or three thousand men the whole army dispersed upon the spot, and the unfortunate "Prince of Darkness" fled to Ava, where he was put to a cruel death by order of the King. As soon as the action was over the country people came into the British camp for protection; and many hundred boats, crowded with natives, passed downwards on their way to their respective towns and villages, from which they had been driven by the Burmese army.
Sir Archibald Campbell was in full march towards the capital of the Burmese empire, from which he was now only forty-five miles distant, when he was met by Mr. Price and two Burmese Ministers of State, accompanied by Mr. Henry Gouger, Mr. Judson, the American missionary, and his wife, a Scotch sea-captain, who had gone up the country before the war to make some contract about timber, and all the rest of the prisoners, whether Europeans or Sepoys. A sadder spectacle has seldom been presented by living human beings than was offered to the English camp by these liberated captives. They were covered with filthy rags; they were worn to skin and bone; and their haggard countenances, sunken, wandering eyes, told but too plainly the frightful story of their long suffering, their incessant alarms, and their apprehensions of a doom worse than death![1]
The sight exasperated our troops, and made them more eager than ever to advance upon the capital and take vengeance upon the tyrant and his savage court; but the war was now at an end; for the Burmese agents had brought not only the ratified treaty, but the sum of twenty-five lacs of rupees, as the first instalment of the crore thereby stipulated to be paid; together with an authority, under the sign manual, to accept of and sign whatever terms the English might insist upon.
The treaty of peace was finally signed at Yandaboo, on the 24th of February, 1826, by which the King of Ava renounced for ever all claims upon the principality of Assam, and sundry contiguous petty states. His
- ↑ Macfarlane's "British India."
