114 



BURMAH. 



princess of highest rank, who is usually one of 

 his half-sisters. The kings have always had 

 large families. Mindoon had as many as 110 

 children, of whom 72 were alive at the time 

 of his death, while of his 53 recognized queens 

 37 survived him. When he was placed on the 

 throne by the peace party, the War Prince, 

 who was the rightful heir, retained the title of 

 crown-prince, with the understanding that he 

 or his issue should succeed to the throne, to 

 the exclusion of the sons of Mindoon. To 

 overturn this arrangement, Mingoon and Min- 

 goon Deing, the eldest sons of Mindoon, origi- 

 nated a rebellion in 1866, in which the War 

 Prince was slain, and the king had a narrow 

 escape. The princes were finally routed by 

 the royal forces, and escaped to India, where 

 they were detained as political prisoners. Min- 

 goon's brother died there, and he himself finally 

 escaped to Pondicherry, where he has since 

 been a pensioner on the French Government, 

 and has acquired European habits, knowledge, 

 and modes of thought, and a high respect for 

 French civilization. Thebaw, who was Min- 

 doon's son by an inferior queen, a Shan prin- 

 cess, was raised to the throne by a palace in- 

 trigue, concocted by the principal queen and 

 Tinedah Mengyee, then captain of the palace 

 guard. He was to have married both daugh- 

 ters of the first queen, but the elder one fled 

 to a monastery. The younger princess, Soo- 

 payalat, was for a time his only queen, a cir- 

 cumstance that excited the contempt of the 

 Burmese, who saw that the young King was 

 governed by his wife and mother-in-law, and 

 would have preferred to be ruled by a more 

 energetic prince, and by one who followed the 

 polygamous customs of his ancestors. Though 

 he took a second queen subsequently, in order 

 to please his subjects, Soopayalat retained her 

 dominion over him. On the accession of a new 

 King the members of a rival faction in the royal 

 family are sometimes murdered or thrown into 

 prison, and such massacres are approved of by 

 the people, because they thus escape the evils 

 of palace revolutions and dynastic wars. When 

 Thebaw ascended the throne, a massacre took 

 place, the victims of which are said to have 

 numbered 72 princes and princesses of all 

 ages. Among those who escaped was Nyung 

 Yang, who, like the Mingoon prince, came be- 

 fore Thebaw in the order of succession. He 

 took refuge in Calcutta, and, soon after the 

 rupture between the Indian Government and 

 the Court of Ava, he appeared on the British 

 frontier of Burmah, raised a rebel army, and 

 for two months was successful against the forces 

 of Thebaw, but toward the end of June, 1880, 

 was thoroughly beaten. He returned to Cal- 

 cutta, and was detained thereafter as a prisoner 

 of state. His death, about the time of the 

 Barman expedition, left no candidate for the 

 throne of Thebaw sufficiently near to the di- 

 rect line of succession to be generally accepta- 

 ble to the Burmans, except the Miugoon prince, 

 whom the British would not trust on account 



of his French education. They therefore de- 

 cided on annexation instead of a protectorate. 

 Relations with France. After Lord Dalhousie 

 annexed Pegu, and shut off Independent Bur- 

 mah from the seaboard, he declared that he 

 held the remainder of the kingdom of Ava in 

 the hollow of his hand. The Burmese states- 

 men have since that period shown much shrewd- 

 ness and tact in their endeavors to prevent the 

 inevitable absorption of their country by Great 

 Britain. While guarding against the diplomatic 

 efforts of the English to establish a protectorate 

 by insidious encroachments on their independ- 

 ence, they have sought in recent years to gain 

 an international footing by entering into rela- 

 tions with other European countries. These 

 efforts were begun in the reign of Mindoon. 

 In 1872 an embassy visited the courts of Italy, 

 France, and England. In 1874 a second mis- 

 sion was sent to the same capitals, and in 1877 

 another, which also visited Madrid. Besides 

 the English commercial treaty, dating from 

 1862, treaties were concluded with France, 

 Italy, Spain, and Persia. In May, 1882, a Bur- 

 man envoy was sent to Simla with an offer to 

 receive a British resident, with his guard, pro- 

 vided the Indian Government would abandon 

 its demands on the shoe question and that of 

 the trading monopolies. In October, 1884, 

 there was a mutiny in a Burman jail, in con- 

 sequence of which 300 prisoners were kilted, 

 among them some British subjects. This event 

 was the occasion of a clamorous agitation in 

 favor of annexation among Rangoon merchants 

 and Anglo-Indians of all classes, such as was 

 constantly revived so often as any act was com- 

 mitted by the Burman Government or people 

 that could be construed as an international 

 grievance. In order to escape English domi- 

 nation the Burmese Government threw obsta- 

 cles in the way of English trade, though con- 

 tributing thereby to the impoverishment of its 

 own people, but favored Italian, French, and 

 other foreign traders in every way. The Anglo- 

 Indian merchants and English manufacturers, 

 who suffered from this policy, urged that the 

 fact that the kingdom was misgoverned and 

 disturbed by rebellions, and that Thebaw was, 

 as they pictured him, a cruel monster, addicted 

 to gin, given to horrible orgies, and probably 

 insane, was a sufficient ground for conquering 

 the country. The British Government kept 

 the way open for intervention at any time, but 

 was not disposed to act while it had the Egyp- 

 tian and Afghan difficulties on its hands. Lord 

 Dufferin, in a dispatch dated March 24, 1885, 

 said that " hitherto our treaties have been on 

 the whole respected, our commerce has re- 

 ceived protection, and our officers have suc- 

 ceeded in maintaining friendly relations with 

 the officials on the Burmese frontier districts." 

 But he added that a change in the situation 

 was being effected by the efforts of France to 

 secure a footing at Mandalay, that would give 

 her powers of interference with British com- 

 merce, and lead to political complications. M. 



