! ART. VIII.-Papers relating to Hostilities with Burmah. Presented to both Houses of Parliament by Her Majesty's Command, June 4, 1852. London. 1852. THE year fifty-two of a century is clearly not the fortunate one for the kings of Burmah. One hundred years ago, the Peguers, under Bonna Della, to use Syme's most peculiar and original Burman orthography, took Ava, captured Dweepdee, the last of a long line of Burman kings, and flattered themselves that Pegue was henceforward to be the capital of the empire. Probably Dweepdee felt as little grateful on that occasion to the" renegade Dutch and native Portuguese," through whose assistance this consummation had been brought about, as his present Burman majesty does at this interesting moment to General Godwin and his " renegade" English, as the lord of the white elephant doubtless considers them. The triumph of the Peguers, in the eighteenth century, was, however, but short: for Alompra arose, and turned the tide of victory in favor of his Burman followers. The reins of empire soon fell from the hand of the Peguan monarch, and-if we are to believe the meagre records of that period-the rise of Alompra, and the humiliation of the Peguans, were in part ascribable to the covert friendship and assistance of the English factory at Negrais. A century sees the aspect of Eastern affairs altered wonderfully. A hundred years ago Clive and Lawrence, pitted against the able Dupleix, had a hard struggle to maintain, and the petty clandestine aid which the Negrais factory could afford the Burmans, probably a little powder and some untrustworthy muskets, scarce forms a greater contrast to the force and its equipments now at short notice hurled against them, than does the narrow footing made good on the shores of India by the valour of Clive and Lawrence, to the modern Anglo-Indian empire in its gigantic magnitude. The Burman humiliation of 1752 was not destined to be of long duration, and the gentlemen of the Negrais factory soon repented themselves of the countenance given to the Burmans. The change of policy was too late for the Peguers, the star of Alompra was in the ascendant, and the Burmans were quickly freed from a hated yoke. So far as the Peguers are concerned, 1852 promises almost as hopefully for them as when Bonna Della took Ava; for, although General Godwin has not as yet accomplished that feat, Rangoon, the city of Alompra's founding, is once again in the hands of the English, and if the next cold weather sees our flag on с с Amerapoora, the Alompra will be found with difficulty, who, with his Burmans, shall be able to strike those colours and plant his own. Indeed, the "sun-descended king," and his "multitude of umbrella-wearing chiefs," must by this time feel rather uncomfortable as to the issue of a contest, which the former war with the British taught them to be hopelessly unequal, and of a very different character from the wars with the " Elder Brother" of China, to which Burmans are rather fond of adverting. If not too much occupied with the internal troubles of his own empire, the "Elder Brother" must, too, we should think, be participating in the uncomfortable emotions to which the " Younger Brother" must now be a prey; and as the Department for Foreign Affairs is seldom wholly asleep among the celestials, the vermilion pencil has probably before this been penning a despatch, if not to the " Younger Brother dwelling in golden palaces to the westward," at least to the Tsoun-tu of the Yunan frontier, to watch well the gold and silver road, and to keep a sharp look out after the "red-bristled barbarians," who, though not now" madly careering the celestial waters" in hostile array, threaten to acquire a dangerous proximity, in fact to touch the South Western Frontier of China. The Tsoun-tu, as in duty bound, will be furbishing up and adding to the fierceness of the indescribable dragons and unclassified tigers, on the jacket breasts and backs of the great military officers, and will be exciting the courage of his brave soldiers by visions of peacocks' tails, and red, blue and white mandarin buttons. We are not scholars enough to know whether those queer combinations of strokes at every imaginable angle, called Chinese characters, would reveal to an experienced eye the tremors of a nervous penman; but if the Tsoun-tu of the Yunan frontier chanced to observe a want of firmness in the strokes of the vermilion pencil, when it warned him to be on the alert against the English, the fact would be pardonable. That power, which, step by step, wherever in the East it has set its foot, has not only subdued its neighbours, but gradually annexed their territories; that power, whose mission on earth seems to be to belt the sphere with its colonies and possessions, must seem to the "Elder Brother" fast encircling his celestial empire, and drawing around it a web of ominous strength and structure. Lord Gough's operations in the Yangtse-kiang, and the humiliating peace which redeemed the empire of China from immediate dissolution, have left the English posted conveniently for aggression along the sea borde from Canton to Chusan; Labuan, the Straits Set tlements, and the Tenasserim and Arracan Coasts, are the links. of the chain; and now if Amerapoora shall be occupied, and the golden and silver road between Yunan and that capital open to the English, the doom of the celestials will appear certain. Lord Ellenborough when he prescribed, that on no pretence whatever permanent footing on the continent of China was to be established, saved that empire for a while from the rapid dismemberment with which our successes threatened it; but the foresight which dictated such instructions seems never to have contemplated what the wielder of the vermilion pencil must now regard as a not unlikely consummation, that in the course of the expansion of our enormous Indian empire, its boundaries may shortly be conterminous with those of China on the south-west; and that in spite of all precautions to the contrary, the outposts of our battalions, and the gay-liveried, fantasticallyflagged, and ill-armed masses of China, may soon again come into awkward juxta-position. The " Elder Brother" may well feel a horror creep down to the very extremity of his right regal pig-tail, when he receives the news that we are again soldiering in Burmah, visions of Chin-kyan-foo and Nankin will disturb the sacred pillow, whilst the ghosts of the long line of chests of dollars, which left the Royal Treasury as a douceur to the outside barbarians, will haunt His Majesty's dreams. It may be reasonably doubted, too, whether the sensations of other "Younger Brothers," besides the unhappy one of Ava, will continue to be of the most agreeable description. There must be a flutter among all the trans-gangetic monarchs, who will feel that if the eagle builds its nest in the midst of them, whilst brood after brood of its young are finding shelter along the cliffs of the circumjacent seas, they may look to having their royal feathers seriously ruffled ere long. Such anticipations as these, with the near example of the Rajah of Sarawak's ability in establishing himself in a chiefship, will hardly favor Sir J. Brooke's negociations with the Prince Chou Fao, unless indeed fear outweigh jealousy, and the dread caused by the fate of Burmah stimulate the court to facilitate access to Bangkok and Siam. Chou Fao is said to be an intelligent man, and to have men around him who understand English; and if by chance any of these should bring to his notice that the English Press, when drawing attention to Neale's work on Siam, already speak of that empire, "should the conduct of the Burmese be such as to compel us to take possession of their country," as the "only independent state between our boundary of the Indus on the west, and Hong-Kong on the east," Chou Fao, although he may smile at the geographical knowledge which ignores Cochin-China, will think that coming events cast their shadows before, when the gentlemen of the press conclude that sooner or later we must have to deal with the Siamese as close neighbours, to be regarded as friends or foes." The Cochin-Chinese, those wary folk, will be doubly jealous and apprehensive, and the Shans of all denominations, who are wedged in amid Burmans, Chinese, Siamese, and Peguers, will be well on the alert to side with the strongest, and to place themselves under the protection of those whom, at the moment, whether from proximity or power, it may be most expedient to court and flatter. Whether it is destined in the counsels of Providence, that our empire shall be largely extended to the eastward, it is not for us to determine; but knowing what has been the course of events hitherto, how regularly our being brought into collision with Asiatic powers has issued in the absorption of their territories into our empire, it becomes our rulers in the first instance, and all British men in the next, to be well advised of the ground on which they stand, when they assume a hostile attitude towards their neighbours. The venerable hero, now at the head of the British army, once declared that a great nation ought never to engage in a little war; and judging from the past history of our Indian empire, it would seem that we cannot do so; for however small a war may seem in its commencement, however apparently insignificant the causes that bring it on, it expands in magnitude as it proceeds, and stretches out in its issues to results that at the beginning could not have been foreseen. Being now then fairly embarked upon a war with the Burmese empire, it is a question in which every Briton is concerned, to enquire what are the grounds on which hostilities are declared on our part; whether we be the aggressors or those on whom the aggression has been made; and if it be clearly made out that we have suffered injuries and wrongs, whether redress might not have been attained by any other means less deprecable than an appeal to arms. Into this enquiry, we need scarcely say that no consideration of the possible or probable effects of the annexation of a greater or smaller portion of the Burman territories on the state of the people, ought for a moment to be permitted to enter. It may be quite true, that the King of Burmah is mad, that he is a great tyrant, and that it would be a great blessing to the people to be delivered from his yoke, and transferred to the gentle sway of our own beloved sovereign. It may be quite true, that blessings, physical, intellectual, moral, and religious, would result from our conquest of Burmah; but into the enquiry as to the justice of our cause, none of these considerations must be allowed to enter. The question is only this,—had we good reason for declaring war against Burmah? Or rather, was it absolutely necessary for us so to do? For the prosecution of this enquiry, we gladly acknowledge at the outset, that the Blue Book before us affords ample opportunity. The statements of Lord Dalhousie are distinct and straightforward, and we read them with a strong conviction that they are the deliverances of a man who feels that he has nothing to conceal. Another point in connexion with this Blue Book, which we may mention as worthy of all commendation, is the promptitude of its issue. According to the rate at which these things have sometimes been managed, Burmah might have been conquered and annexed, General Godwin might have taken his seat in the House of Lords as Baron Martaban, and Lord Dalhousie been converted into the Duke of Amerapoora, before the British public had the means of forming any judgment as to the real causes of the war. Whereas, in the present case, the whole proceedings, down to the despatch which left Calcutta on the 6th April, are laid before Parliament on the 4th June. This is as it should be. Since 1826, we have been at peace with the Burmese, our relations with them being regulated by a treaty concluded at Yandaboo on the 24th February of that year, and a commercial treaty signed at Ratanapara on the 26th November, and ratified by the Governor-General on the 1st September, 1827. By the seventh article of the former of these treaties, it is stipulated that, "in order to cultivate and improve the relations of amity and peace hereby established between the two Governments, it is agreed that accredited Ministers, retaining an escort 'or safeguard of fifty men, from each, shall reside at the durbar of the other, who shall be permitted to purchase or build a 'suitable place of residence, of permanent materials." We are not aware whether this article of the treaty was ever implemented by the resident of a Burmese Minister at the Governor-General's durbar. A British Minister did reside at the Burmese court: but the practice was discontinued a dozen years ago, in deference to the feelings of the King of Burmah. Of this discontinuance, we find the following account in a volume entitled Treaties and Engagements between the Honorable East India Company and the Native Powers in Asia, published by a former Under-Secretary to the Government of India :"Agreeably to the 7th article of the Treaty of Yandaboo, Major H. Burney was, on the 31st December, 1849, appointed 'British Resident at the court of Ava. : |