160 



ALP-ARSLAN. 



ALSTROMER, JONAS. 



170 



On his return to Monchaboo, Alompra spent some months in that 

 town, which he had enlarged and made his capital. ID 1758 a revolt 

 in Pegu broke out. His presence crushed the insurrection ; but the 

 impression entertained by the Birmese that it had been excited by 

 foreign intrigues, stimulated Alompra to seek revenge on other 

 enemies. 



The English at Negraia were suspected. An alliance, offensive and 

 defensive, had been concluded between Alompra and the British 

 resident at Negrais ; notwithstanding which it was alleged that British 

 traders had supplied the people of Pegu with arms. The position of 

 the British government in India at that time had rendered it expedient 

 to recal the resident at Negrais (he reached Calcutta on May 14, 1759), 

 but a few persons were left to preserve the right of possession in case 

 it should be resolved at any future period to re-establish the settle- 

 ment. On the 6th of October following, Negrais was treacherously 

 attacked by a party of Birmese who had entered it as guests, a number 

 of Europeans and Hindoos slain, the rest carried off prisoners, and 

 the place destroyed, though it does not appear that this assault was 

 made by command of Alompra, or even with his previous knowledge ; 

 but he tacitly sanctioned the outrage after it had been committed. 



The Siamese too were suspected of having stirred up the insurrection 

 in Pegu ; upon them Alompra sought to tak>: open vengeance. Mergui 

 and Tenasserioi fell an easy prey ; and, inspirited with these successes, 

 the victor resolved to carry the war into the heart of Siam without 

 delay. The enemy harassed his army as it advanced, but did not 

 venture upon a general engagement. They retarded its march how- 

 ever, and a month elapsed before he approached Bankok. Two days 

 after the Birmese had completed their lines of circumvallation and 

 erected their stockades, Alompra was taken ill. He felt that his 

 disease wag mortal, and anxious to reach his capital in order to settle 

 the succession, and take other precautions for averting civil disorder 

 after hia death, he broke up the siege, and commenced his retreat by 

 the moat direct route. The progress of his disease however was so 

 rapid that death overtook him within two days' march of Martaban, 

 about May 15, 1760. 



Alompra at th-j time of his death had not completed hia fiftieth 

 year. It is said that hia person did not exceed the middle aize, but 

 was strong and well proportioned ; that his features were coarse and 

 dark. He was prone to auger, severe in punishing. He was as deceitful 

 and reckless of human life as most Asiatic conquerors. He was a 

 braggart, like all hia successors; but he did something to brag of. As 

 a soldier, he commanded success by the promptitude and vigour of 

 hia movements. " The wisdom of his councila," saya Major Symes, 

 speaking of hia civil government, " secured what his valour had 

 acquired; he reformed the Rhooms, or courts of justice ; he abridged 

 the power of the magistrates, and forbade them to decide at their 

 private houses on criminal causes, or property where the amount 

 exceeded a certain sum ; every process of importance waa decided in 

 public, and every decree registered." 



(Symes, Account of an Embaay to the Kingdom of Ana in the Year 

 1795 ; Crawfurd, Juurnal of an Embassy to the Court! of Siam and 

 Cochin-China.) 



ALP-ARSLAN (that is, ' the Brave Lion '), or, with hia complete 

 name, Muhammed-hen-Daud-Alfi-Anlan, born in 1030, was the nephew 

 of the Seljukide Sultan Togrul-Beg, whom the Abbaaide Kalif Kaim- 

 biamr-illah had, for the protection of hia throne, invested with the 

 dignity of Emir-al-Omara, or Commander-in-Chief of the whole 

 empire, and who, when nearly 75 years old, had also married a very 

 young daughter of that kalif. Togrul-Beg died in 1063, and, as he 

 left no children, hia nephew, Alp-Arslau, who had till then been 

 governor of Khoraaaan, succeeded him aa Sultan of the Seljukea. 

 Alp-Arslan restored the youthful widow of Togrul-Beg to her father, 

 demanding at the same time to be appointed Eiuir-al-Omara in the 

 place of his uncle, a request which the kalif could not refuse. One 

 of the first acts of Alp-Arslan's reign waa to put to death the grand 

 vizir of Togrul-Beg, together with 600 of hia adherenta. Nizam-al- 

 Mulk, who waa chosen for that office by Alp-Aralan, has earned the 

 reputation of one of the greatest statesmen of the East. Alp-Arslan 

 waa about to extend his dominions by conquests in Transoxiana, when 

 a revolt in Azerbijan, instigated by Kutulmish, required hia presence 

 there. He defeated the rebellious prince near the city of Rei, and 

 resumed in the ensuing year (1065) hia conquests in Transoxiana, 

 while hia vizir Nizam-al-Mulk endeavoured to promote the welfare of 

 the interior, and to advance the interests of literature and education 

 by establishing colleges in the principal towns of the empire. The 

 greater part of Syria waa at thia time already in the hands of the 

 Turks, and the troops of the Greek emperor offered but little resist- 

 ance to their further progress. Romanus Diogenes, who camo to the 

 throne in 1063, resolved to take more vigorous measures against them. 

 He joined his army in person, and defeated the Turks in several battles 

 in Cilicia and near Malatia; but he waa unsuccessful in an expedition 

 againat Khelat, and waa, in 1071, taken prisoner in a battle near 

 Malazkurd (or Melez^bird) in Armenia. Alp-Aralan treated him 

 generously, and on hia promise to pay a considerable ransom, released 

 him and all the no'.le prisoner* from their captivity. But the Greeks 

 had in the meantime placed Michael Parapiuucius upon the throne, 

 by which circumstance Diogenes was prevented from fulfilling his 

 engagement. Thia caused a renewal of hostilities. Alp-Aralan'a son, 



Malek-Shah, conquered Georgia, while the Sultau himself was pre- 

 paring au expedition agaiust Turkistau. He crossed the Jihon, and 

 commenced the war by taking the fort of Berzem ; its governor, 

 Yussuf-Kothual, was led before Alp-Arslan as a prisoner, and when 

 reproached by him for the trouble he had given him by his long and 

 useless resistance, became so incensed, that he rushed upon the Sultau 

 and with a dagger indicted a mortal wound upon him, of which he 

 died (1072). Alp-Arslan was buried at Merw in Khorassan. His son 

 Malek Shah succeeded him in the government. 



ALSTltOMEK, JONAS, was born on Jan. 7, 1685, at Aliugsrcs, at 

 that time a small town of about 150 inhabitants. His parents were 

 so poor, that after being taught to read and write, he was sent to 

 service at the house of a colonel in the neighbourhood ; but he soon 

 left this place for the shop of a small trader in Eksjo, where he con- 

 tinued till the ill-treatment of his master forced him to leave : after a 

 few more changes he set out for Stockholm to seek his fortune. Here 

 a merchant of the name of Alberg, who had resolved to set up in 

 business in London, engaged him to accompany him aa book-keeper. 

 The young adventurer assumed the name of Ahtrom, from the name 

 of the stream on which he was born, being the first of the family who 

 had aspired to the dignity of a surname. On his passage he took his 

 share of work with the sailors, a circumstance which had nearly 

 turned much to his injury, for he had scarcely set foot on land in 

 London, May 1, 1707, when he was laid hold of by a press-gang, and 

 rescued with difficulty out of their hands by a comrade, who could 

 hardly persuade them that he was a clerk. In the course of three 

 years Alberg failed. In the same year, 1710, the clerk set up in 

 business on his own account as a ship-broker, and procured letters of 

 naturalisation. His first thought, on his success, was to impart a 

 share of it to his family. His father was dead, but he sent support 

 to his mother, who was still living, and he invited over to England 

 his younger brother and two sisters. The brother he instructed in 

 trade, and then sent out to Portugal, where he died in 1716. Of the 

 two sisters, the elder managed the household affairs, and the younger 

 learned book-keeping and trade, at which she became ao clever, that 

 during Alstrom's occasional absences from the counting-house she 

 used to carry on the business and maintain au extensive correspond- 

 ence. Alstrbm was now comfortably settled, if it had not been for 

 the contrast which he could not help drawing between the prosperity 

 of the country he lived in and the misery of that he had left behind. 

 " As a citizen he was an Englishman," says his biographer, " but he 

 was at heart a Swede." He watched impatiently for the return of 

 Charles XII. from his captivity at Bender to lay before him his plans 

 of improvement ; and when the welcome news arrived he hurried off 

 to Sweden, but soon found that during the life of that king there was 

 no chance of his schemes being listened to. He did not return how- 

 ever without effecting something ; for, having observed that the 

 English woollen manufactures constituted the principal exports to 

 Sweden, he took with him a stock of thirty sheep for the purpose of 

 improving the Swedish wool, and presented them to friends at Gotten- 

 burg and Uddevalla; and this flock was the origin of a great improve- 

 ment in the wool of Sweden. On leaving Stockholm he went to 

 Germany, and the ship in which he sailed being captured on the 

 voyage by a Danish cruiser, he claimed and obtained his liberty in the 

 character of nn English merchant. For the next four or five jears he 

 travelled in different parts of Europe, still with the view of finding 

 manufactures to transplant, and then found it necessary to attend 

 closely for two or three years to business in London, where he was 

 nominated Swedish consul. In 1723 he left London for Paris, and 

 sent on before him to Sweden a Dutchman, who established the first 

 cotton-printing manufactory in the country at Sickla. From Paris he 

 wrote to Stockholm to obtain the privileges he considered necessary 

 for the establishment of a factory for weaving, and at St.-Germain 

 engaged some English stocking-weavers to accompany him to Sweden. 

 The privileges were granted, and in 1724 weaving was fairly com- 

 menced at Alingsces, the native place of Alstrom, which he had 

 selected eight years before as au eligible spot for his purpose : after 

 a time he found that his capital was not sufficient to carry on the 

 undertaking, and his neighbours were more disposed to be a hindrance 

 than a help. When just on the point of throwing everything up and 

 returning to England, he heard that a meeting of forgemasters was 

 about to take place at Carlstad on business, and he determined to 

 make a last effort. He travelled to Carlstad, got into conversation 

 with one of the forgemasters, and by hia assistance the whole body 

 was prevailed on to advance Alstrom some money for present needs, 

 and appoint a meeting at the fair of Christinnehamn. The crisis was 

 now past ; at the fair a joint-stock company was formed, and soon 

 after the king, Frederick of Hesse-Cassel, took forty shares, and as a 

 matter of course, many of the nobility and the senate followed the 

 royal example. From thia time the main interest of Alstrom'a 

 biography ceases, and nothing remains to be told but a series of useful 

 efforts and merited honours. He procured, with difficulty and 

 expense, we are told, a skilful 'spinster' from England, who first 

 instructed the Swedish women in the art of spinning wool. He 

 imported flocks of sheep from England, Spain, and Eiderstedt, and 

 goats from Angora. He made experiments for the introduction of 

 different kinda of dyeing-plants, and also of tobacco and potatoes. 

 He introduced improvements in the manufacture of cutlery, in 



