National League and the Jacobins of the Chicago Convention. As for the massacre of 1641, we shall not wrangle about details; but, palliate it as we may, it was a great deed of blood, and it proves that the native Irish race were as destitute of all that is known as civilisation and regard for justice as are the mobs who at Land League meetings shout down England and applaud crime. The colonists of the Ireland of 1641 were, doubtless, a fierce and masterful race, but they were the saving element of Irish life; and whatever ignorant malice may assert, their descendants form to this hour what is best, most loyal, and sound in the Irish community. It is time to have done with the false philosophy which has darkened the facts of Irish history; and signs are not wanting that the mind of England is awakening to the plain truth in this matter. Those who persist in regarding Irish traitors as the champions of a national cause' will do well to lay this to heart: an alliance of this kind in the seventeenth century brought a king to the block and drenched Ireland in blood. In our own day it has wrecked a great party and driven from the helm a renowned statesman; and, notwithstanding treacherous appeals on behalf of the Ireland of the National League, democratic England may yet reply-absit omen, we pray in all sincerity— that the avenging sword of Cromwell may be committed to a successor's hands. ART. VII. 1. Parliamentary Papers-Correspondence re- 2. Parliamentary Papers-Further Correspondence relating to Burma. London: 1886. TH HE sudden expedition to Upper Burma at the end of 1885; the feeble and ineffectual defence offered to General Prendergast's bold yet skilful advance by a Government which up to the last haughtily refused all overtures for a peaceful settlement of differences; the bloodless occupation of Mandalay; the surrender and deportation of the puppet king; these events following in rapid succession, and their dramatic force completed by the annexation of that country, when a territory as large as France was added to the Indian Empire, were as remarkable as they were generally unexpected. But although hostilities with Burma broke out suddenly, the causes had for long been maturing. At the time, indeed, when Lord Dufferin assumed the government of India a year previously, there was no outward sign that we were not prepared to go on enduring the treatment of the Burma Government which for so many years we had put up with; but it was apparent to those acquainted with the circumstances that the limit of toleration had been nearly reached, and that unless the attitude of the Court of Mandalay underwent a change, an open rupture could not be much longer delayed. Our relations with Burma ever since the war of 1852 have been such that only a very sincere desire to avoid hostilities enabled the British Government to maintain peace. From our earliest connexion with them, the bearing of the Burmese Government towards the British, and indeed all other Europeans, has been characterised by a degree of insolence, effrontery, and conceit in amusing contrast to its intrinsic weakness, and the two wars which the Indian Government was reluctantly forced to embark on against it were in each case brought on by unprovoked aggression. The second of these wars, begun in 1852, was not terminated by any definitive treaty. Although they had made but a poor resistance, and were driven without much difficulty from all their maritime posts, and their trade with the sea had been completely cut off, the Burmese Government nevertheless refused to negotiate or to make any definitive submission, and the difficulty was finally settled by Lord Dalhousie announcing the annexation of the Province of Pegu-the delta of the Irrawaddy-and laying down a frontier line for this acquisition, declaring at the same time that the Burmese would not be pursued any further, but that hostilities would be resumed if they did not acquiesce in the state of things then established. A year and a half later the King of Ava sent a mission of compliment to the Governor-General of India, and the compliment was returned by the despatch of a mission under Major (the late General Sir Arthur) Phayre, the first Commissioner of the newly acquired province of Pegu, and afterwards Chief Commissioner of the amalgamated maritime provinces, which made up British Burma before the recent annexation. With Major Phayre went Captain (now Colonel) Yule as secretary, to whose presence on the occasion we owe the valuable monograph on Upper Burma, published in 1857 under the title of A Narrative of the Mission to the Court of Ava,' a work, like all the other contributions to geography and history of the distinguished author, as interesting as it is learned, and which after thirty years still remains the most complete and accurate record of our new acquisition and the adjacent countries. Notwithstanding the establishment of friendly relations, however, the King of Burina manifested an insuperable objection to signing any treaty relinquishing the Province of Pegu, and the cession was never formally agreed to. Subsequently to this mission a treaty was concluded, in 1862, but this provided only for the protection of trade and the establishment of free intercourse with Burma. A further treaty was made in 1867, by the terms of which a British Resident or Diplomatic Agent was established at Mandalay, upon whom also were conferred certain powers of jurisdiction for the disposal of civil suits between registered British subjects, while a mixed court was established, composed of the Resident and a Burman Judge, for the hearing of suits between British and Burmese subjects. But although diplomatic relations were thus established, and although also their military incapacity had been signally brought home to them by the loss of their richest province, the Burmese Government, in their dealings with the Indian Government, nevertheless continued to maintain an attitude of arrogant superiority. Our representatives at his court were admitted into the presence of the King only by appearing in a degrading attitude, and when, as time went on, our Resident declined to visit the King on these humiliating terms, he was debarred access to him, and finally the mission which had been established at Mandalay in 1867 was withdrawn in 1880, after undergoing a degree of perverse ill-treatment which only extreme forbearance sufficed to put up with. The insistence of the Burmese on this degrading etiquette, it should be mentioned, was pursued even after their Government had sent missions to Europe, the members of which had been treated with all the courtesy customarily shown to persons exercising diplomatic functions, and when therefore they had no longer the excuse of ignorance of the manners of the Western world. It may be observed that the Burmese themselves are by no means deficient in natural politeness of manner, as was seen from the bearing of the envoys received by Lord Ripon at Simla in 1884, and of those who have visited France and England at different times. Indeed, the manners of the Burmese gentlemen are agreeable enough, being free from that servility which too often imparts a taint of insincerity to the manners of even the best bred of the races of India. The truculence with which we put up so long was a special feature of Burman court life. Although the British Resident had been withdrawn from Mandalay, a considerable number of European residents, mostly English, still remained in the country, and the steamers of the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company plied on that river without much hindrance, although occasionally officers and crews were subjected to insult and ill-treatment. The timber export of the country was conducted through the agency of an English Company, styled the Bombay-Burma Trading Corporation, which had obtained a monopoly of the trade, and their employés were permitted to carry on business throughout the country. The brutal massacres perpetrated in 1878, when Theebaw came to the throne, and the further massacres of 1885, naturally excited general horror and indignation, but especially amongst the European community in British Burma, nearest to the scene. merchants of Rangoon, whose dealings were affected by the growing sense of insecurity attaching to the residence of their agents at Mandalay, were urgent that the Indian Government should interfere to put a stop to the cruelties and misgovernment obtaining there, and their proposals were supported by some of the English Chambers of Commerce. But it was justly held that the misgovernment of an independent country did not constitute a cause for interference, and a rupture might have been postponed but for the intrigues which the Burmese Government entered on, which, The if not stopped, would have resulted in establishing paramount French interests in that country. As has been more than once remarked in the blue book by their diplomatic representatives, the English Government could no more tolerate the preponderance of French interests in a country situated as British Burma is, than the French Government would be expected to permit the establishment of British interests in Tunis or the country south of Algeria. And although the French Government professed to repudiate any intention of interference in the affairs of Burma, or of acquiring specific influence there, and the treaty concluded at Paris early in 1885 between the French Republic and the King of Burma contained no formal provision for giving any such right to the former, but provided ostensibly only for the due protection of French subjects residing in the dominions of the latter, at about the same time unquestionable evidence came to light that a negotiation was on the point of being concluded with a French company, with the French Consul-General at Mandalay at the head of it, for the establishment of a bank, the advances to be made by which to the King were to be secured by hypothecation of the different revenues of the country, from mines, forests, and other sources. This meant that the company would soon establish a paramount interest in the administration, which would give them a claim to establish themselves as virtual masters of the territory. As a preliminary step to handing over to it the monopoly of the forests, a quarrel was deliberately picked with the Bombay-Burma Trading Corporation, upon whom a fine of about two hundred thousand pounds was arbitrarily levied on a plea which even the Burmese Government hardly professed to deal with seriously, while the protests of the Chief Commissioner of British Burma at Rangoon, to whom the corporation appealed for protection, and his offers of arbitration, were contemptuously set aside. It was impossible to abstain any longer from direct action, and the Governor-General, with the approval of her Majesty's Government, instructed Mr. Bernard to make a categorical demand for redress. This involved three main conditions that an envoy from the Viceroy should be suitably received at Mandalay, and that the dispute with the trading company should be settled in communication with him; that meanwhile all action against the company should be suspended; and that a diplomatic agent should be allowed to reside permanently at Mandalay, with a suitable guard, |