158 
JOURNAL OF AN EMBASSY 
of it as can be brought together by a forced con¬ 
scription : it is a rabble, without any discipline or 
any military virtues ; formidable only to the petty 
tribes and nations of the neighbourhood, still less 
civilized than the Burmans themselves. There 
appears to be no systematic organized plan, as in 
Siam, for calling forth this conscription, and no 
fixed period for the' services of the conscripts. 
These are brought together either for civil or 
military employments, through the agency of the 
officers already enumerated, by an order directed 
to them from the ministers of the Lut-d’hau, and 
as occasion may require. It either embraces the 
whole kingdom, or particular provinces, town¬ 
ships, and districts according to circumstances. 
When assembled for warlike purposes, the pea¬ 
santry are generally under the same leaders as 
when dwelling in their own townships or districts. 
The troops have no regular pay, but are fed and 
armed at the public expense. The manners of the 
Burman peasantry are far from being warlike, as 
I have often repeated. Their habits on the con¬ 
trary, are agricultural; they live in comparative 
ease at home, and never make incursions into fo¬ 
reign countries, without exchanging a better state 
for a worse one, and subjecting themselves to dan¬ 
gers and privations, which are utterly uncongenial 
to their characters. Europeans of respectability, 
who were present at Rangoon when expeditions 
were sent against the island of Junk Ceylon, and 
