These included Presbyterian Dan Beach Bradley (, arrived in 1835), who introduced surgery, printing and vaccination to Siam, Presbyterian Jesse Caswell (arrived in 1839 together with Asa Hemenway), who closely associated with Prince Mongkut, Baptist John Taylor Jones (arrived in 1833) and Baptist J.H. Chandley (, arrived in 1843). Islam After the fall of the Ayutthaya Kingdom and failed attempts to reacquire the portage route long by the Chakri rulers, Persian and Muslim influence in Siam declined as Chinese influence within the kingdom grew. Despite this, however, the Muslim community remained a sizable minority in Bangkok, particularly in the first hundred years or so. After the Fall of Ayutthaya, Shiite Muslims of Persian descent from Ayutthaya settled in the Kudi Chin district. ‘Kudi’ () was the Siamese term for Shiite Imambarah, though it could also refer to a mosque. Muslim