Description:
"Under the terms of the Treaty of Yandabo, which ended the first
Anglo-Burmese war of 1824-26, the Government of India sent
Henry Burney to Burma as Resident Minister to the Court of Ava.
Arriving at post in April 1830 he kept a journal in which, a few
months later, he recorded the following:
August 12
I paid a visit this morning to an extraordinary character, an
uncle of the King, named Mekkhra Mon tha or Prince of
Mekkhra. He has been taught to read and understand
English by the late Mr Rogers, and he evinces a very
laudable desire of becoming acquainted with European
science and literature.
(Tarling, ed.1995:59)
Burney goes on to say that he and his associates considered the
Prince to be certainly the most extraordinary man we have seen in
this country? in that he possessed an impressive English library,
was already well informed in scientific matters, had translated
extracts from Rees?s Cyclopaedia and – with the help of an
American missionary – had well-nigh completed an English-
Burmese dictionary.
According to Burney, then, the tutor credited with enabling the
Prince to do all this was the late Mr Rogers.? But how did this
intriguing English-born character come to be there, and who
exactly was he? I raise the question because, while most of the
information we have about Rogers is based on his own accounts of
his background, those accounts are not consistent. I shall
therefore, working backwards from 1830, collate various pieces of
information about him in an attempt to establish the truth about
his past. We must first jump back four years..."
Source/publisher:
SOAS Bulletin of Burma Research, Vol. 3, No. 2, Autumn 2005,
Date of Publication:
2005-09-00
Date of entry:
2010-10-03
Grouping:
- Individual Documents
Category:
Language:
English