“The reduction of a place of such importance as Bassein, could not but operate materially in the general result of the campaign[1].” By its annexation to the other conquered provinces, the enemy was deprived of all his maritime possessions from Cape Negrais to Tenasserim.
Captain Marryat assumed the command of the Tees, at Rangoon, April 15th, 1825; and finally left that river about the middle of the following month. It is almost superfluous to add, that he was repeatedly thanked by the Governor-General in Council for his valuable services in Ava, every operation which he had arranged or conducted having proved eminently successful.
At Prome, the months of June, July, and August, 1825, w«ire necessarily spent in inactivity, from the setting in of the rainy season, and the prevalence of the inundations. The monsoon, however, proved mild; the troops and seamen were comfortably hutted; there was no want of provisions; and, although extensive sickness occurred, it was not more than was fairly attributable to the nature of the service and the season of the year, and was by no means so severe as that of the previous rains at Rangoon; nor, indeed, more so than it would have been in any of the lower Gangetic provinces. The only men-of-war remaining stationary at Rangoon during the wet monsoon, this year, were the Alligator and Arachne; both of them unrigged, and roofed in with bamboos thatched with leaves, which proved a great saving of lives and stores. The duties of the naval department there were conducted by Captain Chads, with his usual ability and zeal. Pegu was at this period occupied by 200 sepoys, who were frequently threatened with attacks; and on one occasion Lieutenant Keele was detached with a party of seamen to their support. Two divisions of gun-boats, armed with 24-pounder carronades, having now arrived from Arracan, under the command of Mr. Ravenscroft, of the Bengal pilot service, and got into the Irrawaddy by the way of Bassein, all the gun-vessels were stationed at regular distances, so as to form a chain of posts
- ↑ Snodgrass, 136.
