DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4651#0284
IN THE BURMHAN EMPIRE.
273
instance of the meanness and low cunning that
pervades all their actions, from the highest to
the lowest; the same injunctions were repeated
this day. At four p. m. Mr. Burnett returned,
and informed me that all the translations were
completed; it only remained to make a fair copy
of the Burmhan writing, which was to be done
next day.
Mr. Moncourtuse in translating, whenever he
came to the word I, or me, under pretence that
there was no other mode of rendering it politely,
constantly introduced the term " praw kuendo,"
which he averred, meant your humble servant,
but, in fact, literally means your lordship's slave:
I, therefore, thought proper to speak of myself,
wherever I, or me, occurred in the third person, as
the Resident, or the Representative of the Go-
vernor-General, for the term his majesty uses to
designate me, is Gogouncy, or, the Company;
and as he lias given the same title to a scoundrel
of a Mussulman, (Bhoodhim), who has purchased
from his courtiers the exclusive privilege of trade
at Rangoon, and has been practising a thousand
infamous tricks there, I, therefore, do not mean
to admit the use of the term, Gogouncy, as a
proper designation for me; and trust, the ho-
nourable the Governor-General, frc., will approve
of my tenaciousness on these points.
June 17. This being the Burmhan sabbath, or
T
273
instance of the meanness and low cunning that
pervades all their actions, from the highest to
the lowest; the same injunctions were repeated
this day. At four p. m. Mr. Burnett returned,
and informed me that all the translations were
completed; it only remained to make a fair copy
of the Burmhan writing, which was to be done
next day.
Mr. Moncourtuse in translating, whenever he
came to the word I, or me, under pretence that
there was no other mode of rendering it politely,
constantly introduced the term " praw kuendo,"
which he averred, meant your humble servant,
but, in fact, literally means your lordship's slave:
I, therefore, thought proper to speak of myself,
wherever I, or me, occurred in the third person, as
the Resident, or the Representative of the Go-
vernor-General, for the term his majesty uses to
designate me, is Gogouncy, or, the Company;
and as he lias given the same title to a scoundrel
of a Mussulman, (Bhoodhim), who has purchased
from his courtiers the exclusive privilege of trade
at Rangoon, and has been practising a thousand
infamous tricks there, I, therefore, do not mean
to admit the use of the term, Gogouncy, as a
proper designation for me; and trust, the ho-
nourable the Governor-General, frc., will approve
of my tenaciousness on these points.
June 17. This being the Burmhan sabbath, or
T