The troops are subject to a rigorous discipline. The power of capital punishment is not vested only in the general, but the officer of any corps that happens to be somewhat distant from the main body, has the same liberty of punishing with death, and this without appeal, any soldier that he judges worthy of it. “The sword,” observes Sangermano, “is always hanging over the head of the soldier, and the slightest disposition to flight, or reluctance to advance, will infallibly bring it down upon him. But what above all,” continues the Father, “tends to hold the Burmese soldiery to their duty, is the dreadful execution that is done on the wives and children of those who desert. The arms and legs of these miserable victims are bound together with no more feeling than if they were brute beasts, and in this state they are shut up in cabins made of bamboo, and filled with combustible material, which are then set on fire by means of a train of gunpowder.”[75] The power of the king, however, is as great over his officers, as that of his officers over the common soldiers. “Woe to the commander,” exclaims the quaint old missionary, “woe to the commander who suffers himself to be worsted! The least he can expect is the loss of all his honours and dignities; but if there has been the slightest negligence on his part, his possessions and life must also be sacrificed to the anger of the emperor.” The iron rule of the king has caused a vast falling off in his subjects, who have withdrawn to Siam and to the British possessions in Bengal and Arakhan. The maxim of the government has been the saying of its king:—“We must hold down the Burmese by oppression, so that they may never dare to meditate rebellion.” Another anecdote is related[76] of the same king, Men-ta-ra-gyee; and though it may be apocryphal, yet it shows the spirit of the age. Some one of his court represented to him that the incessant wars were materially reducing the number of his subjects; but the only reply vouchsafed by the inexorable monarch was, “It matters but little; for if all the men are killed, then we can enrol and arm the women.”