Chap. I.] 



FIKST STRUGGLES. 



repeated by letter to the Viceroy Alfonzo de Albii- a.p. 

 querque.^ But the apprehensions of the Singhalese court ^ 

 were aroused by the discovery that seven hundred 

 soldiers were carried in the merchant ships of the Vice- 

 roy, and that the proposed factory was to be mounted 

 with cannon. In justification of this proceeding, Soarez 

 pleaded the open hostihty of the Moors, and the inse- 

 curity of the new traders when exposed to their vio- 

 lence ; — but the arguments by which he succeeded in 

 removing the king's scruples were proffers of the mihtary 

 services upon which the latter might rely, in case of 

 assault from his aspiring relatives, and assurances of the 

 riches to be derived from the trade which the Portumiese 



o 



proposed to estabhsh. Dazzled by such promises and 

 prospects, the king gave a reluctant assent, and the first 

 European stronghold in Ceylon began to rise on the rocky 

 beach at Colombo.^ 



The Moors, instinctively ahve to the dangers which 

 threatened their trade, soon succeeded in re-kindhng the 

 alarms of the king at the consequences of his precipitancy. 

 He made another attempt to draw back from his recent 

 engagements ; he encouraged the Moors to resistance, and 

 the Portuguese were closely besieged for several months. 

 But the effort was ineffectual ; the garrison was reheved 

 by the arrival of succoiu: from India, and the only re- 

 sult of the demonstration was to render the Singhalese 

 king more helplessly dependent upon the power of the 

 Viceroy. He submitted to acknowledge himself a vas- 

 sal of Portugal, and to pay an annual tribute of cinnamon, 

 rubies, sapphires, and elephants, and with this important 

 convention inscribed on plates of gold, Lopo Soarez took 

 his departure from Ceylon, leaving Juan de Silveu'a in 

 command of the new settlement.^ 



' Faria t Soxtza^ vol, i. pt. iii. 2 ; 

 De Barros, dec. lii. lib. ii. ch. ii. 

 vol. iii. pt. i. p. 118. 



^ Be Barros, dec. iii. lib. ii. ch. 



ii. vol. iii. pt. ii. p. 121 ; Bald^tjs, 

 ch. xl. 



' De Barros, dec. iii. vol. iii. p. 

 132 J De Couto, dec. v. vol. iii. p. 



