Page:Lord Amherst and the British Advance Eastwards to Burma.djvu/92

84 the minds of native observers with superstitious awe—a tiny steam vessel, the Diana, was with the flotilla.

There is a beautiful and commodious harbour called Port Cornwallis, in one of the Andaman Islands, then the abode only of savages, and here was the rendezvous of the squadrons. On May 9 the fleet, reached the Rangoon river—one of the many mouths of the Irawadi. The bar was crossed, in spite of some dismal prophecies, without a serious hitch, and on the morning of the 11th the vessel cast anchor in the wide stream in front of Rangoon. A few shots were fired from the feeble defences of the town. The Liffey answered, dismounting the guns, and forthwith the gunners fled. An American missionary brought a message from the Governor gravely inquiring what the new comers wanted, and intimating that the European residents were all in irons and would be killed at once. But his Excellency the Governor did not wait for a reply. When the troops took possession of the town, the only persons they found there were this little band of strangers—eight traders or pilots of British origin, two missionaries, an American and a Greek. The fire from the ships had interrupted the execution! If the Burmese authorities were taken unawares, they knew at any rate what they had to do. It was the Burning of Moscow over again. The most stubborn resistance would not have been more embarrassing to the invaders. Our troops held the town, but there was