THE REFLECTIONS OF T1:131 BURMESE KING.
" IDIRAISE to the All, and to my intelligence, I have outwitted
1 that dangerous barbarian, and carried all my points, without declaring war! With my 40,000 troops and my new cannon and Leeseetalai's aid and the jungles to retreat into, war would not have been too dangerous, but I have done without war. That man in Calcutta has been trying to bully me, and has got less than nothing for his pains. He sent the big Envoy here with an escort, to worry me about some officer's death in China and the rights of Western Karens and his own claim to send an escort to his Residency at Bhamo, and he threatened and collected troops, and demanded my reasons for entertaining my Chinese friend, and seemed as if he were about to invade Burmah. His predecessors did just those things, and my predecessors lost provinces in consequence, but I kept my head. There were all my counsellors as frightened as girls on the ghaut when they see an alligator, but, for- tunately, I am the King. I did not give way, and I did not fight. The big Envoy had the impudence to send up from Promo to ask why I entertained Leeseetahi, as if any representative of China were not his superior. So I told him Leeseetahi was here on a ceremonial mission from my protector at Pekin, and he believed me, and came up the river placably. Leeseetahi can send me troops if I want them, for all that. Then the big Envoy wanted an audience with shoes on his feet,—that is, equality with Me! No, no ! not in Burmah, or where would my throne be next day, and my treasures ? He may have a carpet out of my benignity, white feet being too tender for the pavement, but he must have nothing as of right. He was told to take off his shoes, and he did. Then I knew he did not want war in order to seize my kingdom, and I meditated how to avoid smaller un- pleasantnesses. There was the murder of Margary. Well, I did not order that ; I never heard of Margary. I only told my envoys, as they started for Pekin, that those intrusive white men, always hunting about to steal my trade, must be stopped, or I would hold them responsible, and the white men were stopped quite successfully. The King is well served. So I told the big Envoy I knew nothing of the murder, and was very sorry it had happened outside my territory ; and when he showed his letters instigating the murder, I accused a priest of forgery, and punished him, and what could the big Envoy say ? He said nothing, and looked angry, and what are his looks to Me? Then there were those Karens. The Calcutta man says they are his. His ! Every Karen alive is the slave of the heir of Alompra, whose empire stretched from China to the Ganges, and who are these special Karens ? Still, the Calcutta man did not ask them for himself—that would have been perplex- ing—but only that they should be independent, and of course I granted that. Why should they not be independent,—of him, at all events? I am a warrior King, and can conquer inde- pendent States very easily, when nobody is looking on. Let Koonti call himself independent. So was Pegu when Alompra set up his standard there, and half exterminated its people. Nothing is lost by that agreement. Then there was the demand for escort for the next expedition to explore China, or to punish Leeseetahi. That was impossible. An escort ?- then their trade would be safe, and by-and-by they would make profit, and then they would be angry with my monopolies, which I said I would give up, and then they would eat up Me. That would not do, so my Minister—whom I must remember to execute, for he was far too civil to that big Envoy—told him that an escort could not be allowed. Nor shall it. I must have money, and I cannot tax as these English do, and my trade is my treasure, and nobody shall come between me and my customers, and hunt about and make roads, and undersell Me. I was afraid about that refusal, and delayed it to the last minute, but the big Envoy is gone, and there is no war. Perhaps the Calcutta man is afraid of war, and of Me. Shall I fight? The race of Alompra has fought three times with these men, and three times been beaten ; and they sent the Emperor of India to Rangoon the other day, to sit on a mat in a hut till he died. I will wait,—one can but yield or fight at last; and they cannot quarrel with me because independent Karens have harboured dacoits, and I have made Koonti pay a proper penalty. The- big Envoy has got nothing, except fair words and some dances in his honour, and I have got time to see what Pekin will do."'
If the King of Burmah, an intelligent man of the low trader type, who has outwitted every European who ever came in con- tact with him, from Lord Dalhousie to Mr. Eden, has thoughts- like these, which we believe closely express his policy, he is- amply justified by Lord Northbrook's proclamation of 13th July, which relates just the facts the King has described. from his side. Why that very feeble document was given to the Indian world, which has no claim to an explanation of foreign policy, and no means of extorting one, and no precedent to lead it to expect one, we can no more understand than we can understand the statements it contains, except upon the theory :—Every man has his special weakness, and the special weakness of the present Viceroy of India, who is in many respects a successful administrator, is intolerance of criticism,. and especially of criticism based upon misapprehension. Being perfectly conscientious both as to objects and means, and aware of capacities which, partly from ill-luck, do not always. get fair-play, he cannot endure to be misunderstood, and. especially when the secret of the misunderstanding cannot be revealed. No man ever was more faithful to official duty. Lord Northbrook would execute an order for self-torture in silence as to the order, but he could not refrain from publishing a well-reasoned paper giving his explanations for torturing himself. He cannot possess his soul in patience, and let clamour die away, but must show the world around him. that he had adequate reasons for his course. He did so in the Guicowar's case, and we can hardly doubt, though we- have no information that he is doing so now. That Lord Northbrook should have arranged a grand mission to Mandalay, should have selected Sir Douglas Forsyth to be its head, should have ordered him an escort-.-a most unusual pro- ceeding—should have warned troops in Madras and Bengal for service in Pegu, should have moved Europeans to the ports,. should have surveyed a land route for artillery into Burmah, and should have stopped the trade of a province like Pegu, in order to rest content with a cool plea of" Not guilty" from aKing of Burmah, is to us absolutely incredible. There was no motive for such a mission, which on that theory was needless' as nego- tiation could have been managed more easily on the spot. Lord Northbrook is not the man to delight in meaningless. diplomatic publicity and pomp, or to spend money without reason, or to forget the commercial disturbance his preparations. must cause, any more than he is the man to expect that the- falsest Court in Asia would give him any answer but the one it did give,—that it knew nothing about the matter. He
have been overruled from England at a late period in his- negotiations, and is fretting, as usual, under the ignorant Indian denunciations of a course taken under orders. Those denunciations, though stupid, are natural enough. The opinion of India is the- opinion of a camp eager for battle, delighting in excitement, con- temptuous of indecision, and somewhat over-inclined to make. power manifest in a sustained haughtiness of tone which is not without its advantages in the East, but which sometimes degene- rates into the Spanish-histrionic. The French-histrionic is utterly foreign to the Anglo-Indian character, but for the Spanish- histrionic, with its intense hauteur and persistent refusal of compromise, there is, we must admit, a sympathy. Lord_ Northbrook chafes under the condemnatory opinion, ill- founded as it is, and hence an explanation which is accepted. throughout the Peninsula not as an explanation, but as an apology, and evidence of wordy weakness in the Viceroy. Lord Dalhousie did not negotiate so, but then Lord Dalhousie had no telegraph to strangle him, and would have flashed replies of the Pelissier kind through it back to Downing Street, if he had.
We cannot say we approve of what has occurred, if this has occurred, for we cannot avoid a suspicidn that the visit of the Prince of Wales has been allowed to interfere with the effectiveness of British diplomacy, but there is no reason for regret in the patent result. Mr. Margary can be avenged by-and-by, after Mr. Wade's inquiry from the other side shall have placed more evidence in our hands, and given us the means of applying pressure at Pekin ; and( we cannot bring ourselves to desire a campaign against Burmah on a quarrel like that about the escort, in which, though we may be within the limits of our right—for we have a right to
be safe in Bhamo—we should so certainly be misrepresented throughout the world. Suppose Prince Bismarck to demand right of way through Switzerland, to punish a riot against Germans on the lake of Como by persons supposed to be favoured by the Swiss? Nor can we view with any complacency possession of a province which is in some sort within Chinese dominion, and which would bring us face to face with a people among whom an army of a hundred thousand men would be no more missed than the people annually run over in London are missed among ourselves. If we must quarrel, we must, and must win ; and if we must annex Burmah, we must, and then govern and defend it ; but it is far better to wait a little, till the path becomes a little plainer before our feet. If Lord North- brook's proclamation seems firm to the Burmese King, he will yield, which is the object of the negotiation ; and if it seems weak, he will very soon do something which will place con- sideration beyond our power. Fortunately he has no English- men in Burmah to kill as a hint that he defies us, and cannot get his armed rabble into motion silently enough for an "ugly rush" into unprepared Pegu. The Indian Government is a military monarchy, always ready for action, and is a very scrupulous and indeed fastidious administration upon every point but one. It never sees that the world will be injured, or its own conscience either, by its spending a little money and trouble to know with some accuracy what its enemies are about.. It is very shocking of Bismarck to pay in Europe for secret intelligence, but in Asia, you see, we are "trustees for a snbject people," and "authority is undermined by treachery," and " revolt means massacre,"—in short, it is necessary to see, a little beforehand, that the Republic suffer no harm.
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