26 
APPENDIX. 
may here repeat, that a British resident at Ava, distant by 
a navigation of 1200 miles (near 500 of it within the Bur- 
man territory, where every species of communication is 
placed under the most rigorous and vexatious restraint) 
from the authority he represents, and an object of perpe¬ 
tual jealousy to a Government indescribably ignorant and 
suspicious, could exercise little useful influence upon the 
councils of that Government, would have no means of fur¬ 
nishing his own with useful intelligence, and would, in a 
word, be placed in a situation amounting to little better 
than an honourable imprisonment. 
The circumstances which attended the residence of the 
present Mission at Ava afford confirmation of this opinion. 
During nearly a period of two months and a half, although 
a British force was still at Bangoon, I found myself com¬ 
pelled, by the temper of the Government, to abstain from 
all correspondence. The same feeling was evinced at every 
station of our route, up and down ; so that, in a period alto¬ 
gether of four months and a half, no communication could 
be made to the Government of our proceedings, with the 
exception of the casual and precarious one which was made 
by the route of Aracan. 
I may add that, in return, Sir A. Campbell had no 
means of communication with us, except by transmitting 
dispatches under a military escort; and that one letter, ad¬ 
dressed by a British officer to a member of the Mission, 
was detained and perused, after our own arrival at Ava; 
while the officers of the Burmese Government acknowledged 
that, immediately after the conclusion of peace, they had 
broken the seals of, and detained a public dispatch, under 
circumstances peculiarly aggravating. 
The circumstances which took place on the arrival of the 
Government dispatch by wav of Aracan may be referred to, 
in farther corroboration. Although its transmission was 
