Page:Lord Amherst and the British Advance Eastwards to Burma.djvu/79

 anger, but he felt unable to tolerate this violation of our territorial rights. By a sufficiently transparent compromise it was arranged that if the Burmese withdrew, the Company would surrender the fugitives. This was done, doubtless on high moral grounds, but with considerable injury to our prestige, nor did the despatch of Captain Symes on 'a friendly mission' to Ava tend to correct the impression. The result was precisely what might have been predicted, there were further emigrations of fugitives into Chittagong, and further pursuits by armed Burmese forces. An attempt to dislodge them was repulsed, but Lord Wellesley had his hands too full of wars elsewhere to be able to take serious note either of the insult or of the reverse. The conscience of the Company, moreover, was not wholly clear; with a view to putting British authority in the right, arrangements were made for settling the fugitives in large industrial communities. When the Governor of Arakan still pressed his demands, Lord Wellesley resorted to a diplomatic subterfuge and affected to assume that it was the unauthorized indiscretion of a local functionary. Again Captain (by this time, Colonel) Symes was sent to Ava, but hardly succeeded in obtaining a courteous hearing from the king. It is easier, it must in candour be said, to state the issues than to pronounce final judgement on the equities of the dispute. On the one side was the piteous plea of the fugitives, 'We will never return to the Arakan country; if you choose to slaughter us here, we are