TO THE COURT OF AVA. 
325 
war. All Governments exercise the right of 
permitting or prohibiting both foreigners and 
their own subjects from dealing in them, as 
they think proper. Your Government does so. 
It prohibits the manufacture and sale of gun¬ 
powder, saltpetre, lead, and fire-arms, even to 
its own subjects, not to say to strangers. How 
therefore can you expect that our Government 
is to permit it to you ? The clause I object to 
stipulates that you are not only to be permitted 
to export the munitions of war now enumera¬ 
ted, and free of duty, but also all other articles 
whatsoever. You make no such stipulations for 
British trade, nor have we required it. Already 
every article you export from our country pays 
a smaller duty than the corresponding articles 
exported by us from yours ; and your ships pay 
infinitely smaller charges. This, to say the 
least, leaves no room for claiming a total ex¬ 
emption of duties on one side, without any con¬ 
cession whatever being yielded to the other. 
With respect to your granting a free exporta¬ 
tion of gold and silver, I beg you clearly to 
understand that I do not ask this as a favour, 
but claim it as a matter of right. The en¬ 
gagement for the free exportation should be re¬ 
ciprocal, and the benefits will be mutual. At 
the treaty made at Yandabo, and at the confer- 
