Early in the sixteenth century we find the Portuguese masters of Malacca, and it is from them only that we can learn anything concerning the habits of the nations then, as now, inhabiting that region. But so meagre and so overlaid with fiction are their accounts, that it would be useless to take up time and space in recounting their marvellous histories. The Burmans, though formerly subject to the king of Pegu, became afterward masters of Ava, and caused a revolution in Pegu about the middle of the sixteenth century.... The Portuguese assisted the Burmans against the Peguers, and if we may believe Pinto, performed prodigies of valour. But their influence rapidly declined in Burmah and Arakhan; and on the ascendancy of the Dutch being established, they rapidly sunk into insignificance and contempt. The English and Dutch appear both to have had settlements in Burmah in the beginning of the seventeenth century; but on the misconduct of the settlers, they were banished from Ava, and no European of any nation was permitted to enter the country. In 1687, however, we find the English at Syriam and Negrais, trading rather as private adventurers, than as on the part of the India Company. On the latter island, however, the government of Fort St. George had established a settlement. But men and money were wanting, and the colony seemed to have languished on, just keeping, as it were, above high-water mark. About the year 1740, the Peguers in the provinces of Dalla, Martaban, Tongo, and Prome, raised the standard of revolt, and the nation being split into factions, a civil war ensued. In 1744, the British factory in Syriam was destroyed, and thus an almost fatal blow was given to the commercial interests at stake in the country. The war lasted long, and was doubtful enough in its character, till the Peguers, by obtaining some indifferent arms from a few Europeans still in the country, gained some advantages over the Burmans, and pursuing their victorious career, they invested the city of Ava in 1752. It soon surrendered, for the Burmese were sick at heart, and utterly discouraged. The king, whose name, according to Sangermano,[208] was Chioekmen, though Symes states it to have been Dweepdee,[209] was seized, and, together with the whole court, carried to Pegu, where, after receiving kind treatment for some time, he was barbarously murdered, after witnessing the slaughter of all his wives. Two of his sons, however, escaped into Siam, where they were kindly received.