office, which we administer to every native officer, who is at the same time furnished with a copy of it for his future reference, to prove the pains and anxiety which are always used, that "the wishes, feelings and opinions of the inhabitants of the country" should be made known to us. We have done every thing in our power to improve the character of the inhabitants and raise them in their own estimation. We have given chairs to the principal native officers when they have waited upon us, and not two months before the late disturbance, some of the leading conspirators were permitted to be seated in company with the Deputy Commissioner, and assist him as a jury in his trials of several offenders. 9. Moungda, in the letter, which he addressed to Mr. Maule, to induce him to evacuate the town, stated, that our revenue arrangements had led to the revolt. There was a good deal of cunning manifested in his seizing upon this pretext. But it had no more foundation in truth, than the prophecy which he afterwards pretended to have extracted from an old book, and which he circulated among the people when in possession of the town, declaring that "after the Koolas the Tavoyers would be governed by a great King of the name of Moungda." The principal conspirators paid little or no revenue, and those Thoogyees or head-men of the villages who commenced the attack on our magazine, were actually deriving most profit from our revenue arrangements. During the last harvest-season, however, a difference of opinion had existed between the Deputy Commissioner and the inhabitants of some of the villages, as to the average returns and produce of their paddy lands, which the villagers pretended yielded barely four and five fold, whilst the Deputy Commissioner's actual measurements on the spot shewed thirty and forty fold. In this difference, however, although the Deputy Commissioner was supported in his views by the native officers, he yielded as much as possible to the wishes of the cultivators of the soil; and when I visited Tavoy afterwards, they acknowledged the liberality and kindness of the final arrangements which had been made. 10. Mongda and Theinda were the chief conspirators, and both of them were actuated by feelings of dissatisfaction at the loss of power and influence which they had exercised under the Burmese Government. Moungda was a man of notorious bad character. He had displayed treason and treachery towards his own Government once or twice before our troops came to Tavoy, in 1824; and, on that occasion, although he took all the merit of having seized the Burmese Governor and delivered the place over to us, there were others who acted with more decision and courage in that affair. Moungda acted from a belief that the British Government would appoint him the Governor of Tavoy, and for some time after our troops occupied Tavoy, he was treated with all the honours of a Governor, and was even allowed to exercise the power of one. Ever since these honours and powers were curtailed, Moungda has been attempting to restore Tavoy to the Burmese, and when apprehended by Colonel Wolfe in 1825, and again when sent up to Rangoon by me in 1826, instead of his being punished for his offence, the Commissioners at Rangoon, as I have said before, sent him back to Tavoy without prejudice to the pension which had been originally granted to him of 500 rupees a month, being at that time ten times greater than the salary of our highest native officer. That pension, as far as is known to me, was never confirmed by the Supreme Government, and, therefore, in 1827, when the Deputy Commissioner proceeded to Callcutta, I desired him to point out that such a pension was far above Moungda's wants or merits, and that it should be reduced to 200 rupees a month, and the remaining 300 rupees allotted to the Tahen Chief Moungzat and his followers, who had solicited Sir A. Campbell's protection at Moulmein. Even 200 rupees a month were twice as much as the salary which was afterwards fixed for our highest native officer. The reduction of the pension, of course dissatisfied Moungda; but the loss of all power and influence, contrary to his original expectations, and the desire of recovering such under a Burmese Government, and restoring himself to the favour of the King of Ava, as his intercepted letter to that monarch shews, were the real motives which induced him to plan the late revolt against us. 11. Theinda was a Chitkh under the Burmese Government, and he once served under Moungda against Siam. From the time of our first occupying Tavoy, he retired into the interior to the north of Tavoy town, and seldom or ever came near an European. He was in heart and soul a Burmab, and always most adverse to our Government. He appears lately to have visited Oozina's camp, and upon his return, he used the influence which he possessed from his former situation, and from his bold and determined character, to corrupt and overawe the head-men of the ten villages around his usual place of residence to the north of Tavoy, all of whom, with many of the inhabitants under them, he succeeded in collecting and bringing down to attack our magazine. The head-men of these ten villages had held military commands under Moungda and Theinda during the Burmese Government. 12. Upon the subject of Mergui, I have little to add in addition to Major Burney's despatches of the 11th and 26th Sept. The enclosed copy of a letter from Captain B. precludes the necessity of my making such observations as I should otherwise have considered it my duty to have made. I have accepted this officer's resignation. To judge with fairness of that officer's conduct, it is perhaps requisite. that a person should have been placed in the same situation; and yet Captain B.'s long residence at Moulmein; his experience during the Burmese war, and his acquaintance with some portion of the territory between Tavoy and Mergui, might, I think, have led him to receive with more distrust the tale of a force of 900 Europeans at Moulmein having been destroyed, and of a Burmese army of 5,000 men marching overland from Tavoy to Mergui during the height of the southwest monsoon. I am surprised also, that upon such intelligence as that he received at Mergui, he should have addressed an official letter to the Penang Government to apprize it, that the whole of our establishments in these provinces had been cut off by the Burmese. To obviate the evil consequences of such a tale at Penang whence it might be carried hastily perhaps to England, the deputy Commissioner has judiciously sent down a vessel to Penang with an official contradiction of Captain B.'s report. In the room of Captain B. I should beg to submit, that Captain H. Macfarquhar, of the 40th regiment B.N.I., may be appointed my assistant. I am told that the circumstance which before precluded Government from complying with my request in favour of Captain Macfarquhar no longer exists, and I am satisfied that that officer's knowledge of the Malay language would render him particularly qualified to take charge of Mergui, where so large a portion of the inhabitants speak that language. 13. I am convinced that no observation which I may make, can enhance the estimation which the Governor-General in Council will form of the conduct of my friend Major Burney, during the late unfortunate disturbances. The political and military talents displayed by him were no more than what I before knew he possessed; but the address and judgment with which he disarmed the jealousy, apparently felt towards him as being a Bengal officer, directing the energies and securing the cordial esteem of the officers of Fort St. George, deserve the highest commendation. I trust the Government will reimburse him for the heavy losses which he has sustained, and give him the benefit of such rules as are in force in regard to a civil servant losing his property under similar circumstances. In the situation held by Major Burney, it is necessary that he should furnish himself with more furniture, stores and books, than what an oflicer of the same rank has occasion to do when serving with his regiment. 14. My enquiries lead me to join heartily with Major Burney, in bringing to the most favourable notice of the Supreme Government the conduct of Sub-Conductor Corley, Apothecary Bedford and Serjeant Richardson, who served the artillery at Tavoy, and also in soliciting the Governor General in Council to testify by some token in the shape of a medal, his sense of the services rendered to our Government by the Chinese residents at Tavoy. The fidelity and attachment of these men-their strenuous exertions to be of service to us, and the devotion which their head-men showed to Major Burney's family, from the first moment the revolt broke out, are circumstances which will do honor to the most civilized race in the world. As the Chinese have lost nearly the whole of their property, I have thought it but just to assist some of them with small loans from the public treasury upon good and adequate security, to enable them to prosecute their usual mercantile pursuits. These loans are of course duly returned in the accounts current submitted from Tavoy and Mergui. the Supreme GOVERNMENT, to A. D. MAINGY, ESQ., COMMISSIONER IN THE TENASSERIM PROVINCES. Dated, Fort William, 26th December, 1829. acknowledge the receipt of the several despatches enumerated in the margin, and to communicate to you the following instructions and observations from the Governor-General in Council. SIR, I am directed to Ditto 19th ditto. Ditto ditto, 13th Nov. Ditto ditto. Dec. 2d. You have already been apprized by my despatch of the 20th ultimo of the sentiments of Government, with respect to the conduct of your late assistant Captain B. and the other officers who retired from Mergui under the circumstances detailed in the reports of the Deputy Commissioner, under date the 11th and 26th of September, and you will express to Major Burney the entire approbation by Government, of the prompt and judicious measures pursued by him in re-occupying Mergui. You will also communicate to Messrs. Corbyn and Dromgoole the thanks of the Governor General in Council for the nautical skill and intelligence displayed by those gentlemen, as reported by Major Burney, in navigating the Hon. Company's steam vessel Diana, during such unfavourable weather and under such critical circumstances. 3. The Governor General in Council approves of your having annulled one of the temporary appointments of Master Attendant, then at Tavoy, made by the Deputy Commissioner; but, it is hoped that you may hereafter find some other means of employing Mr. Dromgoole, of whose service during the late events both at Tavoy and Mergui, Major Burney has made so very honourable mention. Upon refering to my letter of the 23d February, it appears, that it was originally propos ed to you to abolish one of the offices of Master Attendant, either at Tavoy or Mergui, and if you are now of opinion that such an appointment is requisite at Mergui, the Governor-General in Council has no objection to your retaining Mr. Emmott at that place, upon the reduced salary of 150 rupees per month. 4. With respect to the eight conspirators at Mergui, who were sentenced to death by the Deputy Commissioner, subject to the confirmation of Government, and on four of which prisoners you recommend such sentence to be carried into effect, I am directed to observe, that in consideration of the examples which have already been made at Tavoy, of the long time elapsed since the date of the sentence, as well as with advertence to the manner in which most of the prisoners conducted themselves after they heard of the suppression of the revolt at Tavoy, particularly in having sent out boats and provisions in search of Captain B.'s party, and having taken care of the public treasury, his Lordship in Council is very unwilling to visit their crime with the utmost severity of the law, with exception to the case of one of the pri soners Bawa Saib. That individual having held a confidential situation under Captain B., and not being a Burmese, had fewer motives to commit treason, and to abuse, so grossly as he appears to have done, Captain B.'s confidence; and, with regard to him, the Governor-General in Council authorizes the execution of the sentence of death which has been passed upon him. With respect to Moung Showegyah if you can satisfy yourself by good proof of the fact reported, that he had lateley pledged himself at Ava to create a revolt at Mergui, and continue to be of opinion, that he should suffer death, you are authorized to carry his sentence into effect; but, otherwise, you will commute it into imprisonment for life or such term of years as you may deem fit. In regard to the two other prisoners mentioned by you, Moung Showe Ya and Moung Thoon Myat, His Lordship in Council is pleased to commute their sentences to imprisonment and labour on the roads for a term of five years. The remaining four prisoners sentenced by the Deputy Commissioner Nga Shwen, Nga Tshi, Moung Bo and Nga Ait, may be released and ordered to quit the Tenasserim provinces. This individual afterwards made his escape from the Amherst, and succeeded in reaching Ava, where he joined the Prince of Tharawadi, and was concealed and protected by him. He is now in command of King Tharawadi's Body Guard, and his father is the Governor of Bileng, near Moulmein (1838). THE CALCUTTA MONTHLY JOURNAL. 1838. SOME THOUGHTS UPON FANCY BALLS. "Are you going to the fancy ball?" "What in the fun and drollery of the things, we dress are you going in?" "I don't know." might wonder to see so many children of five "I must not tell you.""Let's get up a group." and six feet high, and leave them perhaps to Such are the words we hear wherever we go their childishness." Now, with all due subin reference to the approaching Victoria mission, we consider this a piece of egregious fête. twaddle, and entirely built on the foundation of a mistaken philosophical system. Jonathan Dymond may have bean a great moralist, but we hold that William Wordsworth is far greater, and he has taught us a noble lesson in the Now we confess to being no cynics; we have our seasons of levity as well as others; we can attend a ball without sneering, and a theatre without disgust; we do not ex-following lines of the "Excursion :"actly think with Doctor Johnson, that dancing is" a very awkward way of getting from one end of the room to the other," nor do we at all take part in the puritanical stage-persecutions of Reynolds, and Prynne, and Jeramy Collier. We hate the very name of the cropped Puritan," the author of the "Histrio-mastix," we have read through his bulky quarto, commiserating his delusion; and have visited In our opinion the theatre of humanity the narrow cell, where they imprisoned him, presents few nobler spectacles than that of a pitying his unhappy fate, though we almost great man unbending. Is there an anecdote think that he deserved it. For writing the in all Plutarch's biographies more delicious "Histrio-mastix" the Star-Chamber senten- than the little story of Agesilaus playing in ced Prynne to lose one of his ears and to the nursery with his children? How differhave his nose slit because he reflected upon the ent from this the account we have of ThemisQueen and the ladies of her court, alluding tocles, who, when he was asked if he could in most irreverent terms to some "masques" play upon the flute, replied "No, but I can lately acted at the Palace, in which the Queen take a city." This answer has been much herself took a part. The sentence was a commended; but we think that so far from heavy one, but to libel a Queen, because she its being indicative of a lofty mind it bears enlivened her court with a masque and was the impress of a very little one. In the first herself one of the masquers, is no very trifling place it was exceedingly irrelevant, remindoffence. If there be any whom we are little ing us (we love to ridicule these swellings of loath to condemn, it is those, who causelessly | pride) of the man, who, when he was asked condemn others. We quarrel not with those if he knew German replied “ No; but I have who differ from us in opinion, but into the a cousin who can play the German flute;' gaunt sides of the Leviathan of intolerance and in the next place it was eminently absurd, we are ever to hurl our lance. We do not as pride always is; for Themistocles would like to be condemned wholesale for going not have been a little the less great as a solthrough the evolutions of a quadrille, or ardier for being more skilful as a musician; and, raying ourselves in a fancy costume. indeed, he would probably have been greater, as the old fable of the unstraining of the bow testifies in illustration of my theory. Tho greatest men of all ages have been the most lowly-minded, and the wisest philosophers in their hours of relaxation, have condescended to the most puerile disportings, Mr. D'Israeli, in his " Curiosities of Literature," has a chapter on the Amusements of the Learned," to A recent writer on morality, for whose opinions upon most su' jects we entertain the highest respect, speaking of masquerades and fancy balls, before he passes on to a heavier censure, indulges in a pleasant vein of caustic dryness, and informs the reader, that "if the pleasure which people derive The dignity of life is not impaired The humbler cravings of the heart; and he illustrative proofs. Take it upon our philoso-poet. We love to anticipate how they will phy, sweet friends, that nothing is so little as look before the day of the festival arrives; and pride, nothing so contemptible as contempt: afterwards to think of how they looked, and remember, ever remember, that, to identify them with the characters they illustrated, whenever we read of those characters again. For instance, if we were to see as a Neapolitan peasant girl, could we ever read or hear of a Neapolitan peasant girl without thinking about? Or if she were to take it into her head to represent sweet Amy Robsart, would not the bure mention of " Kenilworth" call up the fair image of our kind friend to flit across the magic mirror of our memory? But setting aside these pleasures of association, the mere spectacle of a fancy ball has much, very much to delight us. We love to see the heterogeneous assemblage of all ages and all nations gathered together, as by some strange process, within The greatest minds are those which can best accommodate themselves to all circumstances; which can move with the stream without being soiled by its impurities; ever humble and ever cheerful; gathering blessings and dispensing them every where; able alike to creep and to soar. "I should approve," saith Montaigne, in one of his essays, "a soul that hath divers stories in its structure; one that knows how to bend and how to slacken; that finds itself at ease in every condition of the walls of an assembly room. We like to fortune; that can converse with a neighbour be present at what the author of "Vivian of his buildings, his hunting, or any trifling Grey" calls a species of amusement in which dispute between him and another; that can usually a stray Turk and a wandering Pole chat with a gardener or carpenter at plea-looks sedate and singular among crowds of sure." Spanish girls, Swiss peasant girls and gentlemen in uniform" even this has far more diWe had no intention when we commenced version in it than the endless monotony of this article of writing in such a sober, didac- white muslin and white satin which we are tic strain; we have been unconsciously betray- wont to see in our every-day ball-room assemed into gravity; we purposed a light article, blages. But we like a little more diversity and unless we make vigorous efforts, this will than that described by Mr. Benjamin D'Israprove, we anticipate, a very heavy one. So eli. Miss Burney and Theodore Hook give now to our theme right manfully. The whole rather more variety to their respective acworld, the whole Calcutta world, the BEAU counts of these entertainments." Dominos mond of course we mean, is interested in the of no character," says the lady, describing a subject of which we treat. Our subject is masquerade in Cecelia," and tancy dresses of "Fancy Balls." We apprize the reader of no meaning, made, as is usual at such meetthis once again, for we think it not improba-ings, the general herd of the company; for ble that whilst he was wading through the the rest the men were Spaniards, chimney moral speculations with which we commen-sweepers, Turks, watchmen, conjurors and ced this essay, he may have entirely forgotten old women; and the ladies, shepherdesses, the real subject-matter of our discourse. Fond orange girls, Circassians, gypseys, haymaas we are of these speculations, fond as we kers and Sultanas." And M. Hook, in one of are of literary seclusion, of poring over books, the best chapters of " Gilbert Gurney," speaks of endeavouring to write them, of our plaid of "the boisterous mirth of the Moll Flaggons dressing gown, our worked slippers, our and Irish hay makers, flirting with delicate loosened neck-cloth, our silent room, we ne-die-away nuns and aristocratic flower-girls; vertheless have a wonderous sympathy with fat monks dancing with Swiss peasants; the ball-goers and contrive to enjoy ourselves knights in armour lounging on sofas with Inin "lighted halls" full as well as in the herdian queens; Doctor Ollapod, in close conmitage of our study. We carry our philoso-versation with Alexander the Great, and Caleb phy with us into the ball-room (for our phi Quotem seriously arguing a point of etiquette losophy verges upon optimism, and is not with Henry the Fourth of France. We espetherefore unsuited to such scenes), but our cially delight in these strange intermixtures, book-craft we ever leave behind us-we for- and can almost fancy ourselves in the Elysian get that we have "ever seen Wirtenberg, ever fields when we behold the junction of those read book"-our thoughts, our whole thoughts who could not possibly have met together on with the revellers; we never wander earth. It is for all the world like Lucian put back in fancy to the books which we have left in action, or Lord Lyttleton's "Dialogues of open on our table, or the essays half finished the Dead," illustrated in a series of tableaux. on our desk. We go to a ball to enjoy our- Pleasant too is it to see the well-known animosi selves, and enjoy ourselves we do right ties of great men ; animosities which have deheartily. vastated nations, now laid aside by mutual consent," positively for one night only," to seeOliver Cromwell dancing with Henrietta Maria, Charles the 1st arm in arm with Hampden or Pym, and the Earl of Essex neglecting Queen Elizabeth to pay his devoirs to Mary Queen of Scots. Pleasant too is it to see the are He who feels contempt For any living thing hath faculties But a fancy ball is our especial delight. We love to see our friends discarding their every day costume, and to shake hands with them in the habiliments of a strange country, or in the dress of some well known character, be it real or be it imaginary, drawn from the |