The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c23.s4.32

v4.c23.s4.32

In May, 1759, the English, hard pressed in India, withdrew thirty-five Europeans and seventy Indians, almost the entire staff, from Negrais (p. 505). In October they sent a skeleton staff to retain a lien on the island. The governor of Bassein with Lavine, one of Bruno’s men who was in high favour, and sixty followers, met the new staff on arrival saying they had a letter from the king to show, and the senior officers messed with the English in the fort. A day later, 6 October, 1759, at nine in the morning when they were sitting down to breakfast together, the senior guest, the governor of Bassein, gave a sign and some of the 2000 Burmans concealed in the woods rushed in, killed eight English and about a hundred Indians, turned the cannon of the fort on the two ships at anchor, and finally withdrew with all cannon, stores, and four English. A midshipman and sixty-four Indians escaped on board. What had happened was that the Armenians at court, jealous of the English, had told Alaungpaya that the English were fortifying their stations, supplying the Talaings with arms, and spoiling his revenue by preventing other traders from coming up the Bassein river. Alaungpaya sent the governor of Rangoon, brother to his queen, to extirpate Negrais. The governor returned saying there must be some mistake, he had found the English there to be innocuous. Alaungpaya regarded him as a traitor, flogged all his men, sent a second party which actually did the work, and before letting him return to his high office flung him into irons and pegged him out in the sun for days with three beams across his body so that a year later he was still suffering from the effects. The governor of Bassein subsequently admitted that the English had not intrigued with the Talaings, but had fed a few refugees, just as they fed Burmese refugees, and had made presents of four or five muskets which the Armenians represented to Alaungpaya as 500. The English had not prevented ships coming up the river, because they regarded Alaungpaya as too strong a raja to offend. Under the treaty (p. 505) he had expressly permitted them to erect fortifications.¹