authority to act, no further communication should be made to the "Golden Feet," till everything should be "settled."
The Governor-General accordingly hastened to gratify the celestial possessor of the golden feet and the white elephants; but, instead of commencing operations on the barren mountains of Arracan, or in the pestilential jungles of Chittagong, he sent an expedition to ascend the Irawaddi, a river which traverses the Burman Empire from north to south; and to begin by capturing the city of Rangoon, its principal port and trading-place.
The expedition was composed as follows: – From Bengal, his Majesty's 13th and 38th regiments, 2nd battalion 20th Native Infantry, and two companies of European artillery, amounting, in the whole, to two thousand one hundred and seventy-five fighting-men. From Madras, his Majesty's 41st and 89th regiments, the Madras European regiment, seven battalions native infantry, and four companies of artillery: total number of fighting-men, eight thousand eight hundred and sixty-seven. The military force, when united, thus amounting to something more than eleven thousand, with a park of artillery of fourteen heavy guns, ten howitzers, eight mortars, and twelve field-pieces. Attached to the expedition were twenty gun-brigs and schooners, twenty row-boats, four King's sloops – the Liffey, Commodore Grant, the Larne, Captain Marryatt, the Sophie, Captain Ryves, several Company's cruisers, and the Diana steam-vessel.[1]
On the 9th of May, 1824, the expedition, under the command of Major-General Sir Archibald Campbell, arrived off the mouth of the Rangoon river; on the 10th it came to anchor within the bar, on the morning of the 11th stood up the river, and about one o'clock on that day came to off Rangoon, opposite a landing-place called the King's wharf, the seat of a battery. A fire was opened on the fleet, but was returned from the Liffey
- ↑ This was the first steamer ever employed in war.
