There is one point which must not be overlooked by the Indian government, and which, connected with what I have already mentioned, makes the Burmese nation more formidable; it is, the great contempt they have for the sepoys. And what is equally true, the fears which the sepoys have of them. The Burmahs are only afraid of the white faces, as I shall very soon establish. They despise the sepoys, although they are so well armed. Now, that the sepoys are good troops, there can be no doubt; they have proved it often; but, at the same time, they are not, as some of the Indian officers have asserted in my presence, the best troops in the world, and preferable to Europeans. That they are much easier to control, and that they excel in discipline, I grant, because they are never intoxicated; but they have, in the first place, very little stamina, and are, generally speaking, a small and very effeminately built race. Still they have fought well—very well; but they never fought well against the Burmahs; and for this simple reason,—that superstition is more powerful than courage, and subdues it. The sepoys are very superstitious, and had the idea, which was never eradicated, that the Burmahs were charmed men, and they never went out against them willingly, even when they were headed by the English troops. As for the Burmahs’ contempt of them, it was notorious. I have myself seen one of the Burmah prisoners at Rangoon lift up a piece of timber that six of the sepoys could hardly have moved, and throw it down, so as to make it roll at the feet of the sepoy guard who watched him, making them all retreat several paces, and then laugh at them in derision. But we had many more decisive proofs. The Burmahs had stockaded themselves about seven miles from Rangoon, and it was determined to dislodge them. Colonel S—, who was very partial to the native troops, was ordered on this service, and he requested particularly that he might have no troops but the sepoys. Sir A Campbell did not much like to consent, but, as the stockades were not higher than breastworks, and the Burmahs not in very great force, he eventually yielded to the Colonel’s arguments. Fifteen hundred sepoys were ordered out, and the Colonel went on his expedition. The Burmahs had good intelligence that there were no European troops, and when the sepoys arrived, they did not wait to be attacked, but attacked the sepoys, and put them completely to the rout. One half of the sepoys were said to be killed; the others came back to Rangoon in parties of ten or twelve, and in the utmost consternation and confusion. Sir A Campbell was, of course, much annoyed, and the next day a European force was despatched against the Burmahs. On their arrival they witnessed a dreadful and disgusting scene. A long avenue had been cut in the wood, and on each side of it were hung by the heels, at equal distances, shockingly mutilated, the naked bodies of the seven hundred and fifty sepoys killed. The Burmahs did not, however, attempt to resist the European force, but after a few shots made their retreat. Now, this is a very important fact: and it is a fact which cannot be denied, although it has not been made known. In India there is a nominal force of three hundred thousand men; but they are scattered over such a vast extent of territory, that, allowing they could be made disposable, which they could not, it would require many months before they could be collected, and if the Burmahs despise the sepoys, and the sepoys dread the Burmahs, the only check against the latter will be the European troops; and of them how many can be called out. Not ten thousand, at the very utmost; and the difficulty of collecting them was well known at the commencement of the Burmah war. There certainly is a great difference between attacking others in their own territories, and defending ourselves; but if the Burmahs could hold out against us, as they did, for nearly three years, without arms to cope with us, what might be the consequence if they were supplied with arms and officers by any other nation? We have now a footing in the country, and it must be our object to prevent the ingress of any other, and to keep the Burmahs as quiet and as peaceable as we can. But our very intercourse will enlighten them by degrees, and we have more to dread from that quarter than from all the hordes of Russia or Runjeet Sing, and the whole disaffection of India.
As I have more to say relative to the Burmahs, I will, in my next chapter, enter into a short narrative of the expedition to Bassein. It was a bloodless one, although very important in its results: and circumstances occurred in it which will throw much light upon the character of the nation.
Chapter Twenty Six.
It was not until many months after the war had been carried on, that Sir Archibald Campbell found himself in a position to penetrate into the heart of the Burmah territory, and attempt the capital. He wanted almost every thing, and among the rest reinforcements of men; for the rainy season had swept them off by thousands. At last, when determined to make the attempt, he did it with a most inadequate force; so small that, had the Burmahs thought of even trenching up and barricading the roads at every half mile, he must have been compelled, without firing a shot, to have retreated. Fortunately, he had an accession of men-of-war, and his river detachment was stronger than he could have hoped for. I do not pretend to state the total force which was embarked on the river or that which proceeded by hand, communicating with each other when circumstances permitted, as the major part of the provisions of the army were, I believe, carried up by water. The united river force was commanded by Brigadier Cotton, Captain Alexander, and Captain Chads; the land forces, of course, by Sir A Campbell, who had excellent officers with him, but whose tactics were of no use in this warfare of morass, mud, and jungle.
It will be proper to explain why it was considered necessary to detach a part of the forces to Bassein. The Rangoon river joins the Irrawaddy on the left, about one hundred and seventy miles from its flowing into the ocean. On the right of the Irrawaddy is the river of Bassein, the mouth of it about one hundred and fifty miles from that of the Irrawaddy, and running up the country in an angle towards it until it joins it about four hundred miles up in the interior. The two rivers thus enclose a large delta of land, which is the most fertile and best peopled of the Burmah provinces, and it was from this delta that Bundoola, the Burmah general, received all his supplies of men. Bundoola was in the strong fortress of Donabue, on the Bassein side of the river, about half way between where the Rangoon river joined it on the left, and the Bassein river communicated with it a long way farther up on the right. Sir A Campbell’s land forces were on the left of the river, so that Bundoola’s communication with the Bassein territory was quite open; and as the river forces had to attack Donabue on their way up, the force sent to Bassein, was to take him in the rear and cut off his supplies. This was a most judicious plan of the General’s, as will be proved in the sequel. Major S—, with four or five hundred men in three transports, the Larne, and the Mercury, Hon. Company’s brig, were ordered upon this expedition, which sailed at the same time that the army began to march and the boats to ascend the river.
On the arrival at the mouth of the river we found the entrance most formidable in appearance, there being a dozen or more stockades of great extent; but there were but two manned, the guns of the others, as well as the men, having been forwarded to Donabue, the Burmahs not imagining, as we had so long left that part of their territory unmolested, that we should have attempted it. Our passage was therefore easy; after a few broadsides, we landed and spiked the guns, and then, with a fair wind, ran about seventy miles up one of the most picturesque and finest rivers I was ever in. Occasionally the right lines of stockades presented themselves, but we found nobody in them, and passed by them in peace. But the river now became more intricate, and the pilots, as usual, knew nothing about it. It was, however, of little consequence; the river was deep even at its banks, over which the forest trees threw their boughs in wild luxuriance. The wind was now down the river, and we were two or three days before we arrived at Bassein, during which we tided and warped how we could, while Major S— grumbled. If the reader wishes to know why Major S— grumbled, I will tell him—because there was no fighting. He grumbled when we passed the stockades at the entrance of the river because they were not manned; and he grumbled at every dismantled stockade that we passed. But there was no pleasing S—; if he was in hard action and not wounded, he grumbled; if he received a slight wound, he grumbled because it was not a severe one; if a severe one, he grumbled because he was not able to fight the next day. He had been nearly cut to pieces in many actions, but he was not content. Like the man under punishment, the drummer might strike high or strike low, there was no pleasing S—: nothing but the coup de grace, if he be now alive, will satisfy him. But notwithstanding this mania for being carved, he was an excellent and judicious officer. I have been told he is since dead; if so, his Majesty has lost one of the most devoted and chivalric officers in his service, to whom might most justly be applied the words of Hotspur,—“But if it be a sin to covet honour, I am the most offending soul alive.” (See note 1.)
As I before observed, the branches of the trees hung over the sides of the river, and a circumstance occurred which was a source of great amusement. We had a little monkey, who had been some time on board, and was a favourite, as usual, of the ship’s company. The baffling winds very often threw us against the banks of the river, near which there was plenty of water; and when this was the case, the boughs of the trees were interlaced with the rigging of the ship. This unusual embracing between nature and art gave Jacko the idea of old times when he frolicked in the woods, and unable to resist the force of early associations, he stepped from the top-sail yard to the branch of a large tree, and when the ship had hauled off clear, we found that Jacko had deserted. We lamented it, and ten minutes afterwards, thinking no more about him, we continued our course up the river. About an hour had elapsed, during which we had gained upwards of a mile, when again nearing the bank on that side, we heard a loud chattering and screaming. “That’s Jacko, sir,” said one of the men, and others expressed the same opinion. We manned the jolly-boat, and sent it on shore towards the place where the noise was heard. The monkey did not wait till the bow of the boat touched the shore, but springing into it when some feet off, he took his seat very deliberately on the stern, and was pulled on board, where immediately he flew up the side, caressing every one he met. The fact was, that Jacko had found several of his own race in the woods, but, like all wild animals, they immediately attacked one who had worn the chains of servitude, and Jacko had to fly for his life. We very often interlaced the rigging with the boughs after that, but the monkey remained quiet on the booms, and showed not the slightest wish to renew his rambles.
I think it was on the third day that we arrived below the town of Naputah, which was defended by a very formidable stockade, commanding the whole reach of the river. The stockade was manned, and we expected that it would be defended, but as we did not fire, neither did they; and we should have passed it quietly, had not S— grumbled so much at his bad luck. The next day we arrived at Bassein, one of the principal towns in the Burman Empire. Here again the Major was disappointed, for it appeared that, on hearing of the arrival of the expedition at the entrance of the river, the people had divided into two parties, one for resistance, the other for submission. This difference of opinion had ended in their setting fire to the town and immense magazines of grain, dismantling the stockades, and the major part of the inhabitants flying into the country. The consequence was, that we took possession of the smoking ruins without opposition.