Eighteen views taken at & near Rangoon [with]

£17,500 · Offered by Shapero Rare Books

from the library of a protagonist in the war Moore's views of Rangoon constitute the finest depiction of events during the first Burmese War. This copy comes from the library of John Ravenshaw, a Director of the East India Company (and later Chairman) at the time of the incursion into Burma. By the early nineteenth century, the British were firmly established as the masters of India, and following Burmese excursions on its north-eastern frontier, the East India Company declared war on Burma in February 1824. This led to a full-scale seaborne assault on Rangoon, with 11,000 troops, which the EIC (East India Company) army found largely abandoned by its inhabitants. Over the two-year course of the war, both sides suffered huge casualties - on the British and Indian side alone some 40,000 troops were killed, and losses on the Burmese side were even more considerable. The Burmese were eventually defeated and forced to cede territory and pay a huge indemnity to the EIC. Thus began the process which would lead to Burma's annexation by the British Empire in 1889. The present series of images begins in May 1824, with the first plate showing British vessels preparing to set sail from the Harbour of Port Cornwallis on the Island of Andaman (off the Northeast coast of India). This is followed by the British landing at Rangoon, the storming of various stockades and forts around the city, the capture of a Burman gilt war boat, and naval battles involving dozens of ships. Interspersed with

• Binding: Hardcover

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