Page:Lord Amherst and the British Advance Eastwards to Burma.djvu/77

 genius, displayed a spirit of sincerely national patriotism which is rare in Oriental annals, and established for himself and his descendants a throne on a firm basis at Ava. By this time some European factories had been founded on the coast. It was a circumstance of evil omen that the servants of the East India Company, who had their quarters in the Island of Negrais, helped Alompra's rival in Pegu by the sale of munitions of war, and paid with their lives for their double dealing. If strength of character be a merit, Alompra is entitled to his renown. But his successors imitated him rather in his pride than in his faculty for command, until Theban, the feeblest and the last, passed from the scene of his misrule, and all Burma became a British Province. It is customary to speak of the Court of Ava, but in truth the capital has been changed from time to time according to the caprice of the reigning sovereign. The magnificent ruins of pagodas and palaces remain at many places on the banks of the Irawadi to remind the passing voyager of the mutations of Royal state. Pagan and Ava and Amanipura have had their day and ceased to be. It must at least be allowed that the house of Alompra gave their subjects an imposing show of kingly state and impressed their imagination by the most unsparing acts of despotism. They might have remained undisturbed to take their chance of native rivalry if they had been content to allow the English to rest in peace within the confines of India.

But before the beginning of the present century