Page:Decisive Battles Since Waterloo.djvu/50

 24 during the night. Bandula had been slain, and his brother, who succeeded him, could not hold the garrison together. The victors found large stores of rice, some guns and powder. The king and his court were filled with terror at this overthrow. The court faction, of which the queen and her brother were the leaders, persuaded the king to remain firm.

General Campbell resumed his march into the interior of Burmah, following the left bank of the river and regulating his movements by those of the flotilla, which was occasionally halted for the purpose of shelling out a stockade or buoying the channel. Arriving at Prome, he found it deserted and in flames; the Burmese commander had driven out the inhabitants and fired the town, and more than half of it was destroyed. As the rainy season was approaching, the British force went into cantonment at Prome and remained there for several months, and as the Burmese were occupied with the work of assembling another army, the invaders were not disturbed. The time was utilized by the British in bringing up supplies and ammunition and making every thing ready for a further advance as soon as the dry season should set in. In the middle of August General Cotton made a reconnaissance up the river with the steamer, and at Myedee saw a Burmese force of about twenty thousand men drawn up in line on the bank of the river.

Early in September the Burmese sent a flag of truce with an officer to treat for peace; an armistice of forty days was agreed upon to ascertain the terms on which the British could be persuaded to leave the country, and later on it was extended to the third of November. The terms demanded at the end of the armistice were the cession of the provinces of Arracan, Tavoy and Mergui to the British, and the payment of a war indemnity of two million pounds sterling. The Burmese replied that yielding territory and paying money were not in accord with