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goon until 1794, the merchants doing little business, while the Company's agents possessed no political influence, and occupied for the most part positions of great humiliation.

Over Chittagong and Assam, however, the Company had established its hold, and when in 1794 the Burmese sent 5,000 armed men into the former province "to ar- rest robbers dead or alive," the British at last showed fight, and the Burmese yielded without forcing the issue. The following year Capt. Michael Symes was sent upon his famous embassy to Ava, a mission of which he sub- sequently wrote an elaborate account. He was accom- panied by Lieutenant Woods, who made the first reliable survey of the Irawadi from Rangoon to Ava, and by Dr. Buchanan, who collected a great deal of information bearing upon the districts traversed. This was the only really important achievement of the mission, for Symes was treated with the utmost insolence, was presented to the King, in circumstances of intense humiliation, upon a kodau, or "beg-pardon day," and effected nothing of any importance. He moreover carried away with him a wholly exaggerated idea of the might of Ava, and though Cox, the next envoy, corrected his predecessor's erroneous impressions, Symes was regarded at the time as the more reliable authority, and his book was probably not with- out its effect in leading the Government of India into continuing the weak-kneed policy which had too long been followed towards the arrogant Burmese Court. Be- tween the time of Cox's visit and 1810 three other mis- sions were sent to Ava, each in turn to be subjected to insults which it is humiliating to recall, and on each