The Sun.
London, England, 1824-07-19 00:00:00

WAR IN INDIA.

gi By an arrival from Calcutta of the middle
of March last, it appears that we are again at war in India. A
new enemj has sprung up, and in a quarter with which hitherto
we have almost invariably succeeded In maintaining a commer-
cial and friendly intercourse. The King, of Av.,reigning over
the extensive territory and numerous nation of Birmans, has
compelled Tilt Vt Itripit-GENERAL to declare war against
him ; and the provocations tO h are recited in a public manifesto
at full' length. 'The Birman " ernfiire," as it is called by geo-
graphers, extends along the eastern shore of the Bay of Bengal,
of which the western side forms part of the British dominions,
and is not less than 1,000 or 1,100 miles long, by upwards of 600
broad. This country fills up, in one direction, the interval be-
tween the Chinese empire and Bengal, being on the south-west
frontier of the former, and on the east and north-east of
the latter. Its population has been stated by Colonel SY DIES at
17,000,000 ; by a later authority, at half that amount. A mean
between them will be about 12 or 13 millions of inhabi-
tants, of whom all the males are, by the laws of the coun-
try, obliged to bear arms when called upon. The English had
a dispute with the Court of Alta in 1795, respecting some Bir-
mese robbers, who had taken refuge at Chittagong; but though
Gen. ERSKINE was sent with a military force from Calcutta
to repel the invasion of. the Birmese, the quarrel was settled,
o
and the delinquents given up, without any actual hostility,-
-If the Manifesto of the Indian Government may be believed,
some design of aggression upon the Company's empire has
been maturing by the King of Ava. for a considerable time,
and has been persevered in with much determination, in spite
of our remonstrances. The hostile acts have, it seems, been
multiplied along the whole line of our Eastern frontier, from
the island of Shapuree, where a post of British Sepoys was
attacked and destroyed, to the small State of Cachar, under
the protection of England,. and to the British town of Sylhet,
, within 260 miles of Calcutta, where a body of Birman troops
have been collected. The Bengal Government complained, but
fruitlessly. The officers and crew of a Company's ship were
enticed on shore by the Birmese autorities of Arracan, and car-
ried offprisoners sto the interior. The conquest of Jynteca, a
chieftainship dependent on Great Britain, was planned by
the Court of Ave, acid fruitrated only by the advance of the
British forces. Older all these demonstrations of enmity, for
which no excuse, explanation, or apology had been vouchsafed
THE GovELINOR GENEitAr. does unquestionably seem to
have been left with no alternative, but a direct appeal to arms.
What can have been the exciting cause to this desperate vio-
lence on, the part of a native power, familiar, surely, with the
spirit and resources of this country, is a point of some import-
, auce. We find, that in the wars of die last century, between the
Native Courts then dividing, what now constitutes the Birman
empireamongst them,France wasfound uniformly intermeddling
anti co-operating with the Pegnese—that is to say, with the party
against which the particular power in alliance with England
was engaged. Can European intrigues have any influence
upon the present policy of Ave ? It is to be regretted that
such a contest should have arisen with a State so contiguous to
Bengal, and further, with one from which we have far many
years derived a large supply of teak wood for ship-building.—
A postscript to the Calcutta article mentions that a smart action
took place with the Birmese on the Sylhet frontier, when 400
or 500 of them were killed and wounded, and the remainder
retreated in the direction of Munnipore."—[From the Times
Saturday.]