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JOURNAL OF AN EMBASSY 
reliance, made the gold and silver treasure to¬ 
gether to amount to no more than 4,600,000 
ticals, or 575,000/. sterling. This was the whole 
accumulation of a parsimonious prince, during a 
peaceful reign of thirty-eight years. From this 
hoard, little, as I have already said, was disbursed. 
Dividing, therefore, the amount by the duration 
of the reign, or thirty-eight years, we shall have 
an estimate of the actual annual money-revenue of 
a Burman king under favourable circumstances, 
and this is no more than 15,131/. sterling. The 
largest expenditure from the royal hoard was in 
the gilding of temples and palaces; and, perhaps 
the next to it, in purchases of foreign jewellery; 
and in furnishing gold vessels and trinkets to the 
public officers and their wives, on their promotion 
to new grades of nobility. If for all these sources 
of expenditure we allow an additional sum of 
10,000/. sterling, still the royal revenue will not 
exceed 25,000/. per annum,—an income far ex¬ 
ceeded by that of many native subjects of the Bri¬ 
tish possessions in India. 
