1760-1819.
Anaundopra—Zempiuscien—Chengaza—Paongoza—Men-ta-ra-gyee.
When the political history of a country commences with one bright and
shining event, it is hardly possible to make the continuation of its
career otherwise than “stale, flat, and unprofitable.” How true this is,
was amply proved by Prescott, in the case of Mexico and Peru, when with
all the magical charm of his eloquent pen, he failed to give the History
of Peru the same attractive feature that he had presented in Mexico.
If it were impossible then for a master-hand like his, to invest the
fluctuating events of the civil wars of Peru with the graces of romance,
how difficult will it be for me to do the same by those of Burmah!
The great event of Burman history, the elevation of Alompra to the
regal or imperial dignity, overshadows all the subsequent occurrences
in that history, although, considered by themselves, they form not the
least interesting episodes of Oriental story. I shall endeavour, in the
following pages, to present them, as they are, to the reader, begging him
to bear in mind the first sentence of this chapter.
Alompra, on his death-bed, left the succession unsettled, though,
according to Sangermano,[233] he had stipulated for the successive
administration of his seven sons. Whether this was really the case, is
impossible to say; but the eldest brother seems to have ascended the
throne without dispute. His name was Anaundopra; but, as Symes observes,
“neither the mandates of law, nor the claims of equity, can curb the
career of restless ambition;”[234] and as it had proved insufficient to
restrain the father, it was insufficient to restrain the son. Thembuan,
or Zempiuscien, whom we have seen in the government of Ava, raised a
revolt against his brother’s administration. But he had not the solid
talent of his father, and his claims were scarcely recognised by his
immediate followers; consequently it is not very extraordinary that his
rebellion fell to the ground. He hastened to give in his submission,
and his brother appears to have been forgiving enough, for he was soon
restored to favour.
But the flame of rebellion and revolution was kindled. It wanted but
little to fan it into a formidable sheet of fire. During the absence of
Zempiuscien at Moutzoboo, the general Meinla Nuttoon, marching through
the lower country, raised the standard of revolt, and seizing upon
Tongho, marched upon Ava, which, intimidated by the force attached to
his interests, immediately surrendered. It were foreign to my purpose to
give a detailed account of this insurrection. I will only say, that it
required all the strength of the king to quell it. The siege of Ava was
protracted for seven months, as Nuttoon expected assistance from Siam.
“These expectations were not realized. Supplies from the country failed,
and want began to make ravages within the walls, although the magazines,
which at the commencement of the siege were full, had been husbanded with
the utmost economy. Discontent is ever the concomitant of distress. The
governor of Mayah Oun, who had embraced Nuttoon’s fortune, deserted from
the fort. Flying to Mayah Oun, he collected his adherents; but not being
able to resist the royal forces, they set fire to the town, and betook
themselves to the woods and jungles, whence they afterwards withdrew to
the eastern provinces, where the authority of the Birman monarch was
yet scarcely recognised. The rebels had likewise evacuated the fort of
Tongho. Towards the end of the year, the garrison in Ava was reduced to
the greatest extremity, and their numbers diminished above one-half by
sickness, famine, and desertion. In this helpless state, without any
chance of relief, Nuttoon made his escape from the fort in disguise;
but had proceeded only the distance of two days’ journey, when he was
discovered by some peasants, and brought back in fetters. The fort of
Ava fell shortly afterwards by the flight of its commandant. Such of
their unfortunate adherents as could not effect their escape, were
without mercy put to death. Nuttoon, likewise, suffered the doom of a
traitor.”[235]
This was, however, not all. Another revolt was raised by the viceroy of
Tongho, an uncle of the king’s. However, Anaundopra marched to Tongho,
and took the place after a siege of three months, and, according to
Sangermano,[236] put him to death. Symes, however, informs us, that he
was kept a close prisoner in the fort of Ava till his death.[237]
Talabaan, too, raised a rebellion, which was, however, very soon ended
by the seizure and execution of that general. “So long as that monarch
[Alompra] lived, he conducted himself like a dutiful servant: the death
of his sovereign, however, cancelled in Talabaan’s breast the bonds of
duty and gratitude, and, though faithful to the father, he took the
earliest opportunity to revolt against the son.”[238] In March, 1764,
the king breathed his last, of the same scrofulous complaint that killed
his father, leaving behind an infant son named Momien. The numerous
rebellions against his government would lead us to expect immense
strictness in his character; but he is represented as only severe in
matters of religion; except in this particular, his administration was
forbearing and moderate. The insurrections were more probably induced by
the double reason of ambition on the part of the revolution, and by the
necessary restraint which follows the unlicensed liberties of war. The
people were accustomed to feel themselves masters of all, and now, the
turbulent and unsettled reign of Alompra having closed, they chafed and
bit at the cord like irascible dogs.
Zempiuscien, as the nearest relation to the infant monarch, became
regent of Burmah, though the authority of the child was probably never
recognised, either by regent or people. After some time, indeed, he
openly assumed the crown, and, at the petition of a sister of Alompra,
sent Momien to the priests, instead of murdering him, as he intended.
His reign was warlike, and marked with many rebellions and revolutions,
which, though raging for the moment, had no effect beyond the fury of the
moment. The principal event and shame of his life, cannot be better told
than in the words of Symes.[239]
“Whatever respect the glory of conquest, and the wisdom of a
well-regulated government, might attach to the reign of Shembuan, it
must be wholly obscured by the cruelty exercised on the present occasion
[the taking of Rangoon from the Peguers, who had again rebelled] towards
his royal prisoner, the unhappy king of Pegue; and this, too, like a
more recent and equally inhuman regicide,[240] in a nation professing
Christianity and enlightened by science, was perpetrated under the
mockery of justice. Shembuan, not content with exhibiting to the humbled
Peguers their venerable, and yet venerated monarch, bound in fetters, and
bowed down with years and anguish, resolved to take away his life, and
render the disgrace still deeper, by exposing him as a public malefactor,
to suffer under the stroke of the public executioner.... The process of
law in Birman courts of justice, is conducted with as much formality as
in any country on earth. Beinga Della was brought before the judges of
the Rhoom, among whom the Maywoon of Pegue presided. The late king of
Pegue was there accused of having been privy to, and instrumental in
exciting the late rebellion. Depositions of several witnesses, supposed
to be suborned, were taken; the prisoner denied the charge; but his
fate being determined on, his plea availed him nothing. He was found
guilty; and the proceedings, according to custom, were laid before the
king, who passed sentence of death, and accompanied it by an order for
speedy execution. In conformity with this cruel mandate, on the 7th of
the increasing moon, in the month of Taboung,[241] the aged victim was
led in public procession through an insulting population, to a place
called Awabock, three miles without the city, where he met his doom with
fortitude, and had no distinction paid him above the meanest criminal,
except that all the municipal officers attended in their robes of
ceremony to witness his last moments.”
The death of Beinga Della preceded his own by but a short space of time,
for Zempiuscien, or Shembuan, died in the spring of 1776.
His son and successor, Zinguza or Chenguza, presented very different
traits of character to those of any of Alompra’s dynasty. He plunged
into the wildest excesses of debauchery, and left the government to
the maladministration of a corrupt court. This proved fatal to him.
The excesses of king and ministers did not pass by unheeded. Momien,
his cousin, had not forgotten that he had an equal right to the
throne, and the disgusting murder committed on the queen, afforded a
pretext for revolt. A conspiracy had been formed by one of Alompra’s
brothers, Men-ta-ra-gyee, the queen’s father, and one of the ministers
whom Chenguza had insulted; Momien was used as a tool to elevate
Men-ta-ra-gyee to the throne. This young man,[242] “taking advantage of
his [Chenguza’s] absence, advanced by night to Ava, in company with about
forty inhabitants of a village called Pongà, and without experiencing any
resistance, made himself master of the palace. Upon which the youth of
Ava, and the neighbouring places, came eagerly to be enrolled, and take
up arms in favour of the new king; who, in the space of five days, was in
possession of the person and kingdom of Zinguzà. But the usurper, whose
name was Paongozà, from the long abode he had made in Paongà, by these
rapid and successful advances, only served as a means to Badonsachen
[the former name of Men-ta-ra-gyee], the reigning sovereign, to mount
upon the throne. For scarcely had he taken possession of the palace,
than he called together all his uncles and made them an offer of the
kingdom; saying, that according to the dispositions of Alompra, to them
it belonged. But they suspected this ingenuous declaration of Paongozà
to be nothing more than a malicious contrivance to pry into their secret
thoughts, and upon their accepting his offers, to give him a pretence for
their destruction; and therefore not only declined to receive it, but
declared themselves, by drinking the water of the oath, his subjects and
vassals.... Paongozà then raised them to their former state, and restored
all the honours whereof they had been deprived by Zinguzà. But they,
a few days later, took that by force, which, when peacefully offered,
they had not dared to accept. For on the 10th of February, 1782, they
suddenly entered the palace, seized Paongozà, and placed on the throne
Badonsachen, third[243] son of Alompra. He, according to custom, caused
the deposed monarch to be thrown into the river, calling him in scorn the
king of seven days.[244] Paongozà at the time of his death, had only
reached his twentieth year. On the following day the unfortunate Zinguzà
underwent the same fate, in his twenty-sixth year; and all his queens and
concubines, holding their babes in their arms, were burnt alive.”
The particulars of the taking of Zinguzà by Momien, or Moung-Moung, are
as follows:[245]—
Chenguza had gone to Keoptaloum, a place on the banks of the Irawadi,
about thirty miles from Ava, to celebrate a festival. As he was never
regular in his time of going in or out, no one could tell when he would
return; indeed, he was often late. Having obtained a royal dress, Momien
presented himself at the portal shoedogaa, and demanded admission.
But the haste of the conspirators betrayed them to the sentinel, who,
opening the wicket, and then attempting to close, called out, “Treason!”
However, it was too late, the guards were cut down, and the gate thrown
open to the assailants. These, together with a body of men placed in
ambuscade, occupied all the approaches to the palace, and kept it in a
complete state of blockade. The various court officials, on the approach
of the rebels, shut themselves up within the inclosures of the palace.
Consternation and fright prevailed through the city all the night; the
assailants were expected to attack them, but, in conformity with the
Eastern and American custom, they did not attack the place till the
morning, when they then blew open one of the palace-gates. They were
gallantly met, however, by the guard, commanded by an Armenian, named
Gabriel, who caused no small havoc among them, by three discharges of
artillery from the guns on the top of the gate. However, the conspirators
were too strong, or the defenders too uncertain as to whom they might be
contending with, to withstand them long. Gabriel was killed by the thrust
of a spear, and then his party fled. Thus Momien obtained a speedy and
decisive victory, little dreaming of the speedy fate that awaited him!
Chenguza was now proclaimed an outlaw, and an armed force was detached
to arrest him. But he had received timely notice of the fall of his
administration, and, leaving all his court behind, escaped to Chagaing,
were he was immediately besieged. Chenguza at first thought of defending
himself; but finding that he was deserted by those on whom he placed his
chief reliance, after a resistance of four days the resolution failed,
and he determined on flying to the Cassay country, there to throw himself
on the protection of the Munnipoora Raja. This intention he privately
communicated to his mother, the widow of Shembuan Praw, who resided
in his palace in the city of Ava. Instead of encouraging her son to
persevere in so pusillanimous a resolve, she earnestly dissuaded him
from flight; urging that it was far more glorious to die even by ignoble
hands, within the precincts of his own palace, than to preserve life
under the ignominious character of a mendicant fed by strangers, and
indebted for a precarious asylum to a petty potentate. Chenguza yielded
to his mother’s counsel, and preferring death to a disgraceful exile,
caused a small boat to be privately prepared, and kept in readiness at
the gaut or landing-place; disguising himself in the habit of a private
gentleman, and attended only by two menials, he left Chagaing by break
of day and embarking, rowed towards Ava, on the opposite shore. When
the boat approached the principal gaut, at the foot of the walls,
he was challenged by the sentinels on duty; no longer desirous of
concealing himself, he called out in a loud voice, that he was “Chenguza
Namdogy-yeng Praw;—Chenguza, lawful lord of the palace.” A conduct at
once so unexpected and so resolute, struck the guards with astonishment,
who, either overawed by his presence, or at a loss how to act for want
of instructions, suffered him to proceed unmolested; the crowd, also,
that so extraordinary a circumstance had by this time brought together,
respectfully made way for him to pass. Scarcely had he reached the gate
of the outer court of the palace, when he was met by the Attawoon, father
of the princess whom he had so inhumanly slain; Chenguza, on perceiving
him, exclaimed, “Traitor, I am come to take possession of my right,
and wreak vengeance on mine enemies!” The Attawoon instantly snatched
a sabre from an attendant officer, and at one stroke cut the unhappy
Chenguza through the bowels, and laid him breathless at his feet. No
person was found to prevent or avenge his death; he fell unlamented, as
he had lived despised.[246] Such was the end of a monarch, accelerated,
probably, by his own daring, which we cannot call heroism, but desperate
madness.
Men-ta-ra-gyee, in the forty-fourth year of his age, at a period of
life at which men have generally acquired stability of character and
estimation, ascended the throne of his father, the Devoted to Buddha,
whose spirit seems to have lived on in the bosoms of some of his
families. But this king, under the fatal curse that seems to give
the race of Alompra no rest, had no quieter reign than any of his
predecessors. “Kings,” observes the ingenious writer Symes, “have other
enemies to guard against, than avowed foes or rival competitors; the wild
maniac or fanatical enthusiast, often under the influence of frenzy,
directs the poignard to the breasts of monarchs. The Birman king had but
a short time enjoyed the crown, when he had nearly been deprived of his
life and diadem by a person of this description. Magoung, a low-born
man, unconnected with, and it is said, without the privacy of any person
of condition, who had always been remarkable for the regularity of his
actions, and a gloomy cast of thought, had influence enough to form a
confederacy of one hundred men as visionary and desperate as himself.
This troop bound themselves in secrecy and fidelity to each other by
an oath; their object was to take away the life of the king; but to
answer what end, or whom they designed to elevate, is not ascertained.
These desperadoes, headed by Magoung, at daybreak in the morning, made
an attack on the palace. The customary guard over the king’s dwelling
consists of seven hundred, who are well appointed and kept about on duty.
Notwithstanding that, the attempt had nearly succeeded: bearing down
the sentinels, they penetrated into the interior court, and the king
escaped, from the casual circumstance of being in the range of apartments
belonging to the women, which he was least accustomed to frequent. His
guards, who at first shrunk from the fury of the onset, quickly rallied;
their courage and numbers overpowered the assassins; and Magoung was
slain, with all his associates, within the precincts of the palace.”[247]
Another insurrection speedily followed. A fisherman of the name of
Natchien, a Peguer of Rangoon, proclaimed himself the deliverer of the
Peguers, and called upon that nation to rise against the Burmans. He
succeeded in raising a tumult, in which some of the officials of the
Rhoom were slain; however, the matter was soon put down by the Peter
Laurie of the town, and an examination implicated some five hundred of
the inhabitants of Rangoon, who were executed. This was the last attempt
made by the Peguers to throw off the Burman yoke. From this time forward
his actions seem to have been offensive rather than defensive. In 1783
he commenced a war with the independent kingdom of Arakhan, which he
subdued, and added to his dominions. In 1786 he made an incursion into
Siam, and secured himself in the possession of Tavoy and Mergui. In 1810
he fitted out an enterprise against Junk Ceylon, an island belonging to
the Siamese, and to which they were all so unwilling to go.[248] But
from this place he was subsequently expelled by the enemy, and many of
the Burmans were sent to Bangkok as slaves. This king, after a long,
glorious, and cruel reign, of which a considerable part was directed
against the priests, expired in his eighty-first year, at the beginning
of 1819.
It may here be not uninteresting to give some account of the city of
Ava, the capital of Burmah, whence the kingdom has sometimes been so
called.[249] It lies in lat. 21° 50’N., long. 96° E., and was made the
capital of the country for the third time in 1822. The original name of
the place is Augwa, corrupted in Awa and Ava; but in public writings it
is always named Ratnapura, the City of Gems. Montmorency has given a
description of the place, which I epitomize.
The city of Ava is surrounded by a brick wall fifteen and a half feet
high, and ten feet thick; there are innumerable embrasures at about the
distance of five feet from each other. The south and west faces of the
town are defended by a deep and rapid torrent, called the Myit-tha,
leading from the Myit-ngé, which is not fordable. On the east the
Myit-ngé forms a considerable part of the defence. The Irawadi, opposite
Sagaing and Ava, is 1,094 yards broad. The circumference of Ava is
about five and a half miles, excluding the suburbs. “In general,” says
Crawfurd, “the houses are mere huts, thatched with grass. Some of
the dwellings of the chiefs are constructed of planks, and tiled, and
there are probably in all not half a dozen houses constructed of brick
and mortar. Poor as the houses are, they are thinly scattered over the
extensive area of the place, and some large quarters are, indeed, wholly
destitute of habitations, and mere neglected commons. Including one large
one in the suburb, lying between the town and the little river, there
are eleven markets or bazaars, composed as usual of thatched huts or
sheds: the three largest are called Je-kyo, Sara-wadi, and Shan-ze.”[250]
The temples are very numerous, and present a gorgeous appearance from
a distance, “far from being realized,” according to Crawfurd, “on a
closer examination. Some of the principal of these may be enumerated: the
largest of all is called Lo-ga-thar-bu, and consists of two portions,
or rather two distinct temples; one in the ancient, and the other in
the modern form. In the former there is an image of Gautama, in the
common sitting posture, of enormous magnitude. Colonel Symes imagined
this statue to be a block of marble; but this is a mistake, for it is
composed of sandstone. A second very large temple is called Angava
Sé-kong; and a third, Ph’ra-l’ha, or ‘the beautiful.’ A fourth temple,
of great celebrity, is named Maong-Ratna. This is the one in which the
public officers of the government take, with great formality, the oath
of allegiance. A fifth temple is named Maha-mrat-muni; I inspected an
addition which was made to this temple a short time before our arrival.
It was merely a Zayat or chapel, and chiefly constructed of wood: it,
however, exceeded in splendour everything we had seen without the palace.
The roof was supported by a vast number of pillars: these, as well as
the ceilings, were richly gilt throughout. The person, at whose expense
all this was done, was a Burman merchant, or rather broker, from whom we
learnt that the cost was forty thousand ticals, about £5,000 sterling.
When the building was completed, he respectfully presented it to his
majesty, not _daring_ to take to himself the whole merit of so pious an
undertaking.”[251] The reader may bear in mind the similarity between
these temples and those of the Peruvians.