embassies, which had so fatally miscarried, and in the expulsion of the Dutch without any communication made to him on the subject. The professions of the ambassadors were received coldly, and answered unmeaningly, nor was it till Rajadhi's death (which occurred in 1798) that the sentiments of the Kandian Court underwent a change. The first Adigar or prime minister, Pilame Talame by name, resolved to take advantage of the death of Rajadhi for his own aggrandizement. He therefore elevated a youthful illegitimate son of the last prince to the throne, conscious that he shonld thus obtain the real, whilst his creature held the nominal, sovereignty. The other members of the royal family were imprisoned by the usurper, and Mútu Sawmy, the queen's brother, alone succeeded in reaching the English.

On the arrival of Mr. North, afterwards the Earl of Guildford, to assume the governorship of the British possessions in the Island, Talame was not slow in opening a communication with him, promising, if encouraged, to murder his sovereign, and assume the crown as a tributary prince. These proposals in the open injustice in which they were clothed, Mr. North did not encourage, but proposed that the King and Court should reside in the British territories, whilst Talame should govern as Viceroy at Kandy. To this neither the King nor Talame would agree, and the negociations accordingly ended in no important result.

In 1802, however, a difference arose between the Kandian and British authorities, which produced a wasting and destructive war. The plunder of some Mahommedan merchants proceeding from the Coast into the interior was made the ground of demanding satisfaction by the authorities at Colombo. This the Kandian Court would not give, and, accordingly, early in 1803, General Macdowall and Colonel Barbut were ordered to advance on Kandy from Colombo and Trincomalee respectively. They arrived at, and took possession of, the town, which was completely deserted, and there they proclaimed Mútu Samy, King of Kandy and the interior. A treaty was then entered into with him as an independent sovereign, which contained numerous stipulations in favor of his new friends. Amongst these, one article declared that a tract of land stretching directly through the heart of the Kandian territories from Trincomalee to Colombo should be ceded, in perpetuity, to the English for the construction of a road, and another, that a British force should be stationed at Kandy to secure the new sovereign from the violence of his mountaineer subjects.

Whilst these transactions were proceeding at Kandy, Pilame

Talame, the general of the native forces, was hovering about the town and cutting off the communication with Colombo. So well were his measures taken, that in a short time the roads to the interior from the Coast were impassable to small detachments, and Kandy became in fact a blockaded town. In this condition he again opened a communication with the British General, offering to deliver up the young King, Singha, to his enemies, and to make a suitable provision for Mútu Samy, if the Viceroyalty were given to himself by the British. These were the very proposals formerly offered by his enemies, and were now only renewed to lull General Macdowall into security. They had the desired effect. The General was rash enough to trust one to be true to his enemies who had proved false to his country, and before the stipulations were fulfilled, he led a large proportion of his troops to Colombo, sending Colonel Barbut to Trincomalee, and leaving an officer incapable of command, Major Davie, in charge of the garrison at Kandy (about 1,000 strong) with the unfortunate Mútu Samy. All the subsequent disasters are to be traced to this fatal proceeding. No sooner had the respective detachments reached their stations, than Talame, still further to delude the authorities at Colombo, held a conference with Mr. North, at which the treaty was ratified, and a promise made to deliver up the unfortunate Singha within a stated period. Now it was that Major Davie ought to have found out the necessity for some measure on his part to ward off approaching danger. Large bodies of armed men were seen concentrating in the neighbourhood of Kandythe stragglers from the town were being cut off, and every thing portended a determination on the part of the natives to make a vigorous attack upon the capital.

Yet the most supine indifference was betrayed by its defenders, until at length a formidable attack was made upon the town. This the garrison were unprepared for, and it was with some difficulty that their commander could obtain an armistice in which he proposed a surrender. The conditions of the surrender were, that the town should be delivered up with all its military stores and baggage, and that the troops (about 500 strong) with their arms alone should proceed to Trincomalee. The same evening the melancholy march was commenced, one hundred and twenty sick soldiers in hospital being left to the barbarity of their enemies-every one of whom was murdered. From Kandy to the ford of the Mahavelliganga, on the road to Trincomalee, is a distance of about three miles--when they arrived at it, the river was found to be so swollen by the late rains as to render passage without

boats impossible. These however were not to be obtainedMajor Davie and his little band stood in irresolution on the bank, whilst their taunting enemies occupied the hills around. Next morning negotiations were renewed, and such was the destitute condition of the force that the Kandians had the effrontery to demand the surrender of Mútu Samy for torture and murder, as the price of their assistance to enable them to pass the river-whilst, more extraordinary still! Major Davie had the barbarity to comply with their demand. Mútu Samy, the unfortunate victim of what we grieve to call by its right name, British treachery, was delivered to the barbarians and suffered the agonizing and lingering death of impalement. Will it be believed that this was done-this act of treachery consummated-before the Kandians had fulfilled their part of the unhallowed compact? Mútu Samy was in their power, was already suffering for having received British protection, whilst the pusillanimous Davie with the men he had the misfortune to command, were still on the left bank of the river. He asked for the fulfilment of their agreement-they laughed at his folly, and proposed that he should conduct his troops unarmed back to Kandy. What were they to do there? Davie knew not. What hope of safety did that hold out? none whatever; and yet the wretched man agreed to it; agreed to it without consulting his brother officers, without informing the troops of his being about to offer them up as a sacrifice to his own insensate folly or cowardice, and Kandian cruelty. The fatal order was given "ground your arms"-the soldiers, ignorant of the compact agreed upon, did so, nor did the officers dare openly to resist, although they remonstrated with their superior. The arms were removed by the Kandians, the soldiers marched into a defile, the three superior officers, Major Davie, Capt. Rumley and Capt. Humphreys were separated from them, and the unfortunate force was then murdered-butchered in cold blood-unarmed and defenceless as they were, by the Kaffirs in the Kandian army! Major Davie and his brother officers lingered on and at length died in hopeless captivity. It is related in Ceylon, although we cannot vouch for the truth of the report, that on the occupation. of the interior in 1815, Davie was still alive, but aware of the execrations heaped on his head by his fellow countrymen in the island, dared not reveal himself, and lived with a Singhalese wife in the savage style of a remote part of the large tract to the East of Kandy, called Bintenne, where even at the present day the face of a white man is not seen once perhaps in many

years.

There was, in the whole transaction, but one redeeming trait, and that was in the conduct of a Malay officer, Nouradín by name, who happened then to be with Major Davie. The abilities and energy of Nouradín were known to Talame and he, in consequence, made him the most splendid offers if he would consent to desert the British service. This Nouradín refused to do-and even when the force had been captured and the same proposals renewed, with the information that his refusal of their acceptance would be followed by instant death, his answer was that he preferred that to treachery and desertion. He was immediately afterwards beheaded.

The retaking of their capital proportionably elevated the spirits and hopes of the Kandians, and the war which succeeded these events and continued unremittingly during 1803-4 and 5, was conducted by them with more than their ordinary vigour. It was a desultory series of partial actions on the confines of the British territory, nor did it present any feature, save the extraordinary march of Major Johnson, to merit particular detail. This expedition was one of the most extraordinary which occurred during the whole war and forcibly illustrates what could be done against such enemies by a small force under a resolute commander. With a body of 300 men he marched first from Batticaloa, on the Eastern Coast, to Kandy, a distance probably of 90 miles, the greater part of which march lay through the territories of the Kandians, and was defended by their troops. Arrived there, he found the force he expected to co-operate with him from Colombo had been otherwise engaged, and that the hills surrounding the town (exactly as on the former occasion) were occupied by the enemy. The town is situated in a valley completely encircled by hills, and with a small lake partly artificial in its immediate vicinity completely fills up the valley. To remain there subject to continual attacks would have been to risk the gradual destruction of his force, and its slightest diminution would have left little hope of safety. He was therefore obliged to undertake the same march which Major Davie with a superior force had been unable to accomplish, and that in the face of an enemy rendered confident by the late massacre. His little force took the road to Trincomalee, 113 miles distant, fought their way along, crossed the river notwithstanding the utmost opposition of the enemy, and continued their march, day after day, subject to constant attacks both by day and night, until he brought the majority of his gallant little band safe into the fort of Trincomalee.

In 1805 an armistice was proposed by the king which the English Governor did not oppose, and this, without any formal treaty, lasted till 1814. In the mean time however, the proceedings at Kandy demand our attention. It is not to be supposed that Wikrama and Pilame Talame could continue on the same footiug as had formerly subsisted between them. On the cessation of hostilities the king was determined to shake off the yoke of his adigar, and shewed this determination so openly as seriously to alarm Talame. A proposition of the minister's to marry his son to the natural daughter of the king was the cause of his dismissal from his offices and honors to retirement in his own district. This Talame could not patiently endurehe accordingly fomented a rebellion, failed in his enterprize, was apprehended and beheaded. This occurred in 1812, the same year that Mr. North was succeeded at Colombo by Sir Robert Brownrigg.

On the death of Talame, Eheylapola, who had been second adigar, was appointed to succeed him, but did not long escape the jealousy of the king. In self-defence Eheylapola excited an insurrection in Suffragam, but was defeated by Molligodde, (the king's general and second adigar,) and fled to the English. Wikrama's rage was ungovernable when he heard of this escape, and with the barbarity of a savage it was visited on all whom suspicion could taint-one circumstance, the last and crowning act of barbarity, we shall relate in the words of our author.

"The final scene of this domestic barbarity was horrible in the extreme, and if we wound the feelings of our readers by relating it, we must be excused by our strict adherence to truth, προς ταυτα κρυπτε μηδεν. The unfortunate wife and chil dren of Eheylapola were still in Kandy, and under the power of the inhuman tyrant whose actions we are relating. They were condemned to die. Before one of the temples of the Gods, in the market place of Kandy, they were doomed to suffer, and were led forth by the gaoler who had them in charge. The lady advanced to meet her fate with resolution; she proclaimed the legality of her lord's conduct and her own innocence, and hoped that the present sacrifice might be for his good. She then told her eldest son, a lad of eleven years to submit to his fate; the poor infant recoiled with horror from the sacrifice, when his noble brother, two years younger, stept forwards with a determined mien and told him that he would shew him how to die. One blow was struck and the head of the youthful hero was rolling at their feet. The