422

Hamilton’s account of the east indies.

can go, and they ufe no fort of cock to their hats. Cotton cloths from Bengal andChormondel, with fome ftriped filks, are beff for their market, and filver of any fortis welcome to them. It pays the King 8| per cent, cuftom, but in lieu of that highduty, he indulges the merchants to melt it down, and put what alloy they pleafe in it,and then to pafs it off in payments as high as they can.

Rupee fdver, which has no alloy in it, will bear 28 per cent, of copper alloy, andkeep the Pegu touch, which they call flowered filver, and if it flowers, it paffescurrent.

Their way to make flowered filver is, when the filver and copper are mixed andmelted together, and while the metal is liquid, they put it into a fhallow mould, of•what figure or magnitude they pleafe, and before the liquidity is gone, they blow onit through a fmall wooden pipe, which makes the face, or part blown upon, appear withthe figures of flowers or liars; but I never faw any European or other foreigner at Pegu,have the art to make thofe figures appear, and if there is too great a mixture of alloy,no figures will appear.

The Ring generally adds 10 per cent, on all filver that comes into his treafury, be-sides what was put on at firft; and though it be not flowered, it mull go off in all hispayments, but from any body elfe it may be refufed if it is not flowered.

His government is arbitrary. All his commands are laws, but the reins of govern-ment are kept Heady and gently in the King’s own hand. He feverely punifhes hisgovernors of provinces or towns, if oppreffions or other illegal practices are provedupon them ; and to know how affairs pafs in the flate, every province or city has amandereen or deputy refiding at court, which is generally in the city of Ava, the pre-sent metropolis.

Every morning thefe mandareens are obliged to attend at court, and after His Ma-jeffy has dreffed and breakfaffed, which is generally on a difli of rice boiled in fairwater, and his fauce is fome fhrimps dried and powdered, and fome fait and cod-peppermixed with thofe two ingredients, and that mixture makes a very pungent fauce, whichthey call prock, and is in great efteem and ufe among the Peguers.

When his breakfafl is over, he retires into a room fo contrived that he can fee allthe attendants, but none can fee him, and a page Hands without to call whom the Kingwould have give account of the current news of his province or city, which is per-formed with profound reverence toward the room where the King Hays, and with adiftind audible voice ; and if any particular matter of confequence is forgot or omit-ted, and the King comes to hear of it by another hand, fevere punifhments follow,and fo he pafifes his mornings in hearing the neceffary cafes of his own affairs, as wellas thofe of his fubjecls.

If he is informed of treafon, murder, or fuch like heinous crimes, he orders thematter to be judicially tried before judges of his own choofing, for that time and affair,and on conviction he figns the dead warrant, wherein he orders, that the wretch con-vi&ed fhall trade no more on his ground, and execution prefently follows, either bybeheading, or ordering them to be fport for his elephants, which is the cruelleff death.Sometimes he baniflies them for a certain time to the woods, and if they are not de-voured by tigers, or killed by wild elephants, they may return when their term is ex-pired, and pafs the remainder of their days in ferving a tame elephant; and for fmaller-crimes they are only condemned to clean his elephants flables for life.

His fubjeds, if they may be fo called, treat him with fulfome adulation. When theyfpeak or w'rite to him they call him their god, (or in their language Kiack,) and in hisletters to foreign Princes, he affumes the title of King of Kings, to whom all other Kings

5 ought