King Theebaw's reply was received by the time specified, and when translated was found to express a frame of mind that was acceptable to the invaders. The subsequent advance from Ava was therefore unopposed, and on November 28 British troops made their way peacefully through the streets of Mandalay. In the afternoon of the next day the King and his Queens and a suitable retinue were conveyed on board a steamer and transported to Rangoon, en route to India. As a compliment to their former estate, the escort was detailed from the Royal Navy. It is said that Supya-lat offered violent resistance to this deportation, saying that she would prefer death or any fate at the hands of the Englishmen to life as a state prisoner with her husband. But she had to conform.

By Proclamation on January 1, 1886, Upper Burma was declared a part of the British Empire, and the Chief Commissioner, Sir Charles Bernard, transferred his headquarters from Rangoon to Mandalay.

Dacoity

Sir Harry Prendergast had completed his task in the occupation of the capital, but the subjugation of the vast province of Upper Burma, covering about 100,000 square miles, was a very different matter. The collapse of the Civil Government and the disbanding of the native army led to a state of anarchy. Pretenders sprang up who were exploited by enterprising ex-officers, and became leaders of the various bands of dacoits that infested the land. These armed bands were a terror to the people, for they lived on the country and robbed and looted freely but it was not till we had won the confidence of the peaceable peasants that they would venture to give us information as to the whereabouts of their enemies. The fact that there was no cohesion or community of interest between these marauders made them the more troublesome to suppress, as each one had to be dealt with separately. The pacification of the country was entrusted to Sir George White with a force of three infantry brigades. But as there was no national party in arms against him, so there was no organised resistance; the enemy were not soldiers, but a lawless rabble led by brigands.

In his report of this work in a country which he describes as "one vast military obstacle," he says:

"The actual resistance offered to our troops was not very trying to disciplined well-armed soldiers, but small bodies of these soldiers have often had to stand up against bands whose numbers were estimated in thousands. Between April 1 and July 31 over one hundred affairs took place, and few days elapsed without the occurrence of fighting in some part of the newly acquired province."[[3]]

[[3]] See Despatch, July 17, 1886.

After a time it was found possible partially to replace the soldiers by specially recruited armed military police, who were thickly distributed in all the disturbed districts; and gradually the more peaceable inhabitants realised that every time a military raid was organised there would be a smaller number of thieves and robbers left in the land.

When the bulk of Sir George White's expeditionary force was withdrawn, Brigadier-General George Wolseley, who had been commanding the Mandalay Brigade, assumed the command of the permanent garrison. It was as his substitute that Gatacre held the post from October 1889 to October 1890, with a few weeks' interval in the spring. Gatacre had been nearly four years in the same office on the Headquarter Staff, and his letters show that after the departure of General Chapman in April 1889 he was anxiously watching for some new opening for himself. The change to an independent command was very welcome, and not less so was the change from the social life of Headquarters to the wild simplicity of Upper Burma. The military direction of such a vast and unsettled province would provide scope for administration and opportunity for personal exertion—would, in short, afford all the arduous duties in which Gatacre found his delight.

Fort Dufferin