Sunthorn Sripanngern provides a fascinating historical account of events leading up to the Hongsawatoi invasion in 1757

The day before the fall of Hongsawatoi on 8 May 1757

By Sunthorn Sripanngern

Continue from: "weak points of Mon during war with Brumese"

Having defeated the Mons in Upper Burma, Alaungpaya pursued them southwards and in February 1755 entered Prome. By May of the same year he had entered Dagon. It would appear that Dagon escaped the worst of these disasters; no attempt was made by the Mons to hold the town and thus no fighting occurred, but there was as yet no general submission of the delta, and Dagon became the scene of a good deal of fighting. The Mons still held Pegu and Syriam, and Alaungpaya therefore made Dagon his headquarters from which an attack on Syriam across the water might be projected.

But for the time being it was rather Syriam, which attacked Dagon. The Mons were better equipped than the Burmans in arms and ammunition, and had the further advantage of enjoying the assistance of the French establishment there, which was under the command of the Sieur de Bruno. Alaungpaya's obvious course was to seek the assistance of the rivals of the French, the English who were now established at Negrais (at the mouth of Bassein River). And as early as March he had approached the head of the factory at Negrais, but his proposal was without effect, for the policy of the East India Company was to maintain strict neutrality in the contest, since their commitments in India were too great to allow of further liabilities elsewhere.

After occupying Dagon Alaungpaya received a visit from Sieur de Bruno, who professed a desire to congratulate him on his conquests, but the king realized that no sincere assistance could be looked for from that quarter, and in June he dispatched a second mission to Negrais bearing various presents, and since then it seemed evident that the Burmans were the winning side, the English sent two officers to him with a present of, among other items, a twelve-pounder gun, three nine-pounders, eight shot, and four chests of powder.

Meanwhile, Alaungpaya had persuaded the English shipwright, who was almost the only Englishman still resident at Syriam, to come to Dagon, and with him came four English ships that happened to be in the port. The English had suffered much at Syriam from the Francophile propensities of the Mons, and were doubtless glad to place themselves under the protection of the Burmans; so much so, that Alaungpaya appears to have received over assistance from them, for when in May, a week or two after the king's arrival in Dagon, the Mons crossed the Pegu River and established a stockade at Tamwe to the northeast of the town, Alaungpaya had the aid of Indian soldiers from the four ships in expelling the Mon force. At the beginning of June another English snow "Arcot" (square-rigged vessel on which a large trysail is hoisted) appeared in the river in need of repairs, and the shipwright, "Stringfellow" by name, sent a message urging the captain, "Robert Jackson" to come to Dagon where the king would give every possible assistance. On the sixth June, "Arcot" anchored off Dagon. Alaungpaya was at once visited by a company's officer, John Whitehill, who happened to be on board, and, Whitehill, gave him a present of a fowling-gun and two bottles of rosewater, the king extended to him courteous reception, promised the needed assistance of carpenters and caulkers, and also agreed to send river-boats to Negrais with letters.

But Alaungpaya wanted a quid pro quo; the Mons had the aid of the French vessels that were in the port of Syriam, and under their protection might come up the river and attack Dagon; he therefore needed guns. So the following day he invited all the Englishmen of the various ships to come ashore, and in their absence sent men to demand all the guns, small arms, and ammunition that "Arcot" carried, as well as a statement of her cargo. Jackson, who had not gone ashore, replied that this demand was contrary to established usage and that rather than comply he would go to Syriam. The day after, the Burmans came and threatened to take the guns by force, but Jackson prepared to resist and made his ship ready to sail. Alaungpaya, having no desire to see his enemies strengthened by the accession of the English vessel, sent his son to explain that the demand was made under the apprehension that it was the custom at Syriam to land all arms, but that if it was not the custom the demand would not be persisted in. Nevertheless, the Burmans managed to get possession of all the arms and ammunition of the country vessel "Elizabeth" that had come up from Syriam before the arrival of "Arcot".

Alaungpaya was no doubt disappointed, but he could not afford to alienate the English at the moment, especially as the Negrais staff seemed well-disposed and sent him at this juncture a dozen muskets and some powder as a foretaste of the heavy guns which were to come later. Moreover, it was not possible for him to stay at Dagon any longer; a son of Mahadammayaza- Dipati had effected a rising in upper Burma, and Alaungpaya left Dagon towards the end of June to secure his authority in the north. The rains had begun, and perhaps those weather conditions would prevent much activity during his absence. He had taken measures for the safety of Dagon; a large force was left to hold the town under Zeyananda who had been appointed as Governor, and a moat and fortified gateways had been projected. He appointed about 15,000 men to maintain the post at Dagon. As he passed by every place, gave orders to call in the former inhabitants, and obliged them to build a number of fighting boats, in proportion to the number of the people.

Although Alaungpaya did expect that all would be quiet at Dagon in his absence, he was disappointed, the Mons took advantage of his departure to make several attacks. Like Alaungpaya, they realized the effect which the English ships might have on the fortunes of the day, and even before Alaungpaya departed, they had sent a letter to Jackson stating that an attack on Dagon was impending and asking the English not to fire on their boats, and at the same time offered Jackson a friendly welcome at Syriam. Jackson, who was disturbed at the difficulties he had got into with the Burmans and was disgusted because the help in repairing his ship which Alaungpaya had promised had not been forthcoming, was inclined to listen to such suggestions. So he replied that he would not oppose the Mon forces and that he would come down to Syriam at the first opportunity.

A few days afterwards the Mons attempted a surprise attack, their boats coming up the river with the night tide while another force crossed the Pegu River and advanced by land. The boats, however, were repulsed by the fire of the Burmans who lined the bank of the river, while the land force, finding that the Burmese post on the Pagoda Hill could be carried only by assault, and disheartened by the failure of the attack from the river, made only a feeble attempt.  And after sporadic firing had gone on through the night and most of the morning, the Mons withdrew. By noon the attack was over. During this affair the English remained strictly neutral, but the Burmans suspected them for that very reason of favoring the enemy since Alaungpaya seems to have extracted from them some sort of promise that they would aid his men in the event of an attack.

The Burmans were not far wrong in their surmise; a week later another message came from the Mons announcing a further attack, and to this Jackson and the other English officers replied that if the Mons would aid them to escape from Dagon they would give active assistance in the fight. They at the same time gave the Mons information about the strength of the Burmans, which consisted of eighty river-boats, of which nine were armed with guns, a Dutch Brigantine which they had commandeered and manned with their own men, and two guns mounted on shore. The Burmans, however, became aware of these conversations and demanded a definite assurance that if the Mons attacked the place the English would resist them. The English replied that without express orders from the Company they must remain neutral but that if the Mons attacked them they would assist the Burmans.

The Burmans were far from being satisfied with this, and kept a strong guard of boats around the "Arcot" for several days. Meanwhile the Mons, assured of the assistance of the English ships which, they hoped, would give certain victory, prepared for battle. And early one morning, the Mon flotilla of two hundred boats and one snow, headed by two French vessels, could be seen down the river. They had dropped down the Pegu River with the tide overnight, and lay at the junction of that river with Hlaing River, waiting for the turn of the tide to carry them up to Dagon. As soon as daylight enabled the enemy to be seen, the Burmese commander sent an urgent message to Jackson demanding his support, but, in the words of Jackson, very little notice was taken of this application. Owing to the time of the tide, it was two o'clock in the afternoon before the flotilla arrived off the town.

The French ships anchored and opened fire with their cannon while the Mon musketeers commenced firing at the Burmese boats. The Burmese had withdrawn their boats into a creek, probably the old creek running up to the Sule Pagoda, where they hoped to be protected by a small battery consisting no doubt of the two guns mounted on shore, the existence of which had been reported to the Mons that these guns had been placed behind hastily constructed works in a mango grove by the river bank. As soon as the firing commenced, the English ships also began bombarding the Burmese position, and unable to withstand the combined force of the enemy artillery, the Burmese were compelled to abandon their boats and took shelter among the mango trees. There they put up a determined resistance, and though their cannon were not well managed, nevertheless they managed to do some execution with their musketry that killed two Mons on board the "Arcot". It appeared to the French and English that if the Mons had gone in shore they could have taken all the Burmese boats, but they were afraid to face the Burmese musketry at close quarters, and despite the persuasions of the Europeans they remained out in the stream.

Firing went on until nightfall, and after dark the English ships moved farther out into the stream, to be out of range of the Burmese muskets. The bombardment went on for seven days, and then having exhausted their ammunition and achieved nothing. The attack had been ill managed, no diversion was made by any land force, and the Mons refused to engage in hand-to-hand fighting. Thus their seven days' attack left the Burmese still in possession of their fortification. When the Mons returned to Syriam, the English ships went with them. Jackson, who had apparently gone to Syriam after the first day's fighting, afterwards explained his conduct in preferring the Mons at Syriam to the Burmese at Dagon on the grounds that he was sick with dysentery and needed medical attention from the doctor attached to the French factory: there every thing was to be got for his assistance, at Dagon nothing nor had they seen a fowl since they had been there, and no water but what was very bad which had thrown him into a bloody flux and a strong fever. For the time being Dagon was safe, but its position was precarious, for now the Mons were reinforced by the English ships as well as the French.

The king was greatly angered by the conduct of the English in assisting his enemies. When the mission from Negrais bringing the canon reached him at Shwebo in September, he expressed his wrath: "Your ships that were at Dagon with Mr. Whitehill, I treated with kindness", he said, "and supplied them with what they wanted, and at my leaving that Place, to come here to keep our fast, desired him that in case it should be required in my absence, on an emergency, to assist my people; or at least not to join the Peguers against them; which though he promised to observe, yet was the first that fired on them". This episode implanted in his mind a suspicion of the English which was never eradicated and which led to the massacre of the English at Negrais when opportunity offered four years later.

Alaungpaya now sent a new commander, Minhla-Minkaungkyaw , to Dagon, who brought reinforcements with him and took energetic measures to improve the defenses. At Syriam, meanwhile, preparations were in hand for a further attack on Dagon, and the English were compelled to take part in this also, it being made clear to them that unless they rendered such assistance they would not be allowed to depart. The English had found the Mons if anything even less easy to deal with than the Burmans; the Mons also were suspicious of their good faith, and when the chief of the Negrais factory wrote demanding the surrender of four guns belonging to the English factory at Syriam, the Mon commander refused, saying that "he knew Mr. Brooke wanted to give them to the Burmans that he might get some Rubies from the Dagon Pagoda".

In December Dagon endured another onslaught of even greater magnitude than the last. Three English ships, one French ship, the snow belonging to the Mon King, and three hundred boats participated; while ten thousand men were landed to march against the fortifications on the Pagoda Hill and at the mango grove. The Burmans found it impossible to hold the town, and withdrew to their fort at the Pagoda. There they maintained themselves, and the Mons proved unable to dislodge them. When the Burmans sent down fireboats on the tide, the Mon flotilla and the European ships had to slip their cables and retreat; the land force, unsupported from the river, made an ineffectual attempt to storm the fort but was easily repulsed. So the attack was brought to an end. After this abortive effort the English ships were allowed to depart, though the Mons retained five of the Arcot's guns.

Here Sieur de Bruno proposed neutrality to Alaungpaya, which he did not respect; when the king marched on Syriam, where the fort was supposed to be impregnable, Bruno anchored his ship near the emporia and prepare to defend them against the Burmese. But soon Bruno proposed a new accommodation to Alaungpaya. The Mons intercepted the message and locked Bruno up in the fortress at Syriam. Alaungpaya took advantage of this and seized the emporia and the French ship.

Then in July 1756 the council at Pondicherry decided to send two ships to Pegu, the "Diligent" and the "Galathee" with troops, munitions and provisions.

Alaungpaya besieged the city and fort of Syriam and took them in July. The "Galathee" had already arrived at the Burmese coast but went up the Sittang instead of the Rangoon River. When this mistake was discovered and the ship was put back on the right course, it was too late; by the time that the vessel arrived at Syriam the city had already been fallen two days before. Alaungpaya forced Bruno to order the captain of the French ship to proceed to Rangoon. The captain's papers proved that his cargo was intended for Banya Dala. The Burmese king thereupon put Bruno, captain and the officers of the Galathee to death, and took the soldiers prisoner, whom he intended to use against the capital, Pegu, together with the weapons that had been recovered.

(The "Diligent" arrived six months later because adverse winds had blown her off course to the Nicobar Islands, and escaped in time.)

In the mean time the Burmese troops instituted a scorched earth policy around Syriam and soon in the entire province.  The villages were set on fire and all the Mons, who were easily recognized because of the way they wore their hair, were either killed or deported, depending on whether or not they were marketable. Once again nothing was left but smoking ruins, corpses, and harvests laid to waste. Only those settlements which gave themselves up before any of the troops arrived were spared by Alaungpaya and his men.

When the sides began to parley, Alaungpaya offered to show clemency to the Mons, declaring that he was a divine reincarnation destined to become a Buddha. The last chance for reconciliation? The Mon king offered him his daughter. But it was only a ruse on the part of the Burmese, who hope it would get them inside the walls.

The siege of Pegu was particularly bloody. The moats ran red with blood, and this was a fatal omen to the Mons who remembered what happened in 1538.

The Mons rallied, but the firearms taken from the French did the rest, and on 8 May 1757 the city fell. The customary carnage and pillaging followed. Nevertheless, Alaungpaya spared the lives of the royal family, whom he held as prisoners. Most of the city was destroyed and it never recovered from the tragedy.  If one is to believe Sayadaw Athwa, Alaungpaya took out his fury especially on the monks, three thousand of whom he ordered to be trampled to death by elephants and whose monasteries he pillaged. "The monks helped the city to resist," he said.  Even if this horror was exaggerated by the chronicle, by turning the monks over to wild beasts Alaungpaya made it clear that he wanted to destroy the culture of the Mon; from this date on the Mon language was vigorously discouraged in Burma.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:
 

Dalrymple: Oriental Repertory

D.G.E. Hall: The Tragedy of Negrais (Journal of the Burma Research Society XXII)

R. Halliday: History of Kings (Journal of the Burma Research Society XIII)

Konbaungset Yazawin

Sonnerat: Voyage aux Indes Orientales (1782)

M. Symes: Embassy to Ava (1800)

H.H. Wilson: Documents Illustrative of the Burmese War (1827)

Emmanuel Guillon: The Mons, a Civilization of Southeast Asia (1999)

************ ********* ********* ********* ********* *******