After an irregular pursuit for some distance, Alompra returned to his fortress, aware of the danger of trusting himself too near to a less panic-struck population. Arrived at that place, he addressed a few words to his comrades, telling them that they had now cast their fortunes together, and that he and they were in as great danger; he called upon them all for assistance, and he invited the Burman towns in the neighbourhood to assist him in the glorious work he had begun so auspiciously. The Burmans were scarcely disposed to lend a willing ear to his exhortations, yet some places gave in their adhesion to his government. Such was the first decisive combat that was to change the fortunes of Burmah. Dotachew, with the characteristic irresolution of a deputy, seems to have procrastinated frightfully. Probably he was a young man, utterly unacquainted with the art of war, and placed in the responsible position he occupied by his uncle, merely that the important office should not go out of the family; possibly, his very inefficiency, by the strange contradiction that always pervades a court, led to his promotion; at all events he was utterly unfit for his business, and at this time, when a few energetic measures would have crushed the rebellion at once, he was peculiarly unfitted by his disposition for this important duty. He was uncertain whether it would be more advisable to march against Alompra with the forces at his command, not exceeding three thousand, or to wait for reinforcements from Prome; the third course was to retreat, or rather, in this case, to run away. I have not space to enter into a discussion of which the most advisable measure would have been; yet had he set lustily forward, and cheered his men by a good example, he would have led them on to a certain, though perhaps not easy, victory. However, he neither marched forward, or waited at Ava; but discretion seeming to be the better portion of his valour, he ran away, and, terrified at the reports, no doubt exaggerated in every way, of the growing power of the enemy, he never stopped till he reached Pegu, toward the latter end of the autumn in the year 1753. Alompra meanwhile advanced on Ava, and, assisted by the enslaved Burmans in the capital, took the city, and put the few Peguers who had not pursued the valiant fortunes of Dotachew, to death. Alompra, however, hearing that the Peguese governor had fled, did not personally conduct the operations at Ava, but deputed this to his second son, Shembuan, himself remaining, or returning to Moutzoboo.