TO THE COURT OF AYA. 283 
names of Padun-mang, and Man-ta-ra-kri, began 
his reign in 1781, and, most capriciously, removed 
the seat of Government from the more suitable 
site of Ava to Amarapura. Notwithstanding his 
crimes, he appears not only to have been generally 
an able, but a prudent prince. I need hardly re¬ 
mark, that he is the individual so often referred to 
by my predecessors, Colonel Symes, Captain Cox, 
and Major Canning. Man-ta-ra-ki, after a long 
reign of thirty-eight years, was succeeded, in 1819, 
by his present Majesty, his grandson, and the son 
of the Ing-she-men, or heir-apparent, so often al¬ 
luded to by the gentlemen whom I have just 
quoted. In 1822, moved by his own caprice, 
and confirmed in it by the predictions of sooth¬ 
sayers, he removed the capital to Ava. Down to 
the year 1819, a period of sixty-seven years, six 
princes of the dynasty of Alompra had reigned, 
giving little more than eleven years for each reign. 
Alompra and his successors extended the bounds 
of Burman dominion far beyond all their prede¬ 
cessors ; having added to the ancient territory of 
the Burman race, not only Pegu, and a portion 
of Lao, but Martaban, Tavoy, and Tenasserim ; 
provinces, sometimes independent, but often un¬ 
der the yoke of the Siamese; together with the 
principalities of Arracan, Cassay, Cachar, Assam, 
and Jaintya. The possession of the latter distant 
and poor countries, became a source of weakness 
and not of strength to the Burman power, from 
