Page:The founding of South Australia.djvu/21

 the pocket of my late oppressors. The affair is worth recording.

"The fifth article of the Treaty has these words:—'As part indemnification to the British Government for the expenses of the war, His Majesty the King of Ava agrees to pay the sum of one crore of rupees.' It will naturally be asked, What kind of rupee is intended? It is not a coin of the country. The Burmese only know it as the coin issued to the British troops, and these being chiefly from the Madras Presidency, the Madras rupee was the one issued and passed into general circulation. This was the one commonly known to the Burmese, and one crore, or ten millions, of these rupees they would naturally expect to pay—no other could have been reasonably demanded of them. But there was another kind of rupee current in Bengal in those days, denominated the sicca rupee the metallic value of which was between 6½ and 7 per cent, greater than the Madras rupee; and as both the General and the Civil Commissioner came from Bengal, I had reason to think the sicca rupee was the one they intended, though they had failed to express it in the words so carelessly used. As the Treaty was not yet signed, I went to communicate my thoughts to Sir Archibald Campbell. He saw the blunder at once, summoned the Burmese chiefs instantly to a conference, at which I was present, and explained to them that, although the words be allowed to stand in the Treaty, sicca rupees were those intended and would be claimed; and paid they were ultimately, in full tale! A