THARAWADI, THE MAD KING OF AVA.

Lyttelton Times, Volume X, Issue 591, 3 July 1858, Page 3

THARAWADI, THE MAD KING OF AVA.

(From a Narrative of the Mission sent by the Governor- General of India to the Court of Ava, in 1855.)

BY CAPTAIN HENEY YULE.

For a year or two the King's violent and menacing conduct, surrounded, as he continued to be by disreputable subjects and low foreigners, troubled the British Government every now and then with the apprehension of what they so much dreaded—a second Burmese war. Especially was this the case in the latter part of 1841, when King Tharawadi visited Rangoon with his whole court; a visit which had been preceded by a great note of military preparation. The King was " letting I dare not, wait upon I would," but he was not without a just sense of the British power, whatever might be his vaunts when stimulated by pride, passion, and 1 flattery. So, in the end, prudence, and, probably the King's impatience of everything like serious business, prevailed. In spite of his caprices and insane cruelties, there must have been some attractive points about this King, for he js still spoken of at Araarapcora with something of kindly rememberance. This, however, may have been in great measure the result of the terror and hatred inspired by the more systematic and cold-blooded atrocities of the son who succeeded him on the throne. Tharawadi was a man of more active habits than has been usual among the Burmese kings, and was fond of mechanical arts. As early as the period of his assumption of the throne, symptoms of insanity in Tharawadi's conduct had been noticed by Colonel Barney. The shock occasioned by the explosion of the powder magazine within the palace walls, in the beginning of 1841, is said to have further unsettled his mind. The ferocity, which had been developed at the time of his first success, increased from year to year, in conjunction with caprice and whimsical extravagances, and occasionally broke out as unmistakable derange- j ment. A 'few anecdotes, noted from the recol- j lection of residents in the country at the time, will give an idea of the Burmese Court under King Tharawadi. In 1843, when Sir Charles Napier's campaign in Sinde was first heard of at Amarapoora, the king remarked to an English merchant that he was on the best of terms with the British, and that if the Government would only send ships to Rangoon, he would put a thousand men on board every ship, to go and fight on our part in Sinde. " I want nothino- from Queen Victoria in return, he said, "except a small feather or some such trifle." At the time when he made this chivalrous oifer his Majesty was putting people to death every day with his own hand. Through something of the same feeling, perhaps, that made him so anxious to get rid of Burney, it was noticed

that the king committed no murders on days when the gentleman just mentioned came to court, insomuch that one of the Woongyis begged him to visit the king daily. On one occasion, the king was riding; his horse stumbled, and the umbrella-bearer, who ran alongside, laid hold of the reins to recover it. The poor man was immediately shot. Moung Pedru, governor of Pagan, and a Mussulman, was ordered to be put into a pig-sty and then put to death. A favorite : royal amusement was to make any one who happened to be present kneeldown with his face to the ground, when the king, drawing his sword, would facetiously score a cheesboard with gashes on the unfortunate's bare back. A man who is still in office about the court can show the chequered endorsement of King Tharawadi's favors. Often he would have two or three men taken out, and would set them up to be shot at with his double-barrelled gun. He used to procure the livers of his victims and offer them to the tutelary spirits of various trees. In the latteryears of his reign Tharawadi quitted the capital, and lived almost entirely at Made, a village on the Irawadi, a few miles north of the city, at which he had built a palace. In the summer of 1845 he had become so outrageous that scarcely any one dared to go near him. One of his illegitimate sons, the Pyee-Men—Prince of Prome—having succeeded in removing all ;the king's weapons.put him under restraint.and took on himself the royal authority. But the king, with the cunning of the insane, affected recovery, and after a few days got back the reins into his own hands. His first desire was to put his son to death. The prince, however, escaped for a time to the Shan states. The king, suspecting the Woongyi Moung Youkgyi, who had been formerly governor of Rangoon, to have been cognisant of the prince's intentions, speared him with his own hand. A few months later—Sept., 1845,—a more successful attempt was made to put the king under restraint. One of his sons, called the Taroup-mau Mentha—Prince of Chinese Point —assisted by some ofneers of the court, seized his person, removed him to the Palace of Amarapoora, and placed him there in confinement. ;The attendance of his women and servants was allowed him till the end of his life, in Nov., 1846. During this interval the Government was exorcised by the Prince of Pagan, the king's eldest legitimate son, but he did not assume the royal title till his father's death.