was selected to govern one of the smallest possessions which England has acquired, the island of Malta. In this tiny colony-where, like Napoleon at St. Helena, he must have frequently meditated on his exploits-he died from the effects of a fall; and, so little is Indian history read, that probably eleven people out of every twelve at any English dinner-table would be unable to give an intelligible account of the career of the man who made Britain supreme in India, and would be astonished to learn that Lord Hastings added as large a territory to the Company's dominions as that over which Warren Hastings ruled. Governor On Hastings' retirement in 1823, the choice of the ministry fell upon Canning. It is not difficult to detect the causes which prompted the choice, or which induced Can- Canning ning to accept the office. In 1823 a singular series accepts the of circumstances had apparently extinguished his Generalship. political career. His refusal to take the second place in the ministry in 1809 cost him, in all probability, the first place in 1812. His refusal to persecute a queen for the sake of gratifying a king cost him even his subordinate office in 1820. His chances of political success in England were apparently destroyed by the offence which he had given to a sovereign. who could occasionally forgive his own enemies, but who rarely tolerated his wife's friends. He turned, therefore, to India for the opening which he could not find at home. Fortunately for his country, the death of Castlereagh prepared the way for fresh combinations. The necessities of the Conservatives compelled the king to accept Canning as leader of the House of Commons. India thus lost the services of the most brilliant statesman who had ever been nominated to her government, and England retained a minister who was destined to work a revolution in foreign policy, and modify by so doing the course of European history. On Canning ultimately resigning the Governor-Generalship, the choice of the authorities fell upon Lord Amherst.1 The 1 Charles Wynn, the Duke of Buckingham, and Lord W. Bentinck all wanted the appointment, while the ministry thought of Melville and of Manners Lord Am- new Governor-General reached India at a time when the authorities in London had a right to expect a long period of peace. In fact, both in Hindostan and in the Deccan the victories of Hastings had left the Company no more enemies to conquer. Unfortunately, however, for the prospects of peace, nature, which had given India an impenetrable boundary on the north, had left her with an undefined and open frontier on the east. On the shores of the Bay of Bengal, opposite Calcutta, a struggle had raged during the eighteenth century between the inhabitants of Ava and Pegu. The former, known as The Burmese Burmans or Burmese, had the good fortune to find a Empire. capable leader, who rapidly ensured their own victory and founded a Burmese Empire. The successful competitors were not satisfied with their own predominance in Peguthey conquered Aracan, they overran Assam, and they wrested from Siam a considerable territory on the Tenasserim coast.1 The conquest of Aracan brought the Burmese to the confines of the Company's dominions in Chittagong. The conquered people, disliking the severe rule of the conquerors, crossed the frontier and settled in British territory. Many of them used their new home as a secure basis for hostile raids on the Burmese; and at last one of them actually crossed from Chittagong to Aracan and defeated the ruling race. His triumph was of short duration. After a few months he was driven from the scene of his conquests and compeiled again to seek refuge in Chittagong. But, though defeated, he did not cease from using every opportunity to harass the Burmese. He conducted a series of raids into Burmese territory, and habitually used the dominions of the Company as the base for his predatory incursions. Sutton, the Speaker, for it. Liverpool, vol. iii. p. 203; Greville, vol. i. p. 59. Amherst's selection was thus due to a process of exhaustion. He had some years previously been sent on a special mission to China, which had proved abortive from his refusal to do obeisance to the emperor; and he had been shipwrecked on his return home. Years afterwards he was selected for a special mission to Canada, on which, however, he did not proceed. See ante, vol. iv. p. 119. 1 Thornton, vol. v. p. 1 et seq. their conse These events were occurring on the Burmese frontier at the time at which the depredations of the Ghoorkas on the north of Hindostan were producing the complica- The frontier tions which resulted in the war with Nepaul. The raids and case of the Burmese against the Company was quences. similar to that of the Company against the Ghoorkas, and the barbaric monarch of Ava used language which a civilised ruler might have employed. He insisted on the Company's duty of maintaining the peace of its frontiers, and he asked. for the extradition of those of his subjects who were using British territory as a base for their warfare. The first request the Company could not comply with; it had no forces at its disposal which could enforce order on a frontier hundreds of miles long. The second it would not grant; it was not prepared to surrender persons who had sought refuge in its dominions from the merciless treatment of the King of Ava. A dispute of this character tends naturally to grow. Semiindependent Burmese chiefs crossed the frontier, and carried the sword into British territory. The Burmese governor of Aracan, with or without the authority of his monarch, boldly asserted his right to the whole of Chittagong, and even demanded the cession of Eastern Bengal. At the time when this demand was made Hastings was occupied with the Pindaree war, and could not venture on embarking on a new campaign. He found it consequently convenient to treat the claim as a forgery. But the barbaric people with whom he had to deal were naturally encouraged by this conduct. They saw that the outrages on their own territory were not stopped, and that their own raids on the Company's lands were not punished. They continued to meet raid with raid, and to heap disorder upon disorder. The river Naf ran for a portion of its course between the possessions of the British in Chittagong and those of the Burmese in Aracan. With the object of pre- The island venting the repetition of outrages which had in the Naf. occurred on the river, a small British guard was stationed 1 Summary in the Pamphleteer, vol. xxiv. p. 304. on a little island, called Shaporee, near its mouth. The Burmese, claiming the island as their own, attacked the guard and drove it from the post. It was impossible to ignore such a challenge. The island was reoccupied; but the Governor-General, still anxious for peace, offered to treat its occupation by the Burmese as an action unauthorised by the Burmese Government. The Burmese, however, instead of accepting this offer, sent an army to reoccupy the island; collisions almost simultaneously occurred between the British and the Burmese on other parts of the frontier, and in February 1824 the first Burmese war began.1 The first war. War had long been inevitable. The Burmese, ignorant of the strength of the Power which they were attacking, were anxious for an opportunity of measuring their swords with the weapons of the Company; and the British could not tolerate the continuance of disorder on their frontiers, and were forced to fight. Yet, if the war of 1824 may be excused as inevitable, its conduct must be condemned as careless. No pains were taken to ascertain the nature of the country which it was requisite to invade, or the strength of the enemy whom it was decided to encounter. The experiences of the Nepaulese war might have taught the military advisers of the Governor-General that a rude race, acting in a difficult country, might inflict defeat on British troops. But the lesson was forgotten in 1824, or, at any rate, not applied. Burma is watered by two great rivers, the Irawaddy and the Salwen, flowing in parallel courses from north to south, and enclosed by mountain ranges which separate them one from the other and from the adjacent country. In its upper waters the Irawaddy is a rapid stream; in its lower waters it flows through alluvial plains, and finds its way through a delta with nine mouths into the Bay of Bengal. On one of its western mouths is the town of Bassein, on one of its eastern mouths the great commercial port of Rangoon. The banks of the river are clothed with jungle and with forest; and malaria, 1 Wilson, vol. iii. pp. 1-34; Marshman, vol. ii. p. 385; Thornton, vol. v. p. the curse of all low-lying tropical lands, always lingers in the marshes. The authorities decided on invading Burma through the Rangoon branch of the river. They gave Sir Archibald Campbell, an officer who had won distinction in the Peninsula, the command of the expedition, and, as a preliminary measure, they determined to seize Rangoon. Its capture was accomplished with ease, and the Bur- Rangoon mese retired from the town. But the victory was the precursor of difficulty. The troops dared not advance in an unhealthy season; the supplies which they had brought with them proved insufficient for their support; and the men perished by scores during their period of forced inaction. is taken. The summer of 1824 was not, indeed, entirely lost. In August a small expedition, sent from Rangoon to the Tenasserim coast, seized the principal towns of that district, and laid the foundation of a new possession in the Malay Peninsula. But victory in this distant region made little impression on the counsels of the barbaric Court of Ava, and any effect which it might have had was destroyed by the defeat of a small British force by a large Burmese army in Aracan. This disaster-which for the moment was believed to have opened the road to Calcutta-and the condition of the army at Rangoon, wasting away with dysentery and disease, almost justified the confidence with which the Burmese had provoked the war. The Burmese war, however, was not the first—as it was not the last-occasion on which Britain plunged into hostilities without adequate preparation, and triumphed over fortune herself by steady perseverance. When more favourable weather returned with the autumn, Campbell was again able to advance. Burma was then attacked from three separate bases. A force under Colonel Richards, moving along the valley of the Bramaputra, conquered Assam; an expedition under General Morrison, marching from Chittagong, occupied Aracan; while Campbell himself, dividing his army into two divisions, one moving by water, the other by land, passed up the Irawaddy and captured Donabue and Prome. The |