On the 28th of January the Eighty-seventh, with the flank companies of the Twenty-eighth native infantry, and detachments of the Governor-General’s body-guard and artillery, under Brigadier Hunter Blair, were sent from Tongwyn, to attack the position of Moulmein, eleven miles distant. The flank companies of the Eighty-seventh had one man killed and five wounded in forcing a piquet half way to Moulmein, which had been in part evacuated the preceding day. The position, being a great annoyance to the surrounding country, was destroyed, and the troops returned to camp the same evening.
On the 21st of February, the Bengal division rejoined head-quarters at Yandaboo; and on the 24th of February a royal salute announced the termination of the Burmese war.
The constancy and valour of the British troops had thus forced the monarch of an Eastern empire, with its myriads of inhabitants, to sue for peace; and their conduct is thus alluded to in the order issued by the Governor-General of India.
“While the Governor-General in Council enumerates, with sentiments of unfeigned admiration, the achievements of the First or Royals, the Thirteenth, Thirty-eighth, Forty-first, Forty-fifth, Forty-seventh, Eighty-seventh, and Eighty-ninth regiments, the Honorable Company’s Madras European regiment, and the Bengal and Madras European artillery, as the European troops which have had the honor of establishing the renown of the British arms in a new and distant region, his Lordship in Council feels that higher and more justly-merited praise cannot be bestowed on those brave troops than that, amidst the barbarous hosts which they have fought and conquered, they have eminently displayed the virtues and sustained the character of the British soldier.”
In commemoration of the meritorious conduct of the Eighty-seventh and other corps, the royal authority was subsequently granted for the word “Ava” to be borne on the regimental colour and appointments.
Brigadier Shawe, on the 1st of March, was compelled to proceed to Rangoon, in consequence of ill health.
On the 8th of March, the portion of the army that was ordered to return by land, marched from Yandaboo, under the command of Brigadier Hunter Blair. It consisted of the Eighty-seventh, the Governor-General’s body-guard, the Horse artillery, the Twenty-eighth, Thirty-eighth, and Forty-third Madras native infantry, and a battalion of the Madras pioneers. The column reached Prome, a distance of two hundred and ninety miles, on the 3rd of April, having had only one halting day, which was St. Patrick’s.
The Eighty-seventh remained at Prome, as the rear-guard of the army, until the arrangements for the final evacuation of the province was completed; on the 15th of April it embarked in the flotilla, and reached Rangoon on the 21st of that month.
On the 27th of April was received the melancholy intelligence of the death of Lieut.-Colonel Matthew Shawe, C.B., which lamented event took place on board His Majesty’s sloop, “Slany,” Captain Thornton, on the 10th of that month, within one day’s sail of Penang, where he was buried with all military honors. He was much regretted as an excellent man, and an officer of conspicuous gallantry. His life was sacrificed to his zeal for active service, for such was the state of his health, on leaving Calcutta, that his medical advisers used every endeavour to dissuade him from proceeding to Ava.[9]