CHAPTER V.
It was with extreme regret that Sir Archibald Campbell and Mr. Robertson reported, for the information of me Governor-General in Council, that the treaty concluded at Melloone, on the 3d January, 1826, not having been ratified by the King of Ava, and none of the stipulations having, within the prescribed period, been fulfilled, all amicable intercourse with the authorities at that place was necessarily broken off, and war renewed on the morning of the 19th.
On the 18th, the day appointed for the return of the ratified treaty, &c. the commander-in-chief and civil commissioner finding that, instead of a fulfilment of this promise, a further delay of six or seven days was solicited, under such equivocal circumstances as left no doubt that a total want of faith guided the Burman councils, it was definitively declared to the deputies, that their request could not be complied with, and an article proposed to them, in which it was stipulated, (together with the performance of others already agreed to), that they should evacuate Melloone, by sun-rise, on the morning of the 20th. On their positive rejection of this proposition, they were told, that after twelve o’clock, that very night (the 18th), hostilities would re-commence. Deeming it of the utmost importance that no time should be lost in punishing duplicity of so flagrant a character, Sir Archibald Campbell ordered the construction of batteries, and the landing of heavy ordnance from the flotilla, to commence immediately after midnight, and every requisite arrangement to be made for an early attack upon Melloone, “the defences of which place were represented as a
