In the latter part of Dec. 1824, Captain Chads sent several reconnoitring parties up both branches of the river above Pagoda Point, as far as Thesit on the one, and Than-ta-bain on the other. On the 22d of this month. Lieutenant Kellett destroyed three fire-rafts, each at least 100 feet square, composed of dried wood, piled up with oil, gunpowder, &c. On the 24th, the Larne returned from Calcutta; and soon afterwards, the army received large reinforcements from Bengal, Madras, and Ceylon: the naval force also was encreased by the arrival of about twenty additional gun-boats from Chittagong.
The character of the war was now completely changed. The enemy no longer dared attempt offensive operations, but restricted themselves to the defence of their positions along the Lyne and Panlang rivers, to harass and detain the British force, which, agreeable to the policy that had been enjoined by the events of the war, prepared to dictate the terms of peace, if necessary, within the walls of the Burmese capital. The retreat of Maha Bandoola, to Donoobew, left the field completely open in front of the invaders’ lines. Not a single armed man remained in their neighbourhood; and “numbers of the people, at length released from military restraint, and convinced of the superiority of the British troops over their countrymen, and of their clemency and kindness to the vanquished, poured daily into Rangoon: the most important result attending the return of the inhabitants to their houses, was the means which they afforded of equipping canoes for the transport of provisions, and of obtaining servants and drivers for the commissariat, with which the force was before very scantily provided, owing to the impossibility of inducing that class of people in Bengal to volunteer their services in Ava[1].”
In the beginning of 1825, Sir Archibald Campbell and Captain Chads prepared to advance upon Ava, to which city the Burmese Court was then about to remove from Umera-
- ↑ Snodgrass, 128–130.
