TO THE COURT OF AVA. 
311 
—for though he were a fiend from the lower re¬ 
gions, his subjects, through fear as a conqueror, 
would extol his virtues—is hasty; and disposi¬ 
tion severe, or rather cruel. I don’t remember to 
have heard any instance of his justice, though he 
himself administers it in almost every case, that 
deserves to be more remembered for its imparti¬ 
ality than severity, though the former never fails 
to meet with encomiums from them about him; 
for he always causes, and often sees, all corporal 
or capital punishments to be executed to the ut¬ 
most rigour of the sentence, which generally ar¬ 
gues rather a barbarous than humane disposition. 
“ As to his courage, his actions have often 
proved it undaunted and resolute, which, with 
that strictness of discipline he keeps in his army, 
has won him his crown. He has nine legitimate 
children by one wife; the three first sons: the 
eldest married, and is about twenty-two years of 
age; the second about nineteen, and is married 
also. He has also abundant relations and depen¬ 
dents, whom he generally employs in posts of 
trust or consequence; and so many of the prin¬ 
cipal men of the country have lent a hand to his 
cause, and are now become interested in it, that if 
he happens to complete his conquest of the Pe- 
guans this season (as, putting by the assistance the 
French may render them, has certainly much pro¬ 
bability in it), it will, in all human appearance, be 
