Page:Lord Amherst and the British Advance Eastwards to Burma.djvu/86

 household words. But the first experience of the stockade was a discouraging surprise.

The effect of our repulse was further to inflate the pride of the courtiers of the Golden Foot. They were under the same delusion as those who, in 1857, were responsible for the worst horrors of the Indian mutiny. The English, it was supposed, were a mere handful of traders, hiring Sepoys to do their fighting, but possessing no reserve of military strength.

The British reverse in Cachar occurred in February, 1824. On the 24th of that month the Declaration of War was published in Calcutta. The immediate provocation came from the Chittagong borderland. At the mouth of the River Náf lies the small island of Sháhpuri. Here had been established a military guard with a view to putting a stop to the incessant molestations of which British subjects were the victims. Tolls had been levied by Burmese officials on boats passing to and from Chittagong. In one instance, when payment was refused, shots were fired and one of the crew killed. The whole attitude of the Burmese was wantonly aggressive. Seizures of persons working on British soil were frequent. There were great gatherings of armed men on the Arakanese side. The king's officers affected to take umbrage at our calling the island ours, and they sent a large force which very soon expelled the little garrison. This manifestly could not be endured. A strong body of regulars was despatched from Calcutta to reoccupy the post, but before it arrived the Bur-