On completing the palace (February, 1824), the king returned to Umerapoora, and, after brilliant parting festivities, came from thence with great pomp and ceremony, attended by the various governors, Chobwant, and highest officers. The procession, in which the white elephant, decorated with gold and gems, was conspicuous, displayed the glories of the kingdom, and great rejoicings pervaded all ranks.” It was at this time that the portentous omens that had menaced the Burman monarchy found a corroboration in truth; the glow of enmity, never to be extinguished even in the hearts of civilised men, fanned by the breath of presumption, had burnt into a flame that scorched and scared the weaker party. We must stay awhile to consider the causes, and which led to the appeal to arms in 1824. It may be imagined that an outbreak of some kind was far from being unexpected on the part of the Anglo-Indian government. There were two interests striving against each other and the world—or rather the Indian world—within the territories of Burmah. The first of these, creating more apparent commotion and less real damage, was the struggle between the dog-like royal family for the bone-like tiara; the second, more dangerous and more concealed, was the envious and avaricious passions of the nobles, or more properly, the officials employed by the Burmese government to defeat its wishes and objects; a task which the officials of every administration seldom fail to perform to the complete dissatisfaction of all parties. This has been the true cause of many disturbances in Burmah; and I am compelled to dissent in some degree from that feeling which causes Professor Wilson to say, that, “animated by the reaction, which suddenly elevated the Burmans from a subjugated and humiliated people, into conquerors and sovereigns, the era of their ambition may be dated from the recovery of their political independence; and their liberation from the temporary yoke of the Peguers was the prelude to their conquest of all the surrounding realms.”[265] This might be very true of the immediate successors of the great Alompra; but the power of the dignitaries had, by the time or which we now speak, risen to a very great pitch, which insensibly overawed and restrained the holder of the diadem, whoever he might be; and though, indeed, the “vigorous despotism” of Men-ta-ra-gyee might temporarily set at defiance this incomprehensible power, yet under the government of Nun-sun, the distant viceroys first, and gradually the less remote officers, resumed their former powerful position. And though they acted in subordination to the crown, and showed a species of heroism in defending its interests, yet they had raised the storm; and it was for them, they knew, to battle with it, and uphold that single bond, the destruction of which would have been totally ruinous to them.