One hundred years ago
A correspondent writes from Madras: `Theebau arrived yesterday. The Col- onel who brought him over, before he and his men departed, requested the acting Chief Secretary of the Governor, a grave, business-like Aberdonian, to give him a receipt for the party. "By all means," he said; "hand me a list of them". There was no list, but one was immediately prepared, with the help of a pencil and a scrap of paper, and ran as follows:— "I King, 2 Queens, 13 Maids of Honour, and so on." In seven weeks and four days from the reception by the Governor of a telegram to say that an expedition was to be got ready to go from Madras to Burmah, the necessary troops were sent a thousand miles over the sea, many hundreds of miles up the Irrawaddy, a country has been taken into our keeping much bigger than the British Isles, and we have the personage who was one of the most absolute Kings in the universe peaceably dwelling in the middle of Madras.'
Spectator, 9 January 1886
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