Some little time before the operations in Cachar were brought to a temporary close, Lord Amherst conceived the idea of diverting the attention of the Burmese from our possessions to their own, and of turning what had hitherto been a defensive war, on the part of the English, into an offensive one. Accordingly, after a formal declaration of war, and the promulgation of an address containing the details of the origin of the quarrel, the court commenced active preparations for an expedition into the enemy’s territory. The idea was a good one, and it was nobly pursued; yet, though it was successful in its ultimate object, it unfortunately cost the government more than its proceeds in land can possibly repay for many years. The military resources of the Burmese were infinitely over-estimated, while the facilities for obtaining food and proper housing for the troops were also totally unknown, except from the work of Symes, who evidently caused the whole mischief, as far as the inadequate outfit was concerned. The consequences of his hasty views ought to be a warning to all travellers in countries so little known as Burmah was then, and, indeed, in many points is now. Symes sacrificed truth for the sake of making an agreeable and amusing book, which it is to be hoped no one else will do. “The British government was driven into that war by the insolence and aggressions of the court of Ava, intoxicated with the uninterrupted success which had attended all its schemes of aggrandisement from the days of Alompra. The most ambitious of our governors-general had entertained no views of conquest in that quarter. Lord Hastings had anxiously staved off the contest, at the close of his administration, by a political artifice. But Lord Amherst, the most moderate and pacific, was compelled to add vast provinces, covered for the most part with trackless forests, miserably under-peopled, unhealthy, and far beyond our natural boundaries, to our already enormous empire. In this case there was everything to dissuade from appropriation. It was known that the climate of one of the provinces was equally deadly to our European and our native troops; it was known that many years must elapse before any of them could support their own indispensable establishments; but there was no escape. It was absolutely necessary to interpose sufficient barriers between our peaceable subjects, on a frontier where it was impossible to maintain large military establishments, and their barbarous neighbours; to provide places of refuge for the reluctant tributaries, or half-conquered subjects of the Burmese, from whom we had received cordial assistance during the war; and, not less, to inflict upon Ava a chastisement, the smart of which might protect us from future encroachment and annoyance.”[274]