BUCKINGHAM, WILLIAM A. 



BURMAH. 



91 



in Glasgow. Another scheme of his was the 

 increase of the Sustentation Fund. Under his 

 management it was augmented 70,000 a year. 

 The fourth enterprise of which Dr. Buchanan 

 was the leader was to bring the non-conform- 

 ing churches in Scotland into more intimate 

 relations. In pursuance of this object he had 

 since 1864 acted as "Convener of the Free 

 Church Union Committee." He was one of 

 the founders of the Free Church Colleges of 

 Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Aberdeen. Had he 

 lived till the Assembly in May, 1876, he could 

 have been appointed Principal of the college 

 in Glasgow, as the successor of Dr. Fairbairn. 

 He went to Eome at the beginning of March, 

 to take temporary charge of the Free Church 

 Mission there. As an author he wrote the 

 work above mentioned in 2 vols., 8vo (1840) ; 

 also the "Book of Ecclesiastes," a commentary 

 (1859) ; a volume of travels entitled "A Cleri- 

 cal Furlough in the Holy Land ; " and several 

 articles in the "Imperial Bible Dictionary," 

 edited by Dr. Fairbairn. 



BUCKINGHAM, WILLIAM A., was bora in 

 Lebanon, Conn., May 28, 1804, and died at 

 Norwich, Conn., February -3, 1875. He was 

 educated in the public schools and trained as a 

 farmer, but at the age of twenty-one he en- 

 gaged in mercantile business at Norwich, and 

 was for many years connected with manufact- 

 ures. He was Mayor of Norwich in 1849, 

 1850, 1856, and 1857. He was Governor of 

 Connecticut from 1858 to 1866, being reflected 

 seven times. He refused renomination in 1866, 

 and remained in private life until 1868, when 

 he was elected to the United States Senate for 

 the term of six years, which ended on the 3d 

 of March, 1875. As Governor during the civil 

 war he gave to President Lincoln full and 

 prompt cooperation. In the most perilous days 

 of the strife he showed an industry, a resolu- 

 tion, and a spirit of personal sacrifice, which 

 extorted the praise of his political opponents, 

 by the vigor of his administration and by the 

 energy with which he sustained the General 

 Government with all the resources of the State. 



BUEMAH, a country in Farther India. 

 Its present area is estimated by Behm and 

 Wagner (" Bevolkerung der Erde," vol. iii., 

 1875) at 190,517 square miles; the population 

 at 4,000,000. The latest trustworthy informa- 

 tion on the subject of population is contained 

 in a report from Count Bethlen, who visited 

 this country in 1874, to the Chamber of Com- 

 merce of Trieste. He states that he was allowed 

 to see, at the house of a high dignitary of the 

 court, a register of all the houses of the em- 

 pire. This register is kept with great accuracy, 

 because every house must pay a tax to the 

 King. The total number of houses was about 

 700,000, and it is believed that, on an average, 

 a house is inhabited by five persons. This 

 would indicate a population of about 3,500, 000. 

 The Shan provinces, this side of the Salween, 

 were not included in this estimate. 



At the beginning of the year, serious diffi- 



culties arose between the King of Burmah and 

 the British Government of India. The latter 

 suspected the King of having instigated an at- 

 tack by the Chinese upon the commercial ex- 

 pedition of the British Colonel Browne, near 

 the frontier of Burmah. It also disputed the 

 claim of the King to a territory inhabited by 

 Karen tribes. 



The expedition of Colonel Browne was to 

 resume the unsuccessful efforts made in 1869 

 by Major Sladen to establish a commercial road 

 between British India and the Chinese province 

 of Yun-nan, through Northern Burmah. The 

 British Government appointed, after the re- 

 turn of Sladen, toward the close of the year 

 1869, a diplomatic agent at Bhamo, on the 

 Irrawaddy, in Northern Burmah, who was to 

 look after the interests of British commerce, 

 and to establish firm and friendly relations 

 with the savage tribes of Yun-nan. The Bur- 

 mese Government complained that the rela- 

 tions between the English and the tribes of 

 Yun-nan induced the latter to make plundering 

 inroads into the Burmese territory, to which, 

 so far as the region around Bhamo was con- 

 cerned, the Burmese Governor of Bhamo put 

 an end toward the close of 1872. The over- 

 throw of the Mohammedan Panthays in Yun- 

 nan, and the reestablishment of the Chinese 

 rule in that province, did not change the rela- 

 tions of the English with the savage tribes, 

 which were reported to be under chieftains 

 who did not hold an appointment from the 

 Emperor of China. The reports of the British 

 resident at Bhamo were sufficiently favorable 

 to induce the Government of India to fit out 

 the new expedition under Colonel Browne, 

 who, on December 12, 1874, sailed up the Ir- 

 rawaddy as far as Bhamo, accompanied by an 

 armed escort of more than one hundred native 

 infantry. From Bhamo he attempted to pene- 

 trate into Yun-nan, but his first attempt did 

 not succeed, and he had to return to Bhamo. 

 He started again about the 17th of February, 

 1875, and is believed to have been only four 

 marches from Bhamo, where he heard of dis- 

 turbances at Momem. The British consul, 

 Margary, who had come from Shanghai, and 

 who, encouraged by the good treatment he 

 had received throughout his journey from 

 that city, had gone on with only his Chinese 

 followers, had fallen into a snare and had 

 been murdered near a small frontier town 

 of Manwyne. Hardly had the news of this, 

 event reached Colonel Browne, when he was 

 himself attacked by a body of some 500 or 600 

 Chinese and tributary hill-tribes. His small 

 escort of Sikhs, however, were fully equal to 

 the emergency, and repulsed their assailants 

 with a loss of seventy killed, without losing a 

 man themselves. Mr. Elias, who had started 

 by another route, and had proceeded two 

 marches into the tributary states, was ordered 

 back by the Chinese, and returned to Bhamo. 

 The English at once suspected the machinations 

 of the court of Burmah as the cause of the 



