About This Book
The author provides a mid-19th-century survey of Burmese political, legal, military, and social institutions, portraying the king's absolute authority and the bureaucratic offices, courts, police, and revenue systems that enforce it. He details fiscal burdens and trade patterns, notes natural resources such as petroleum, and critiques judicial iniquities and military organization, including elite corps and ceremonial reverence for the white elephant. Alongside ethnographic observations about custom, industry, and agriculture, he debates colonial options—annexation or creating a dependent Pegu kingdom—and urges cautious missionary and legal reforms to encourage commerce and stability.