BURMAII. 



man King. From this condition of affairs re- 

 sults a chronic state of rebellion. People and 

 officers submit to the permanent rebellion as 

 an unavoidable evil. The numerous princes 

 know no other means to realize their wishes 

 than the usurpation of the supreme power, 

 and for every rebellion they find friends and 

 supporters. In 1806 such a plot was almost 

 successful, and the suppression of the insurrec- 

 tion, which cost the crown prince (brother of 

 the King) and numerous members of the royal 

 court their lives, completely paralyzed for a 

 time all trade and commerce. Still more dan- 

 gerous was the insurrectionary attempt of 1870, 

 by which one of the younger sons of the King, 

 who had been excluded from the palace, aimed 

 at the throne. His mother and her friends had 

 sold their jewelry, bought arms, and gained 

 leaders; but the torture extorted from one 

 of the conspirators a full confession, and the 

 prince with forty accomplices was imprisoned. 

 A royal edict announced that the execution of 

 the prisoners had been stayed at the request 

 of a priest, but a year passed before the insur- 

 rectionary movements which broke out in all 

 parts of the kingdom were fully quelled. 



The predecessor of the present King, Men- 

 done Meng (also called Mung Long), was raised 

 by a palace revolution following the humiliat- 

 ing surrender of Pegu in 1853, and died on 

 October 1, 1878. During the last decade of 

 his reign he tried to introduce some of the 

 institutions of civilized countries, expecting to 

 turn them to his personal advantage. At first 

 he began to purchase river steamers and some 



expensive machines, especially for cotton-spin- 

 ning and weaving ; but for many years the 

 steamers were exclusively employed for gov- 

 ernment purposes. These measures exhausted 

 the royal treasury, and, iu order to procure 

 money, the commerce was monopolized in fa- 

 vor of the King. The importers from British 

 India, and the leaders of the caravans from 

 China and Siam, were obliged to sell to and 

 purchase from the King exclusively. His 

 agents bought enormous quantities of goods, 

 especially of Indian cotton goods. In order 

 to get rid of them, the King forced them, in 

 payment of salaries, upon all officers of the 

 kingdom, who in turn disposed of them as 

 well as they could ; and then he found no 

 longer any purchasers, because the merchants 

 had bought their supplies at second hand. 

 As the ships continued to bring new goods, 

 the King refused to fulfill his contracts, and 

 compelled the people of his country to take 

 those already imported. At the same time the 

 peasants were compelled to sell to the King 

 their crops ; royal steamers carried the rice to 

 Rangoon, and foreigners were also excluded 

 from the export trade. These acts of the King 

 led to many complaints of the Indian mer- 

 chants, of which even the English Parliament 

 took notice ; but the Government declined to 

 take any action, because the King had violated 

 no treaty. 



In March, 1872, the first embassy was sent 

 to England. The preparations were kept se- 

 cret, but it was known in British India that 

 the ambassadors had held no influential post, 



