Burmah and the Burmese

by Kenneth R. H. Mackenzie

The country on the way to Rangoon is very flat, and consequently the vessels were easily seen coming up the river; and they did not escape the rayhoon of the city. So unusual a number of vessels (they were forty-five in all) could not fail to arouse some dormant ideas of harm in the minds of the treacherous officials. At the time of their descrial, the principal European inhabitants were assembled at the house of Mr. Sarkies, an Armenian merchant, where they were going to dine. The rayhoon immediately sent for them, and demanded what the ships were. The reply was, that there were some expected, and that these were probably them. As the number of vessels was, however, continually increasing, the governor was not satisfied, and he seized the equally ignorant Europeans, and threatened their immediate execution. He also sent notice of his intention to Sir Archibald Campbell, who declared his determination of destroying the town altogether if the governor carried his menace into effect.[279] Upon this the captives were chained and confined in different places.

The Liffey was the first to arrive opposite the king’s quay, where a weak battery was planted, and it anchored at that place about twelve o’clock in the forenoon; the other ships took their places in different ways, so as to command the whole neighbourhood. I shall continue in the words of an eye-witness:—

“Having furled sails and beat to quarters, a pause of some minutes ensued, during which not a shot was fired; on our side, humanity forbade that we should be the first aggressors upon an almost defenceless town, containing, as we supposed, a large population of unarmed and inoffensive people; besides, the proclamations and assurances of protection which had been sent on shore the preceding day led us to hope that an offer of capitulation would still be made.”[280] However, all the Burmans did was to pour a feeble, ill-sustained fire into the Liffey, which, returning it with tremendous force, forced away the natives.

Upon landing, after the second broadside, the author of Two Years in Ava informs us that “three men lying dead, and the broken gun-carriages, were the only vestiges of the injury done by the fire from the frigate. The town was completely deserted. It seemed indeed incredible whither the inhabitants could have fled to within such a short space of time; and, as night was coming on, we could not proceed in search of them; the troops, therefore, remained in and about the town, and the next morning were placed in positions, in two lines, resting on the Great Pagoda and the town. On entering the terrace of the Great Pagoda, the advanced guard discovered in a miserable dark cell four of the European residents at Rangoon, who were ironed, and had been otherwise maltreated; the others had been released by us the evening before; so that we had now the satisfaction of knowing that none of our countrymen were subjected to the cruelty of the Burman chieftains.”[281]

After taking possession of the place, proclamations were immediately sent out among the inhabitants through a few stragglers, assuring the townspeople of protection, in the hope of inducing them to return. “The strictest orders were issued to prevent plunder, and a Burman having claimed several head of cattle which had been seized for the use of the army, they were immediately restored, in order to prove the sincerity of our protestations; but none of the inhabitants availed themselves of our offers, and we understood that the officers of government were driving the women and children into the interior, as hostages for the good conduct of the men.”[282]

The soldiers while at Rangoon were billeted in a long street which leads from the Dagon Pagoda to Rangoon, and in this exposed situation, without fresh supplies, they had to await the arrival of information regarding the position assumed by the Burmese government. Space will not permit me to refer to the many anxieties which had to be considered in regard to the present position of our troops, but the reader will find them amply discussed in Snodgrass;[283] however, I shall lay before the reader a few remarks of that gentleman, which will amply show the many difficulties which beset the army.

“The enemy’s troops and new-raised levies were gradually collecting in our front from all parts of the kingdom; a cordon was speedily formed around our cantonments, capable, indeed, of being forced at every point, but possessing, in a remarkable degree, all the qualities requisite for harassing and wearing out in fruitless exertions the strength and energies of European or Indian troops. Hid from our crew on every side in the darkness of a deep, and, to regular bodies, impenetrable forest, far beyond which the inhabitants and all the cattle of the Rangoon district had been driven, the Burmese chiefs carried on their operation and matured their future schemes with vigilance, secrecy, and activity. Neither rumour nor intelligence of what was passing within his posts ever reached us. Beyond the invisible line which circumscribed our position, all was mystery or vague conjecture.[284].... To form a correct idea of the difficulties which opposed the progress of the invading army, even had it been provided with land-carriage and landed at the fine season of the year, it is necessary to make some allusion to the natural obstacles which the country presented, and to the mode of warfare generally practised by the Burmese. Henzawaddy, or the province of Rangoon, is a delta, formed by the mouths of the Irrawaddy, and, with the exception of some considerable plains of rice-grounds, is covered by a thick and tenacious jungle, interspersed by numerous creeks and rivers, from whose wooded banks an enemy may, unseen and unexposed, render their passage difficult and destructive.

“Roads, or anything deserving that name, are wholly unknown in the lower provinces. Footpaths, indeed, lead through the woods in every direction, but requiring great toil and labour to render them applicable to military purposes: they are impassable during the rains, and are only known and frequented by the Carian tribes, who cultivate the lands, are exempt from military service, and may be considered as the slaves of the soil, living in wretched hamlets by themselves, heavily taxed and oppressed by the Burmese authorities, by whom they are treated as altogether an inferior race of beings from their countrymen of Pegu.... The Burmese, in their usual mode of warfare, rarely meet their enemy in the open field. Instructed and trained from their youth in the formation and defence of stockades, in which they display great skill and judgment, their wars have been for many years a series of conquests: every late attempt of the neighbouring nations to check their victorious career had failed, and the Burmese government, at the time of our landing at Rangoon, had subdued and incorporated into their overgrown empire all the petty states by which it was surrounded, and stood confessedly feared and respected even by the Chinese, as a powerful and warlike nation. When opposed to our small but disciplined body of men, it may easily be conceived with how much more care and caution the system to which they owed their fame and reputation as soldiers was pursued—constructing their defences in the most difficult and inaccessible recesses of the jungle, from which, by constant predatory inroads and nightly attacks, they vainly imagined they would ultimately drive us from their country.”[285]

The confidence which the king of Ava had in his own military resources is amply shown in a speech reported by Snodgrass.[286] “As to Rangoon,” said the king, “I will take such measures as will prevent the English from even disturbing the women of the town in cooking their rice.” This speech, however, only lends additional force to the remark of the Edinburgh Reviewer, that “the Burmese are much too arrogant even to attempt to improve themselves; and such as their rabble of soldiery is now, such it will be found fifty years hence—utterly unable to stand for a moment against British troops, even when protected by stockades.”[287] The events at present passing in the kingdom of Ava are but a practical demonstration of the truth of this assertion. However, such preparations as could be made were completed. Armies were stockaded in all directions near Rangoon, nor was the river at all neglected. The boatmen, an enterprising and brave part of the community, all attached to the royal interests, were soon in readiness, and a respectable kind of fleet covered the waters of the Irawadi.

Nothing of consequence occurred for some days. Some boats, sent up by Sir A. Campbell to gather intelligence as to the force and resources of the Burmese, were fired upon on the 15th May, near the village of Kemendine, and to prevent the recurrence of such an event, a body of men were embarked in order to drive the enemy from that place. Accordingly, after some little skirmishing and the loss of some men and officers, the detachment succeeded in their endeavours. Afterward, however, the Burmese returned, and annoyed the Anglo-Indian army very much by attempting to set the fleet on fire. “Our shipping,” says an eye-witness, “were now daily and nightly exposed to a great deal of danger and annoyance from an engine of destruction much confided in by our invisible enemy, and which, if properly managed, might have caused us much injury. This was a large raft formed of pieces of wood and beams tied together, but loosely, so that if it came athwart a ship’s bows, it would swing round and encircle her. On this were placed every sort of firewood, and other combustibles, such as jars of petroleum or earth oil, which, rising in a flame, created a tremendous blaze, and as this raft extended across the river, it often threatened to burn a great portion of our fleet. Rafts of this description were chiefly launched from Kemendine, where the greater number of them were constructed; but fortunately the river made a bend a little above the anchorage, and the current running strong towards the opposite shore, the rafts were not unfrequently grounded, and thus rendered useless; whilst, on the other hand, the precautions adopted by our naval officers of anchoring a number of beams across the river, in most instances effectually arrested those unwieldy masses in their descent towards Rangoon.”[288]