278 JOURNAL OF AN EMBASSY 
nue derived from the Chinese trade, besides 
many other perquisites. 
Men-tha-gyi was a few years older than the 
Queen, and seemed to us about seven or eight 
and forty years of age. His talents were not of 
a distinguished order, but sufficiently respect¬ 
able. His exterior was that of a very ordinary 
person ; his manners were represented as reser¬ 
ved, haughty, and austere. The almost unli¬ 
mited power he possessed, had, it is alleged, been 
often exercised in deeds of oppression, injustice, 
and cruelty. One striking example of this came 
under the immediate observation of the Euro¬ 
pean prisoners of war, which was frequently 
mentioned to me. In the family of Men-tha- 
gyi, but not in his seraglio, there was a hand¬ 
some young woman of the Cassay nation: she 
and a young man of the same tribe, also in the 
family, had formed an attachment for each other. 
Men-tha-gyi, who had some pretensions to the 
young woman’s person himself, would not per¬ 
mit their union. The young people eloped, but 
no person dared to afford them an asylum. They 
were pursued, arrested, and brought back. The 
young man was imprisoned in five pair of 
shackles, put into the stocks, and finally starved 
to death. When he screamed from pain and suf¬ 
fering, he was beaten by the gaolers; and after 
