SOAS Research Online

Abstract

By the Treaty of Yandabo, which terminated the First Burmese War (1824-1826), the Burmese ceded to the British the coastal provinces of Mergui, Tavoy, Ye and a portion of Martaban, collectively known as the Tenasserim provinces, as well as the province of Arakan. As the war had been declared by Lord Amherst, the Governor-General of Bengal, the conquered provinces technically formed a part of the Bengal Presidency, and were placed by the Directors of the East India Company under the minute supervision of the Governor-General in Council. Administration was begun during the war; the provinces of Mergui and Tavoy were entrusted to jjthe superintendence of Fullerton, the Governor of Prince of Wales Island; Robertson was the first commissioner of Arakan, Maingy sent to Burma by Fullerton the first Commissioner of Mergui and Tavoy, while Grawfurd and Fenwick were the first administrators of Martaban and Ye. From the beginning, the administrations of Arakan and Tenasserim were quite distinct, and there are no common records. Fullerton and Maingy who together drew up the earliest revenue, police and judicial regulations for Mergui and Tavoy, laid the foundations of British rule in Tenasserim. Arakan, after a short spell of bad administration, was subjected for five years to the control of the Commissioner of Chittagong. The period 1826-1843 marks the transition between Burmese and British rule; in both provinces efforts were made to retain much that was beneficent in native institutions and practice and to destroy all that was corrupt and cruel. The administration was Non-Regulation in character, and much handicapped by restricted expenditure yet, in spite of the inefficiency of Hunter and Paton in Arakan, and the mediocrity of Blundell in Tenasserim, the period boasts of three administrators viz : Maingy, Bogle and Phayre who by personal talent and unwearied zeal laid the foundations for the future progress of Burma.