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The arms in use among the Burmese are clumsy two-handed sabres, named dàs, lances, bows, and matchlocks. A few cannon are managed by a corps of Christians in the service of the country. These Christians, in the time of Anaundoprà, amounted, with their wives and families, to about two thousand, being the descendants of the Portuguese transported from Syriam more than a century before. Their gunpowder they manufacture themselves, and Crawfurd pronounces it to be as bad as any prepared in the Orient.[73] Snodgrass,[74] Crawfurd, Wilson, and others, are unanimous in pronouncing the chief military talents of the Burmese to lie in field-works; yet, though their position was well selected and quickly occupied, the execution of their stockades, with a few exceptions, seems to be very inferior.

After their conquest of Munipur they enrolled a small body of cavalry, which, however, has rarely proved effective, for the horses are of very inferior quality.

The troops are subject to a rigorous discipline. The power of capital punishment is not vested only in the general, but the officer of any corps that happens to be somewhat distant from the main body, has the same liberty of punishing with death, and this without appeal, any soldier that he judges worthy of it. “The sword,” observes Sangermano, “is always hanging over the head of the soldier, and the slightest disposition to flight, or reluctance to advance, will infallibly bring it down upon him. But what above all,” continues the Father, “tends to hold the Burmese soldiery to their duty, is the dreadful execution that is done on the wives and children of those who desert. The arms and legs of these miserable victims are bound together with no more feeling than if they were brute beasts, and in this state they are shut up in cabins made of bamboo, and filled with combustible material, which are then set on fire by means of a train of gunpowder.”[75] The power of the king, however, is as great over his officers, as that of his officers over the common soldiers. “Woe to the commander,” exclaims the quaint old missionary, “woe to the commander who suffers himself to be worsted! The least he can expect is the loss of all his honours and dignities; but if there has been the slightest negligence on his part, his possessions and life must also be sacrificed to the anger of the emperor.”