„ 1-838.] Account of Junkceylon. 591 



Junkceylon was long- the field on which the Siamese and Burmans 

 decided their claims to supremancy. This circumstance is alone suffi- 

 cient to account for the desolate condition it has been reduced to. But 

 that the Siamese have yet possession of it up to the period of the war 

 betwixt the British and Burmese is more than might have been expected 

 from the relative power of the contending parties, for the Burmans had 

 long before driven the Siamese out of Mergui and Tavoy*. 



The last invasion happened about 1808 headed by a Burman 

 general. x 



The troops were collected in Martaban, Tavoy and Mergui and 

 amounted about 12,000 men. They were successful at first, but when 

 they endeavoured to retreat with their booty and prisoners they were 

 pursued by the Siamese and the Keddah Malays who were auxiliaries ; 

 numbers were slain, others were shipwrecked, and only about one half 

 are supposed to have returned to Tenasserim. 



The population of Salang is only now about 5,000 souls, which is not 

 half of that rated by Forrest. Tharooa contained in this time eighty 

 houses ; there were only 18 in it when visited by me in 1824. 



The Siamese are anxious to encourage the settlement of their own 

 race here. But the genius of their government is better suited to 

 retard than to facilitate the increase of the species. The Siamese 

 court is too bigoted to that stumbling-block to nations, — custom, to per- 

 ceive that artificial means which bear no reference to the first natural 

 and simple maxims of political science can never be effectually employ- 

 ed to increase the population of a country. 



The kings of Siam have been taught to look on their subjects as 

 property which may be managed as they like, and they have made them 

 slaves, because they can then best administer to their own luxury, avarice, 

 and ambition. The minds of the Siamese are therefore depressed; no 

 rank is perfectly hereditary, no private property however arduously ac- 

 quired is safe, every man in the empire is liable to be forced from his 

 family to serve in the army for years without pay, and life itself is of- 

 ten taken away for actions which even under many despotisms, and 

 certainly under no reasonably free condition of society, would be 

 termed faults. 



* The Siamese affirm that they conquered the island from the Burmese in 

 1916 of Buddha, A. D. 1373. The expedition was commanded by Prince Chau 

 Nai Tha of Li gor in person. 



They had to retake it from the Burmese in 1786, when four thousand of the 

 latter nation were killed and made prisoners. The Siamese were compelled to 

 cede Tavoy and Mergui to the Burmese in 1793. 

 4 E 



