hold no one responsible,
after we had driven their Sovereign from his capital to the hills and
jungles; and half a century might elapse before order could be
restored. In the mean time, wealth would be growing up within our
border to invite their aggression, while they would become poorer and
poorer from disorders, and more and more anxious to seize upon it.

With regard to an advance upon Amarapoora, it will not be difficult
after the rains, if circumstances render it necessary. The Madras
cattle are much better for hard work and all climates than those of
Bengal, and sufficient could be collected for the occasion by sea.
Your Lordship's reasons for not trusting to steamers alone are
unanswerable, and it seems impossible for a land and river force to
act jointly. In this, we almost realize the contest between the winds
and the moschettoes before the court of the genii in the Arabian
tale: when the winds appeared, the moschettoes could not, and when
they appeared, the winds could not. For the prestige of our own name
in the rest of India, to advance to the capital and then give the
rest of the country to the Sovereign might, perhaps, be the best; but
for the security of our new acquisition, and that of the people of
the rest of Burmah, it would certainly be better to stay where we
are. The benefits of our rule might, by degrees, be imparted to that
of the rest of Burmah. The Government would be obliged to treat their
people better than they have done in order to keep them.

Here everything still is what I have described it to be so often;
that is, as bad as it can be. The King is the same, and the officers
and favourites whom he employs are the same. I shall not write public
reports on the state of affairs till I learn that your Lordship
wishes it, which will be, I conclude, when you have carried out your
arrangements in Burmah.

The terrible war of races in China, to which I have been looking
forward for some years, seems to be coming slowly on. I wrote to Sir
H. M. Elliot about it some two or three years ago, and recommended
him to write a better life than we have of Jungez Khan, in order to
show what the Tartars now really are. When he led his swarms of them
over China, Central Asia, and a great part of Europe, they worshipped
the god of war; they now worship the god of peace: but there are
millions of Lamas in Tartary who would change their crosiers for the
sword at the call of a kindred genius, and are now impa