With the exception of the fighting at Mergui on 14 June 1687—which amounted to a massacre of English sailors on shore by the Siamese—the actual war was confined to commerce raiding.

The use of English sailors by Siam provoked conflict between the merchants of Golconda, used to dominating the trade of Mergui, and the East India Company, which possessed the Madras Presidency on the Coromandel Coast.

These were regarded as mere piracy by the Indians and the East India Company, who blamed Phaulkon and the Siamese government for the acts of their subordinates in Mergui.

[6] Company documents record White's various actions during his vendetta, including a naval bombardment of Masulipatam, the capture of several merchant vessels and the imprisonment of the crew of the Tiaga Raja, an Indian merchant vessel from Madras from which White seized £2,000 worth of goods during its stay in Mergui.

[6] The rift between the Siamese government and the Company was further aggravated by a personal dispute between Phaulkon and the President of Madras, Elihu Yale.

[4] In July 1686, the Company was able to secure from King James II of England an order-in-council forbidding English subjects from serving aboard foreign ships in eastern waters.

In November 1686, Phaulkon wrote to Père François de la Chaise, the confessor of Louis XIV of France, offering to hand over Mergui to the French in order to put an end to White's continued unauthorised piracy.

An expedition was dispatched from Madras in October 1686 to seize Negrais up the coast from Mergui to use as a base for combatting piracy.

[4] When the royal proclamation arrived in Madras in January 1687, it was decided to send the warships Curtana and James under the command of Anthony Weltden in order to collect the Englishmen at Mergui and take them out of the King of Siam's service.

[4] In response to Weltden's actions, Siam published an official declaration of war against the East India Company in August 1687.

Upon hearing of this transgression, King Narai had the balat executed to demonstrate justice in defence of innocent English immigrants unaffiliated with the East India Company.

The Dutch East India Company preferred to await the inevitable anti-foreign reaction to such a large French presence so near the capital (Bangkok was only 40 miles (64 km) from Ayutthaya).

When these instructions arrived in August, Yale dispatched a frigate to reinforce Weltden and instruct him to occupy the city, unaware that Weltden had been chased from Mergui months earlier, that Siam had declared war on the Company or that a French governor, the Sieur du Bruant, had already arrived in Mergui.