202 
JOURNAL OF AN EMBASSY 
sage upon so material a point as putting off the 
conferences would not be received by me, as he 
was not vested with any official character, and 
as the Burman Government had not intimated 
that he was to be the channel of any communi¬ 
cation between us. The Kyi-wun, accompanied 
by a Palace Secretary, paid us a visit in the 
evening, and after sitting an hour and a half, 
at last entered upon the subject of postponing 
the conferences. This, the known object of 
which was to perplex the negotiation by pro¬ 
crastination, a favourite expedient with the 
Burmese, was the first decidedly unfavourable 
example which had occurred of the conduct of 
the Burman Court; and I thought it absolutely 
necessary that it should not be quietly acqui¬ 
esced in, hoping that an early disapprobation 
might either check or prevent the recurrence of 
practices which had been invariably followed by 
the Burman Government in former times, and 
proved so vexatious and embarrassing to all my 
predecessors. The Kyi-wun began by asking 
whether we desired to be present on Monday 
at the exhibition of fireworks. The answer 
given was, that there was time enough to settle 
this matter at the conferences of the 15th and 
16th. 
After much circumlocution, he then stated, 
