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sion, but none the less British intercourse with the country shortly afterwards became freer than it ever was again until after the annexation of Pegu in 1852. The East India Company had settlements at Prome, Ava and Sir- ian, and a trading-post somewhere on the confines of China, at a place which in all probability was Bhamo, on the Irawadi, over 300 miles above Mandalay. The Dutch Company also had a considerable trade with Burma, pos- sessing factories in the upper districts, and, it is said, occupying the island of Negrais. From 1631 to 1677 they had a factory at Sirian, once the capital of the ill-fated de Brito, and Valentyn attributes their abandon- ment of trade with Burma to the constant wars which in this region made peaceful commerce impossible. The British trade also languished, but between 1680 and 1684 the Company reestablished its factories in Burma, and in 1686-7 the island of Negrais was surveyed and taken nominal possession of by the English. In 1695 Nathaniel Higginson, the Governor of Fort St. George, sent Edward Fleetwood and Capt. James Lesley to Ava with presents to the King, out of which the sender, who instructed his agents to haggle manfully, hoped to make a profit in the form of return-gifts. A grant for a new factory at Sirian was obtained, and a Resident was appointed there to su- pervise the trade, but almost immediately afterwards a gen- eral expulsion of foreigners took place, and thenceforth the East India Company had no direct financial stake in Burmese commerce. Sirian, however, continued to be the residence of British and other foreign merchants, and when the Siamese and the Peguans, leagued together