Yangon “ THE END OF STRIFE ”

Toward the middle of the eighteenth century there was a revival of Mon nationalism in the Delta. When in 1740 it was learned that the King of Ava, Mahadammayaza-Dipati, was besieged in his own capital by invaders from Manipur, the Burmese governor of Pegu, Tha Aung by name, proclaimed himself King; he put to death the state secretary, the two lieutenant-generals, and the governor of the prison, and made himself king in Pegu. This ruler was very harsh and cruel and reigned only a month and a half. He was murdered by his officers and the King then sent his own uncle who established a new governor who would be faithful to his allegiance; but this governor was very avaricious. He took bribes in gold and silver and in coin, and made great distress for the people. He ruled but four months and twenty days. The weakness of the King's power and the misgovernment of his officers encouraged a revolt, and the Mons, rising in rebellion, completely overthrew the royal administration. The son of a former rebel myosa of Pagan who had fled into the Karen country in 1714 when Taninganwe, his nephew, became king, was set up as King of Pegu under the name of Smimtaw Buddhaketi. There was little resistance from the Burmese; indeed, for some years the Mons were able to carry out raids on upper Burma. But Smim Htaw Buddhaketi was not the type to lead his people in wars, and in 1747 he abandoned the throne, which was held for eighteen days by a monk, Nai Caran Khuin, who was then replaced by a Mon lord, Binnya Dala, who had formerly served the Burmese King as Master of the Elephant Stables at Pegu and was Smim Htaw Buddhaketi's father-in-law. The Mons under his leadership continued their raids on Ava, which in 1752 they sacked and burnt.

It was at this point that the great Alaungpaya rose to prominence as leader of the Burmans and began to reestablish the Burmese power. Having defeated the Mons in Upper Burma, he pursued them southwards and in February 1755 entered Prome. By May of the same year he had entered Dagon. His conquests were marked by great cruelty which spared neither age nor sex: “His Majesty Aungzeya was of a very fierce and cruel disposition, and made no account at all of life. He put to death many monks, and their iron alms-bowls and silk robes were taken away, and the homespun robes were made into foot mats of some they made pillows, of some they made belts, and of some they made sails. The monks' robes were scattered all over land and water". It is also said that when he took Pegu he found more than three thousand monks in the place, and that he had them all put to death.

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, and when Alaungpaya reached the town he received the support of many of the population for "abundance of Buraghmahns, which were hitherto with the Peguers, deserted them and came to him". 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 Bruno. Alaungpaya's obvious course was to seek the assistance of the rivals of the French, the English, who were now established at Negrais and had almost deserted Syriam; 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 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, a month or so after entering Dagon, he dispatched a second mission to Negrais bearing various presents; and since 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 north-east of the town, Alaungpaya had the aid of "Indian soldiers" from the four ships in expelling the Mon force.(2) At the beginning of June another English vessel, the snow Arcot 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, the 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-piece 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 The 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 Arcot arrived.

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 new town had already been planned, and a moat and fortified gateways had been projected, while a large force was left to hold the town under Zeyananda who had been appointed Wun or Governor; further, Alaungpaya ordered the people of the villages which he passed to prepare boats against his return: “having appointed about 15,000 men to maintain the Post at Dagon, he set out accordingly; and as he passed by every Place, gave orders, for them respectively to call in the former Inhabitants, and obliged them to build a number of fighting Boats, in proportion to the number of the People; many of which I saw on my way down, and all of which will probably, he ready by the time he returns to Dagon, which he purposed to do in November, with, as he said, 1,000 boats and 100,000 men, but by the best information I can get, his Boats will not exceed 500, nor his troops, both by land and water not above thirty or forty thousand, which perhaps, with the army now at Dagon, may make the whole body about 50,000".'

If, however Alaungpaya did in fact 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 in fact been forthcoming, was inclined to listen to such suggestions, the more so as Alaungpaya's departure seemed to promise success for the Mons. 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 latter 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 the 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 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 take 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, two Mons being killed 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 Mons withdrew. 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 anew commander, Minhlaminkaungkyaw, 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 Buraghmahns 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. I

This was the last attack, which the Mons were able to make on Dagon. Alaungpaya returned from Upper Burma with a large force and was now able to invest Syriam, which was finally taken in July 1756. The few Englishmen in the town were spared, but Bruno and the other French were put to death. Such was also the fate of the officers of two French vessels which entered the River two days after the town had been taken; they were decoyed ashore and were beheaded. The crews were made prisoners and were taken into the royal service as soldiers.

Alaungpaya then proceeded to the capture of Pegu, which he took in May 1757; but though the Mon resistance was not yet by any means finally broken, Alaungpaya's power had still to be thoroughly established in Upper Burma, so after a further visit to Dagon in July he went northwards, leaving the town under the care of one of his officers, Namdeoda. For some time he was busy repelling the Manipuris, and while he was thus engaged in the winter of 1758-59, the Mons rose once more. They were able to defeat Namdeoda and reoccupy Dagon, as well as Syriam and Dalla. Alatin-paya hastily came to the Delta at the news of this disaster, but meanwhile Namdeoda had gathered a force from Upper Burma and marched on Dagon. The Mons were holding the stockade by the river and also, it would seem, the Pagoda Hill, for it is said that they were "encamped a little above the city." (1) After a stern struggle, however, the Burmans won the day and once more secured possession of the town and Hill. Dalla and Syriam fell soon after, and Alaungpaya’s arrival finally ended the rebellion. From this time onwards the Burmans suffered no serious threat to their power on the part of the Mons.

Alaungpaya's conquest is the most important event in the history of Rangoon. May 1755 marks the beginning of modern Rangoon; from this time it becomes the major port of Burma. Alaungpaya was resolved that Syriam must be destroyed and that some other place must become the port of the Delta. Even before he had taken the town he informed the English that “We intend to destroy Syriam ", and he fulfilled his intention; a European writer of 1782 says of Syriam that "this town no longer exists." There were good reasons for the destruction of Syriam. Syriam had been the center of Mon resistance and had also been the center of European interests in the country; Alaungpaya desired to make a fresh start and to have a new port that would be neither Mon nor European by tradition, but would be Burmese. Further, there were sound economic reasons for abandoning Syriam.

The Delta was effecting yet another change, and Syriam was ceasing to have any utility as a port. The Pegu River was silting up off Syriam, and sea-going vessels were finding it difficult to navigate the reach opposite the town. The English had already noted that Syriam "it seems will in a few years be almost impracticable for large ships by the increase of the Sands in several places, especially before the Town." Hence they had already established a new factory at Negrais, since "the Danger of going out and coming in of that Hobart, is nothing in comparison of Syriam River, or the Coast near it; whence the strong Tides and the Sands, lying at a great distance from the shore makes the Entry difficult and dangerous for Ships."(3) The English evidently regarded the whole River, for the term “ Syriam River” was used to imply the Rangoon River, as unsatisfactory, and would have preferred the new port to be else where. But Dagon was not so dangerous as Syriam, where the sandbanks had developed, especially before the town, and, moreover, Alaungpaya would not be willing to establish his port at or near Negrais where the English were in possession, so that Bassein was ruled out, the more so as it had no through river connection with the main Irrawaddy in the dry season. If a new port had to be created, Dagon, already a place of commercial importance at the seasons of the great festivals, and near enough to Syriam to draw on the same field of trade, was the obvious place. So Alaungpaya established a new town at Dagon, which hereafter ceases to be a quiet riverside village and becomes instead a flourishing port. He gave it a new name, changing Lagun to Rangon, the “End of Strife "; and the war being over, he built a new town of Rangon, or Rangoon as the English called it, a town which lasted for ninety years.


BIBLIOGRAPHY.

A.Dalrymple; Oriental Repertory.
D.G.E. Hall; The Tragedy of Negrais (journal of the Burma Research Society X X 1.
R. Halliday (trans.) : History of Kings ( journal of the Burma Research Society X I 11.
Konbaungset Yazawin.
Sonnerat: Voyage aux Indes Orientales (1782).
M. Symes: Embassy to Ava (18oo).
H. H. Wilson: Documents Illustrative of the Burmese War 1827).