Burman
policy of carrying off every boat on the river, laying waste the
whole country, and driving away the inhabitants and the herds,
maintained our army as prisoners in Rangoon through the first wet
season; and caused the loss of half the white officers and men
first sent there. The subsequent campaign was no less fatal and,
although large reinforcements had been sent, fifty percent of the
whole died; so that less than two thousand fighting men remained in
the ranks, when the expedition arrived within a short distance of
Ava. Not until the last Burmese army had been scattered did the
court of Ava submit to the by no means onerous terms we imposed.

Great, indeed, was the contrast presented by this first invasion of
the country with the last war in 1885, which brought about the
final annexation of Burma. Then a fleet of steamers conveyed the
troops up the noble river; while in 1824 a solitary steamer was all
that India could furnish, to aid the flotilla of rowboats. No worse
government has ever existed than that of Burma when, with the boast
that she intended to drive the British out of India, she began the
war. No people were ever kept down by a more grinding tyranny, and
the occupation of the country by the British has been an even
greater blessing to the population than has that of India.

Several works, some by eyewitnesses, others compiled from official
documents, appeared after the war. They differ remarkably in the
relation of details, and still more in the spelling of the names
both of persons and places. I have chiefly followed those given in
the narratives of Mr. H. H. Wilson, and of Major Snodgrass, the
military secretary to the commander of the expedition.

Chapter 1: A New Career.

A party was assembled in a room of an hotel in Calcutta, at the end
of the year 1822. It consisted of a gentleman, a lady in deep
mourning, a boy of between fourteen and fifteen, and two girls of
thirteen and twelve.

"I think you had better accept my offer, Nellie," the gentleman was
saying. "You will find it hard work enough to make both ends meet,
with these two girls; and Stanley would be a heavy drain on you.
The girls cost nothing but their clothes; but he must go to a
decent school, and then there would be the trouble of thinking what
to do with him, afterwards. If I could have allowed you a couple of
hundred a year, it would have been altogether different; but you
see I am fighting an uphill fight, myself, a