foreigners, they need not here be more particularly adverted to.

After the conclusion of the treaty of Yandaboo and the cession of the provinces to the East India Company, the question of selecting a suitable position for the main body of the force to be cantoned was a matter of great importance. At first, it was in contemplation to have stationed the troops at the mouth of the Salween at Amherst, but Sir A. Campbell ultimately selected the point of junction of the Salween, the Gyne, and the Attaran river for the permanent cantonment of the force. The advantage of this commanding position is so apparent, that in former days, most probably when the Portuguese took a part in the struggles of Pegu, it had not been overlooked, and the British troops found a spacious irregular quadrangle, on which to establish themselves, already surrounded by an earthen mound or rampart of considerable antiquity.* Besides the numerous advantages of position in a military point of view, with reference to the protection of the frontier, the command of the rivers, and a close watch on the Burmese town and province of Martaban, the cantonment of Moulmein, is well raised, well drained, very healthy, and well supplied with water; whereas a difficulty on the latter point was found to exist at Amherst. The subsequent rise and progress of the timber trade, and the sufficiency of the river as a good port for shipping, had confirmed the wisdom of Sir A. Campbell's selection of Moulmein.

The population of the provinces, when they fell into our hands, has been variously estimated, one calculation making it as low as ten thousand souls: but this is evidently an error; for the provinces of Tavoy and Mergui have been very stationary in the amount of population; indeed, the best informed persons doubt whether since our tenure of the country the people have on the whole increased or decreased. The same, with the exception of Moulmein, may be said of the northern province styled by the British province, Amherst; its villages afford no satisfactory proof of any remarkable increase of population since it has been in our possession. On the contrary, the increase is peculiarly slow-instead of 10,000 souls, the following would seem to be a fair estimate of the population before the Burmese War, caused a temporary fluctuation and disturbance :

A similar enclosure, also of great antiquity, may be observed at the head of the Amherst inlet; it is seldom visited and but little known. In the local legends it is attributed to one of the ancient kings of Pegu.

N

And it may be supposed that upon our occupation of the provinces and the restoration of order, there was no material difference in the numbers, except such as was due to the camp followers and troops stationed at Moulmein, Tavoy and Mergui. Our rule necessarily commenced by disturbing as little as possible the systems of revenue, police, and justice, to which the people had been accustomed under their Burman Rulers. This, the usual course adopted in the administration of a recent conquest, was accompanied by an error, which has elsewhere been the concomitant of our extension of territory in the east. In lieu of restoring to the people the use of their own language, the Talain, that of their conquerors, the Burman, was by us continued as the official medium of communication and accounts. We thus, from the first, deprived ourselves of that support which the strong feeling of Talain nationality would have afforded; and the error was the more grievous, because, during the conduct of the war with Ava, every advantage was taken of one feature of Talain nationality, implacable hostility to the Burmese; and ordinary gratitude as well as policy, pointed out the propriety of restoring to our allies, when they became our subjects, the use of their own language, if only as an honorable acknowledgement of the sense entertained of their services. Far higher advantages would however have resulted from such a step; for it would, in all probability, have caused such an influx of the Mon or Talain population into our provinces as would shortly have rendered them much less a burthen than they have hitherto proved: and very possibly instead of a burthen, the receipts from these provinces might very shortly after occupation have covered, if not exceeded, their expenditure. By retaining the Burmese language as that of office, and by long indecision as to the permanent retention of the ceded provinces, we failed, when fear of Burman vengeance, was still operative to hold out any inducement to our Talain allies to settle under the protection of our Government; and thus neither benefitted ourselves nor them, but the Burmese, who in consequence of the course we pursued, retained the greater portion of a people that were otherwise ready, if en

couraged to have crossed over to British protection. population is now as follows:

Town and suburbs............ 12,000

The

Mergui.

A very thin population for the area of the provinces, and the productive powers of their soil!

REVENUE. The chief portion of the state revenue, derived from the land, was, by the Burmese, levied in kind; rice, the staple article of food is grown throughout the provinces; and onefourth of the crop was nominally the share claimed by the government, although in reality owing to the exactions of unchecked subordinates it was larger. Garden produce and fruit trees of all descriptions, when bearing, likewise yielded revenue-other items of receipt were from the farming of fisheries, of turtle-banks, bazars and town dues. As the provinces were distant from the court of Ava, and were therefore not under good control, they were a prey to the Burman governors and their subordinates; tyranny and exaction rendered the revenue demands much more oppressive than any simple statement of the basis of the system conveys. With the exception of receiving the revenue derived from rice cultivation either in kind or commuted in money, we adopted the above fiscal sys-tem, conducting it by means of the same instrumentality as had been employed by the Burmese. Simple and well suited to a native government, and theoretically favorable for the cultivator, the system of taking revenue from the land in kind fails under British officers: for, having little or no knowledge of the language and of the habits or customs of the people, they have small power of coping with the dishonesty and cunning of interested subordinates; the exact limit of their power is well

known, and it is not difficult for native craft to frustrate the best intentions and to mislead in the exercise of power.

Melancholy as the fact may appear a more intimate acquaintance with the Burmese language and the habits of the people has not in general been found productive of corresponding advantages; for, however much to be deplored, historic faithfulness requires it to be stated, that Government functionaries, especially in former times, have too often acquired such knowledge by forming connections calculated neither to secure the respect of the native community, nor to heighten their own moral sensibilities; connections which inevitably surround them with needy favorites and relatives, whose whole aim is corruption and extortion. Through the machinations of such a home circle, as it may be called, the advantages of a more intimate acquaintance with the official language, manners, and feelings of a people are at least nullified, and have too frequently been turned to their positive disadvantage; the native favorite never forgetting that it may be the privilege of the wife of a judge or governor in Burmah, as elsewhere, to assist in the decision of suits, to hold their own courts, and to exercise as much power as the facility, not to say corruption of their protectors, can connive at. Of the two classes of functionaries, the man of comparative ignorance, free from the baneful influence of such connections, has usually been found more respected and better able to check the malpractices of subordinates, than is the case with a man whose misfortune it has been to have acquired greater knowledge of the vernacular language and the habits of any people, through a medium corruptive of his own character, qualities, and efficiency.

With fluctuations and many errors the Burman system was continued from the first occupation of the provinces until Mr. Blundell made a vain endeavour to introduce a seven years' settlement, and a money assessment founded on the value and area of land under cultivation. He failed in his attempt in consequence of the opposition of subordinates to which he yielded; indeed with the high rates of assessment which he adopted and enforced, it was impossible that any system could stand,— the burthen being so severe and the administration so lax and oppressive, that much land was thrown out of cultivation; and the evil of excessive assessment, increased by a year of murrain among the cattle, threatened to be most fatal to the prosperity of the provinces.

The evils of the existing system quickly presented themselves to Major Broadfoot when he assumed charge of the Tenasserim provinces in April 1843, and he zealously set about

their reformation. He attacked corruption in its various forms and positions, and supported by the Governor-General, Lord Ellenborough, checked by severe examples the malpractices which had become habitual. Shameless as was proved to have been the conduct of one of the British functionaries, and compromised as was that of others, Major Broadfoot was made the subject of calumny and misrepresentation for the line which he pursued. In the provinces much more was known than came to Major Broadfoot's notice, but, in so far as it came to his knowledge, he, confident in the support of the GovernorGeneral, acted boldly in putting down dishonesty.

Occupied with the punishment of corruption, Major Broadfoot became keenly alive to the constant opportunity which the then existing system offered to subordinates for exaction and malpractices, and he therefore determined to supersede the old by an entirely new land assessment. He accordingly altered the whole fiscal system of the provinces, substituting a fixed money payment in lieu of the levy of one-fourth of the grain in kind or commuted in money; he abolished taxes on trees and garden produce, and those on turtle-banks and fisheries; in place of the latter he established a species of poll-tax so regulated that a cultivator paid about one-third of what was exacted from a non-cultivator. So radical a change in the revenue system of the provinces, one so novel to the people and to the subordinate officials through whom it must necessarily be carried into effect, required, even if advisable, more of thought and deliberation than was given to it; greater preparation of instruments; and far more knowledge of the country than was to be found amongst the officers of the commission, who, to a man, were ignorant of all revenue matters; had never turned their attention to the subject: and who, moreover, owing to the great number of native subordinates removed from their charges for corruption, found themselves unaided by the new and thoroughly inexperienced native functionaries given to assist them.

However faulty in principle a system of taxation may be or appear to be, it has usually arisen gradually and adapted itself to the habits and circumstances of the people, and any sudden change which may sweep away such existing system will be found productive of great confusion and difficulty; general principles, however correct and admirable in theory, having by no means the property, by their bare enunciation, of suddenly altering the habits, feelings, and prejudices of a people. The old system, as administered under facile British functionaries, had, however, been so severe in consequence of the