"It was a little after mid-day when we reached the town, which is
perched on a high bluff, overlooking the coasts, and contains about a
thousand houses, built of bamboo, and covered with palm leaves. Our
dress, appearance, language, and the manner of our arrival, excited
great surprise among the natives, and the liveliest curiosity; but
with these sentiments some evidently mingled no very friendly
feelings. The Burmese were then on the eve of a rupture with the East
India Company, a fact which we had not before known; and mistaking us
for English, they supposed, or affected to suppose, that we belonged
to a fleet which was about to invade them, and that our ship had been
sunk before their eyes, by the tutelar divinity of the country. We
were immediately carried before their governor, or chief magistrate,
who ordered our baggage to be searched, and finding that it consisted
principally of silver, he had no doubt of our hostile intentions. He
therefore sent all of us, twenty-two in number, to prison, separating,
however, each one from the rest. My companions were released the
following spring, as I have since learnt, by the invading army of
Great Britain; but it was my ill fortune (if, indeed, after what has
since happened, I can so regard it) to be taken for an officer of high
rank, and to be sent, the third day afterwards, far into the interior,
that I might be more safely kept, and either used as a hostage or
offered for ransom, as circumstances should render advantageous.
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