TO THE COURT OF AYA. 
159 
other portions of the Siamese coast, informed me 
that they had repeatedly seen the unwilling con¬ 
scripts embarked in hundreds for that service, tied 
hands and legs, with as little ceremony as if they 
had been so many cattle. An army thus composed 
cannot long be kept together, and a defeat or diffi¬ 
culty is almost sure to disperse them. This ac¬ 
counts for the sudden disappearance of the nume¬ 
rous force which the Bur mans brought against 
the British army in the earlier parts of the con¬ 
test, and the scanty numbers afterwards opposed 
to us, although then, for the first time perhaps in 
Burman history, large bounties were given to the 
recruits. When the British army was, at length, 
within forty or forty-five miles of Ava, the Bur¬ 
mese force, which was to have contested its ad¬ 
vance and protected the capital, does not appear 
to have exceeded one thousand men ! The Bur- 
man peasantry, notwithstanding, are robust, ac¬ 
tive, hardy, docile, and capable of sustaining great 
privations; and with skilful and intrepid leaders, 
which their countrymen are not likely soon to 
furnish, would no doubt make very good soldiers. 
The common arms made use of by the Burmese 
are clumsy two-handed swords, named Das, spears, 
match-locks, as many old European muskets as 
they can afford, rude pattereros of native manu¬ 
facture, and a few old iron and brass cannon pur¬ 
chased from strangers, and consequently in no very 
good condition. Their gunpowder is of their own 
