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another way-I sought materials of compensation in another hemisphere. Contemplating Spain, such as our ancestors had known her, I resolved that if France had Spain, it should not be Spain with the Indies.' I called the New World into existence, to redress the balance of the Old.

"Once more I declare, that the object of the address, which I propose is not war: its object is to take the last chance of peace. If you do not go forth, on this occasion to the aid of Portugal, Portugal will be trampled down, to your irretrievable disgrace: -and then will come war in the train of national degradation. If, under circumstances like these, you wait till Spain has matured her secret machinations into open hostility, you will in a little while have the sort of war required by the pacificators and who shall say where that war will end ?"

The Amendment was put and negatived, there appearing only three or four supporters for Mr. Hume's proposition. The original question was then put and carried, with only the same number of dissentients.

On the same night, in the House of Lords, a similar address was moved by lord Bathurst, and seconded by lord Holland. The duke of Wellington spoke next; beginning by expressing a hope that it would be permitted to him, who for many years had had the direction of the resources of both the countries which formed the subject of discussion, against the common enemy, to lament that any necessity should arise for our interference between them.

He

also hoped, that the measures which called for our interference, were more to be attributed to the per

fidious conduct of the servants of the king of Spain, to the captainsgeneral of provinces, and to inferior ministers, than to his Catholic majesty. Whether, however, they proceeded from the one or the other, he could not possibly see bodies of troops on both sides of the Douro, and on the south of the Tagus and the Guadiana, at the same time, all armed by the Spanish authorities, without immediately perceiving that there must be a concurrence of the Spanish government. Under the circumstances, therefore, of this preconcerted invasion of the Portuguese territory, he was of opinion, that the casus fœderis did clearly exist. War, however, might still be prevented; and he hoped for the cordial assistance of France, by negotiations, in preventing the breaking out of hostilities, in bringing his Catholic majesty to a just sense of his own danger, to a proper feeling of what was due both to his dignity and his interest, and to the obligations of good faith.

Lord Lansdowne also declared his full approbation of the proposed measure; and the address was carried without a dissentient voice.

The unanimity which prevailed in parliament on this decisive measure, was not more perfect than was the universal concurrence of sentiment regarding it, which existed throughout the country. The reasons on which it was founded, and the promptitude with which it had been adopted, inspired confidence; the ardour, the manliness, the deep tone of generous feeling with which it had been defended, excited esteem and admiration. Never were a government and its subjects in more complete unison. The activity of the public offices.

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CHAP. VIII.

INDIA-Re-commencement of Hostilities with the Burmese-Military Operations in the neighbourhood of Prome-British Army advances to Melloone-Conferences and Terms of Peace accepted-The Treaty not being ratified, the Army takes Melloone-The Army advances to Pagahm-men-Battle there-A Treaty concluded and ratified-Siege and Capture of Bhurtpore by Lord Combermere.-AFRICA-Defeat of the Ashantees.

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HE armistice which had been concluded on the 17th September, 1825, between the British and Burmese commanders, was not employed by the court of Ava in any serious negotiations for peace, but in collecting forces for a vigorous prosecution of the war. By the second article of the amnesty it had been agreed that a commissioner from Ava, with full powers, should meet the British authorities, on the 2nd of October, half way between Prome and Meaday, the stations of the respective armies, to treat of the re-establishment of peace. These conferences took place on the plain of Neounben-zeik, the negotiators on each side being accompanied by a train of five hundred men, as the dignity of the prime minister of Ava did not allow him to move with a smaller retinue. The Burmese commissioners displayed ostensibly the most amicable dispositions; were anxious in their inquiries after the health of his majesty of England, and the latest news; uniformly spoke of Britain and Ava, as the "two great and civilized nations," and scrupulously avoided every thing which might be construed into an acknowledg ment of inferiority. They endea

voured to exculpate their monarch from any blame on account of the hostile acts committed in Arracan, which had led to the war, by assurances that they had been committed without his authority or consent, and that the remonstrances of the Indian government had been kept from his knowledge. In the terms of peace which were proposed, they quarrelled principally with the demands for a cession of part of their territory, and an indemnification in money for the expenses of the war, and laboured hard to have them withdrawn, at least in the mean time, gravely holding out such considerations as this, that the dignity of the king of Ava did not allow him to submit to terms imposed upon him by a present force, but that, so soon as the Indian government should have withdrawn their army from the country, there was nothing which his generosity would not concede to them. Being unable to obtain any modification of the terms, they desired, and obtained, an extension of the armistice for twenty days, that they might have time to transmit them to Ava, and receive new instructions. The extension of the armistice, although proposed by the

enemy merely to gain time, was no sacrifice on the part of the British commander; for the season and the state of the country would not have permitted him to take the field at an earlier period.

On receiving the proposed terms of peace, his majesty of the Golden Foot broke out into the most intemperate bursts of impotent pas sion, and gave orders to his gene, rals immediately to renew offensive operations. His vigorous preparations had again collected in the neighbourhood of Meaday, an army of between 50,000 and 60,000 men. He had sent down from Ava, a veteran leader of great experience, Maha Nemiow, who was to introduce a new mode of conducting the war, and had attached to his army a body of eight thousand Shans, a species of force bearing a high character for gallantry, and who had not yet met a British army in the field. Along with them were three young women of high rank who were believed, by their superstitious countrymen, to be not only endowed with the gift of prophecy, but to possess the miraculous faculty of turning aside balls and bullets or rendering them innoxious. Confident in their strength, and urged by the threatening mandates of their monarch, the Burmese chiefs had no scruples of delicacy in violating the truce. Scarcely had they departed from the place of conference at Neoun-ben-zeik, when numerous irruptions were made by predatory bands from their army, transgressing the line of demarcation laid down in the armistice, laying waste the country almost to the walls of Prome, interrupting the supplies of the army, ascending the river, and threatening, and plainly intended,

to cut off the communication with

Rangoon. When remonstrances were made to the Burmese commanders, they with their usual disregard of truth, denied all knowledge of these marauding expeditions, although it was proved by the prisoners taken, that they were acting directly under orders from head-quarters. At length, when the armistice had nearly expired, the thin mask was taken off, and the following haughty and laconic answer was returned to the proposals of peace made at Neounben-zeik : "If you wish for peace, you may go away; but if you wish either money or territory, no friendship can exist between us. This is Burman custom."

The whole army of Ava, nearly sixty thousand strong, immediately advanced along the banks of the Irrawaddy against Prome, and the six thousand British and native Indian troops by whom it was occupied. It was divided into three bodies, which moved parallel to each other, but were dispersed with so little tactical skill, that insuperable physical obstacles prevented any one of them from supporting any other, all being thus exposed to the imminent danger of being destroyed in detail. The right division, consisting of fifteen thousand men, under the command of Sudda Woon, moved along the right or western bank of the river. On the opposite bank, separated by the whole breadth of the Irrawaddy, advanced the centre, consisting of between twenty-five thousand and thirty thousand men, headed by the Kee Wonghee in person, and escorted by a considerable armament of war boats. Maha Nemiow himself took the command of the left division,

which likewise was fifteen thousand strong, and contained the Shan horsemen ; it marched on the same side of the river with the centre, still more to the eastward, but was completely separated from it and the river by an impenetrable forest several miles in depth. The different divisions advanced in the ordinary style of Burmese warfare, creeping onwards slowly and certainly, stock ading and entrenching themselves at every step, risking no general engagement, patiently working themselves round Prome to obtain positions in its rear as well as in its front. On the 10th of November, the advanced guard of Maha Nemiow, on the extreme left, was at Watty-goon, a village to the north-east of Prome, and not more than sixteen miles distant; his intention being to turn the right of the British position, and thus, at the same time, throw succours into the kingdom of Pegu on the east. Colonel M'Dowgal, with two brigades of native infantry, was ordered to dislodge them, and approached them in three divisions; one marching by the direct road to Watty-goon, the two others by circuitous routes, but with the design that they should all reach the point of attack at the same time, and act simultaneously against the front, flank, and rear of the enemy. But the plan was disconcerted by the forwardness of the Burmese, who, instead of awaiting the attack in their position, met the centre and principal division of the detachment half way, and, bringing on large bodies of Cafray horse, wherever the road emerged from the jungle into ground sufficiently open for cavalry to act, both retarded and weakened it by a con

tinued succession of brisk skirmishes. The division, however, made good its advance to the neighbourhood of Watty-goon; but colonel M'Dowgal, having been killed while reconnoitring the works, there being no appearance of the two other divisions, and the force and position of the enemy being much too strong to be attacked without their assistance, a retreat was effected, with the loss of four officers and sixtyone men killed, and ten officers and a hundred, and twenty men wounded, besides forty missing.

Maha Nemiow was emboldened by this partial success to advance closer to Prome, but was not seduced from his cautious and secure mode of approach, throwing up his stockades at every step that he gained. The centre and the right division advanced simultaneously, in the same mole-like manner; and in the end of November, the centre, under the Kee Wonghee was distinctly visible, stockaded in the difficult heights of Napadee, which run along the right bank of the river about five miles above Prome, while Sudda Woon, with the right, was posted opposite to him in a similar manner.

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The British army, in the mean time, remained quiet in its positions, anxious that the enemy should be seduced to attack, and even giving him apparent encouragement to risk an assault. The troops never showed themselves beyond the lines; batteries were erected and entrenchments thrown up, as if in apprehension of the approach of the assailants; and rumours were circulated that preparations were making for a sudden retreat to Rangoon. But every expedient failed to divert Maha Nemiow from his own sys

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