TO THE COURT OE AVA. 
453 
the last meeting. Have you any new proposal 
to make ?— B. What we request is, that you 
would engage to put off the payment of the 
third and fourth instalments, in the same man¬ 
ner you proposed doing, had we assented to the 
free exportation of gold and silver, as well as 
given permission to merchants to take away 
their families. 
E. As I mentioned to you before, I have no 
specific authority to put off the third and fourth 
instalments even one day. I promised you, how¬ 
ever, that if you could show that you had diffi¬ 
culty in making prompt payment, and that you 
executed at the same time such a Commercial 
Treaty as was promised at Yandabo, I would 
take upon myself the responsibility of prolong¬ 
ing, for a moderate time, the period of paying 
the third and fourth instalments. You have 
not executed such a treaty ; and I have, there¬ 
fore, now no plea whatever to urge with my 
Government for taking so heavy a responsibility 
upon myself as is implied in your proposal.— B. 
At a conference some time ago, you held out 
some hopes to us that you would take it upon 
yourself to postpone the payment, if we could 
convince you that we were not able to pay at 
the time appointed by treaty. The known dis- 
