BRITISH RELATIONS WITH BHUTAN
ment were withheld from their Durbar by the Bhutanese frontier officials led to the despatch of Captain Pemberton as our envoy to the Bhutan Court in 1837. This Mission was infructuous. The draft treaty which our envoy submitted to the Durbar was agreed to by the Deb and Dharma Rajas and the rest of the council, except the Tongsa Penlop, who was then the real authority in the country, and, at his instigation, was finally rejected.
In 1839 the Bhutanese resumed their outrages on the frontier, and began by carrying off twelve British subjects, one of whom died of his wounds; another was murdered because he attempted to escape; and a third was thrown down a precipice because he refused to work. Bhutan itself was at this time in a state of anarchy and civil war. The Duars were becoming depopulated. The Governor-General’s Agent proposed to remedy this state of things by our taking the Duars into farm and under our direct management. The proposal was approved of by the Government of India, and a native officer was about to be sent into Bhutan to obtain the Deb Raja’s consent, when another serious aggression was committed. Five villages were seized; the Cutcherry of the Zamindar of Khoomtoghat was attacked and plundered, and one of his servants taken off. The two eastern Duars, Kalling and Booree Goomah, were then formally attached and occupied by our officers. Not long afterwards letters came from the Dharma and Deb Rajas asking that the attached Duars might be released and an envoy be sent into Bhutan. Colonel Jenkins wished to take this opportunity to push the plan of taking a farm of the Duars, but Lord Auckland was averse to sending another Mission into the country at a time of such internal disorder and when the parties contending for superiority were almost equally divided in strength, and he preferred sending a letter of remonstrance and serious warning to the Deb Raja, intimating that if Bhutan continued much longer in its present state of anarchy and inability to manage its frontier it would become necessary to annex
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