The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c23.s4.42

v4.c23.s4.42

The East India Company sent Captain Alves to demand compensation for the Negrais murders, but were in no position to enforce it as their hands were full in India. The king told Alves that the Negrais victims were innocent, but they had to suffer for their predecessors who, he had no doubt, supplied arms to the Talaings, since, according to the law of nature, the innocent suffer with the guilty, just as, when a farmer clears the ground by burning the rank grass, the wheat burns along with the tares.¹ He refused compensation but permitted the Company to return provided they did not go to Negrais. He probably never saw the treaty by which Negrais had been ceded in perpetuity (p. 505) and had he seen it he would have regarded it as a grant revocable at pleasure: Burmese kings were not acquainted with the nature of treaties. Living inland, they could not understand what made the English prefer an island on their base, the sea, and they were firmly convinced that some deep plot was being hatched there. The Company had to come to Rangoon.