will be lessened much more. It is not enough that commanders of vessels should be possessed of such practical rules as those furnished by writers on the subject; they must have. such an inwrought knowledge of the great law as will lead to almost intuitive action in every case that may occur. One thing that bodes well for future progress is the encreased attention that is now paid to the barometer. We should regard this instrument, and its kindred sympiesometer, as the sheet anchor by which our navigators should hold fast in the hurricane latitudes; so far as we have learned, its indications have never been disregarded with impunity, nor judiciously attended to without advantage.

With all the advance of knowledge it were vain to expect that no accident will ever occur; but we cannot doubt that they will be greatly diminished in number. That our readers

may form some idea of the number of shipwrecks that formerly occurred in the navigation of the Indian seas, we know not that we can do better than transcribe from the Asiatic Annual Register for 1800, the following list of casualties that befel the H. E. I. C.'s Ships from 1757 to 1800 inclusive, marking with an asterisk (*) those that were probably destroyed in hurricanes, and might probably have been saved had the law of storms been understood by their commanders.

To those twelve that we have marked as probably lost in consequence of their commanders' unacquaintance with the law of storms, might perhaps be added a portion of those wrecked in the Húgli. But independently of those, it must be evident that the proportion of wrecks to the whole number of ships afloat was very much greater in those days than now; and we believe we are not enthusiastic in the expectation, that our successors will be able to trace a still greater diminution at the end of the next half century.

We know not how it may strike others; but it does seem to us a matter of humble and hearty thanks to that God whose sublime attribute it is to "walk on the wings of the wind,"

† Date evidently a mis-print, probably 1779.

and who "maketh the winds his messengers, and the flaming lightning his minister," that he should have enabled so feeble a one of his creatures as man to attain such a power as he now possesses over so subtle and tremendous an element as the air; and we know not how we can better conclude this article than in the nervous words of our own Bacon, who declares the object of his labors to be,-" ut tandem (tanquam curatores probi et fideles) tradamus hominibus fortunas suas, emancipato intellectu, et facto tanquam majore; unde necesse est sequi emendationem status hominis, et ampliationem potestatis ejus super naturam. Homo enim per lapsum et de statu innocentiæ decidit, et de regno in creaturas. Utraque autem res, etiam in hac vita, nonnulla ex parte reparari potest; prior per religionem et fidem, posterior per artes et scientias. Neque enim per maledictionem facta est creatura prorsus et ad extremum rebellis; sed in virtute illius diplomatis, In sudore vultus comedes panem tuum, per labores varios, (non per disputationes certe, aut per otiosas ceremonias magicas), tandem et aliqua ex parte ad panem homini præbendum, id est, ad usus vitæ humanæ, subigitur.

That we may at length, as honest and faithful guardians, deliver over to men their possession, having first emancipated and enlarged their understandings : whence will necessarily follow an improvement of the condition of man and an encrease of his power over nature. For man by his fall lost both his state of innocence, and his dominion over the creatures. But both these losses can be in some degree repaired even in this life, the former by religion and faith, the latter by arts and sciences. For the creature was not by the curse made wholly and for ever rebellious; but in virtue of that commission,-In the sweat of thy face thou shalt eat thy bread, is at length subdued in some measure by various labors, (not certainly by disputations or idle magical ceremonies) so as to afford bread to man, that is, to minister to the purposes of human life.

ART. III.-1. Hamilton's East India Gazeteer, Articles,-Ava, Tavoy, Ye, Tenasserim, and Moulmein.

2. Narrative of the Burmese war and Treaty of peace at Yandaboo in 1826, by Major Snodgrass, London, 1827.

3. Calcutta Christian Observer.- Vols. III, IV, V, and VI.Papers on the Karens of Burmah.

4. The Calcutta Star, Englishman, and Hurkaru, and Friend of India, for 1845-6-7.- Various Articles on Moulmein and its affairs.

THE Burmese War was terminated by a treaty of peace and amity, concluded on the 24th of February 1826, between the Honorable the East India Company and the king of Ava. This treaty commonly called that of Yandaboo, cedes by its 4th article "the conquered provinces of Ye, Tavoy, Mergui, and Tenasserim, with the islands and dependencies thereunto appertaining, taking the Salween River as the line of demarcation on that frontier."

And here, at the outset, we may notice it as one proof, among many, of the comparatively small interest taken heretofore by the British public at home, in these Eastern regions, that, in the latest and most improved edition of that immense store-house of knowledge, the Encyclopedia Britannica, Moulmein, the British capital of these ceded provinces, is not even inserted at all! În like manner, neither Mergui nor Ye find a place there. The only names thus honoured are Tenasserim and Tavoy; and of both, the notices are equally short, defective, unsatisfactory, and even inaccurate. Here, for example, is the whole account of Tenasserim-" A town and district of the Burman Empire. The district extends along the sea coast, from the 11th to the 14th degrees of north latitude. A connected barrier of islands, extending 135 miles from north to south, with a strait between them and the mainland, from fifteen to thirty miles broad, protects the west coast from the south-west monsoon. The capital of the province is of the same name. It was taken in 1759 from the Siamese, by Alompra, and was then large and populous ; but is now almost a heap of ruins. Long. 98° 50′ East; Lat. 11° 42′ North." The very fact of its not having been a district of the Burman empire for the last twenty years, but an integral portion of the British, is not so much as noted!

To supply such glaring deficiencies, by gleaning information

from every available source, oral or written, published or unpublished, and combining the whole into an orderly and readable statement, has been our chief design in the following article. On some points we have met with the most fearfully conflicting accounts-dogmatic assertion boldy confronting counter-assertion equally dogmatic. In such cases, it would have been infinitely more easy and more pleasant at once to cut the gordian knot rather than attempt to disentangle it. But such a process would have broken in upon the continuity of our statement, and rendered it altogether incomplete. We have preferred encountering the more arduous task; we have compared statement with statement; we have weighed, as far as we could, the evidences, external and internal, presented in favour of each; we have thus been enabled to arrive at some definite conclusion in our own mind; and that conclusion we shall endeavour to lay before the reader as briefly as possible, simply as the result of our own independent inquiries, without troubling him with the perplexities and contradictions of heated controversy.

The tract of country, which, by the treaty of Yandaboo, fell into the hands of the East India Company, extends from the point of junction of the Thoongeen River, with the Salween on the North, to the Pak Chan River on the South; that is from about 17° 35' to 10° North Latitude; and from 97° 30' to 99° 30′ East Longitude. It now bears the general name of the Tenasserim Provinces, and may be said to have a length of about 500 miles, and a breadth varying from 80 to 40 miles, according as the Sea Coast approaches or recedes from the range of mountains which forms the Eastern Boundary of the British territory. This chain of mountains, rich in tin ores and other valuable minerals, runs under different names from North to South; and, draining its eastern slopes into the Gulf of Siam, and its western slopes into the Indian ocean or bay of Bengal, forms a clear, well-defined boundary between the kingdom of Siam and the East India Company's possessions.

It may be doubted whether by retaining the Tenasserim Provinces the Government of India did not in reality strengthen the kingdom of Ava; for the latter, by this cesssion, was disencumbered of a long narrow strip of territory, which, productive to that power of little revenue, was always a source of anxiety from the distance of Tavoy and Mergui, and the difficulty of supporting such remote provinces against internal or external foes. The Tenasserim Provinces were, for a series of ages, the battle ground on which, according to the accidental circumstances which are ever in action in semi-barbarous states,

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