132 JOURNAL OF AN EMBASSY 
only child had been invited into the palace to re¬ 
ceive education and instruction: to escape the 
royal invitation, he had paid a fine of 1000 ticals ! 
The free labouring population, or great mass of 
the people, if they can be called free, consist, 
where the soil is worth appropriating, of pro¬ 
prietors and common labourers, the great majority 
being of the latter class. Every Burman is consi¬ 
dered the King’s slave and a species of property, 
and his services, in whatever manner they can be 
made available, are at all times at the disposal of 
the Government, whether as soldiers, artisans, or 
common labourers. No Burman can consequently 
quit the country without express permission, and 
that permission is never granted but for a limited 
time and purpose. Women are never allowed to 
quit it at all; and heretofore, the utmost diffi¬ 
culty, overcome only by heavy douceurs , existed 
even to the female children of strangers being 
permitted to quit it. The scantiness of the po¬ 
pulation, and the consequent high price of labour, 
have no doubt conduced to this extraordinary ri¬ 
gour and rapacity on the part of the Government. 
Were it possible to suppose the existence under 
the Burmese Government of so dense a popula¬ 
tion, and so low a price of labour as in China, 
there would, at once, be an end to the greater 
number of these odious and impolitic restraints. 
Although the King of Ava claims a right in the 
services of all his subjects, no specific period, as in 
