24 
APPENDIX. 
coffers. It may well be believed that under a Government 
so rude and unskilful, and from a country so exhausted and 
misgoverned, no large accumulation of public treasure can 
reasonably be expected. 
These grounds, I trust, will appear to the Government 
sufficient to warrant me in having proposed an arrangement 
for the temporary remission of the third and fourth instal¬ 
ments. That arrangement, as will be seen from the narra¬ 
tive of the proceedings of the Mission, was not carried into 
effect; the Burman Government having declined, after 
much discussion, and much vacillation of conduct, to make 
in return the necessary equivalents, and having proposed 
themselves to make this particular point the subject of a 
negotiation with the Supreme Government, through their 
ambassadors in Bengal. 
In my correspondence from Rangoon, anticipating diffi¬ 
culty and embarrassment in paying them, I had the honour 
to recommend to the Supreme Government the relinquish¬ 
ment of the two last instalments due on the Treaty of Yan- 
dabo, in consideration of certain commercial advantages. 
The experience which I have since had of the Government 
of Ava, convinces me that my first opinion was erroneous. 
I am now thoroughly convinced that no part of the debt 
due should be hastily, if at all, relinquished ; and that its 
existence forms one of the best and most effectual restraints 
which we could possibly possess upon the wilfulness, pride, 
and presumption, which are such marked features of the 
character of the Burman Government. 
Although it be my conviction that the debt ought not to 
be relinquished, it is at the same time my opinion that it 
would be a matter of much convenience, both to ourselves 
and to the Burmese, to enter into an arrangement which 
may facilitate its liquidation. Government will observe from 
the proceedings, that the Burmese, at one period of the ne- 
