States would be eligible for the same rights. If Siam allowed any other Western nations but the Portuguese to establish a consulate, the Americans would also be allowed. The treaty also stipulated that if an American failed to pay Siamese debts or bankrupted, the Siamese would not punish or hold the American debtor as slave. However, the Chinese tax collector system imposed many tariffs in the 1840s that rendered trade much less profitable. No American merchants ship sailed to Bangkok from 1838 to 1850. Like the British, the Americans later requested for amendments of the initial treaty. Joseph Balestier, a French man who became American diplomat, arrived in Bangkok in 1850 to propose the amendments. Phrakhlang (Dit Bunnag), the usual receiver of Western envoys, had been away conducting the Sak Lek in Southern Siam. Phrakhlang's younger brother Phraya Siphiphat (That Bunnag) took over the task of receiving Joseph Balestier. However, the meetings were not friendly ones. According to Thai chronicles, Balestier behaved unceremoniously. Phraya Siphiphat rejected any proposals to modify the existing treaty. Balestier even did not manage to deliver the presidential letter. When Phrakhlang returned, Balestier complained to him that his younger brother Siphiphat had offended him as the envoy of the President of the United States but Phrakhlang did not respond. Eventually, Balestier left Bangkok empty-handed. Townsend Harris, on his way to Japan, arrived in Siam in April 1856 on San Jacinto to conclude a new treaty. Arrival of Harris was at the same time when British Harry Parkes had been negotiating supplementary terms of Bowring Treaty. Reception of the American envoy was delayed to due Siamese court preventing the British and the American to meet and join efforts to demand further concessions. Harris presented gifts from President Franklin Pierce to Siamese court and asserted to Vice-King Pinklao that the United States "had no territory in the East and desired none". Siamese Harris Treaty, based on Bowring Treaty and signed in May 1856, granted similar rights to the Americans including low tariff and extraterritoriality. Stephen Matoon was hired as the first American consul in Bangkok. Compared to the British and the French, the United States had little interest in Siam despite the Americans being the most numerous Westerners in Siam due to presence of Protestant missionaries. J.H. Chandler succeeded as American consul in Bangkok in 1859. King Mongkut sent a letter to President Abraham Lincoln in 1861, suggesting