“But, as every rule will have its exceptions,” says the Jesuit, “it is not to be supposed that the Burmese have not some good qualities, and that estimable persons may not be found amongst them. Indeed, there are some persons, whose affability, courtesy and benevolence, gratitude, and other virtues, contrast strongly with the vices of their countrymen. There are instances on record of shipwrecks on their coasts, when the sufferers have been relieved in the villages, and treated with a generous hospitality, which they would probably not have experienced in many Christian countries.”[205]
Yes, let the faults of the Burmese be as they will! let them be bad in every respect! we cannot, will not, imagine these faults to be so deeply rooted, that a moderate and equitable government could not tear them up and destroy them. It is the corrupt administration, the merciless never-ending chancery-like avarice of the officials, that turns their hearts to stone, and makes them callous, and servile, and tyrannical. When the British army were at Prome, in 1825, when the Burmese tasted the blessings of Anglo-Indian justice, they showed as kindly a spirit as any could have done. It was shameful that the kindly Peguers should have been so deserted at the critical time, and that they should have borne what the English army could not be made to feel. We must liberate these people, we must wrest the sceptre from the palsied grasp of the cruel Burman kings, even though we retain it ourselves. Then will the blessings of civilisation, and the peaceful arts that elevate man, extend a gentle sway over this misguided and persecuted nation.
BOOK II.
BURMAN HISTORY.
CHAPTER I.
1687-1760.
Alompra, the liberator of Burmah.
We may safely say with Symes, even at the present time, that “there are no countries on the habitable globe, where the arts of civilised life are understood, of which we have so limited a knowledge, as of those that lie between the British possessions in India and the empire of China.”[206] And though of late years this knowledge has been materially increased, yet much remains to be told, much valuable information to be collected, ere we can boast of a full and true acquaintance with the country of Burmah and its capabilities. In the preceding pages, an attempt has been made (I am myself aware, how imperfectly and unsatisfactorily), to give a short account of what we actually know of the state of civilisation in which they live: in the following chapters, it will be attempted to present the reader with an account of the historical events that have passed in the Burman peninsula, from the rise of Alompra, the first king of any consequence, and the founder of the reigning dynasty, to the present time. I must here impress the fact of the meagreness of our knowledge of Burman history upon the reader, in order that he may not be disappointed.
The geography of Ptolemy indicates the position of Burmah only by Aurea Regio, Argentea Regio, and Aurea Chersonesus. The only inference to be drawn from these facts, together with that of Ptolemy distinguishing several places as Emporia, is, that which Symes draws, that there was trade to those parts of Burmah and the Peninsula of Malacca at an early period.