IG 



MODERX HISTORY. 



[rART VI. 



A.D. 



1542. 



said to have extended beyond the fortifications of Co- 

 lombo. To conciliate his protectors, he eventiiaUy ab- 

 jured the Buddhist rehgion and professed himself a 

 convert to Clmstianity ; many nobles of his court being 

 baptized on the occasion, and, according to the Eajavali, 

 the loAver castes, as well as the higher, hastened to 

 profess Christianity, " for the sake of the Portuguese 

 gold." 1 



His accession served to re\T.ve the animosity and 

 energies of Maaya Dunnai and the national party, whilst 

 his helplessness placed the Portuguese in the position of 

 prmcipals rather than aiixiharies in the long war which 

 ensued. In this new relation, reheved from even the 

 former semblance of restraint, their rapacitj^ betrayed 

 itself by wanton excesses. They put to the tortm^e the 

 subjects of the king they professed to succour, in order 

 to extort the disclosure of the bmied treasures of his 

 family ; and after the first conflict ^A^th Maaya Dunnai, in 

 which the Portuguese were victorious, they not only 

 exacted the full charges of the expedition from their 

 young ally, but in Adolation of their compact, appropri- 

 ated to themselves the entire of the plunder of Sita- 

 wacca, " the wants of India," as Farli t Souza observes, 

 " not permitting the performance of promises." ^ 



For many years the maritime proA^nces were devas- 

 tated by civil war in its most revolting form. Cotta 

 was so frequently threatened as to be kept in a state of 

 almost incessant siege. Every town on the coast where 

 the Portuguese had formed trading estabhshments, Pan- 



^ Rajavali, p. 291. Hence the fre- 

 quent occuiTence at the present day 

 of Poi-tuguese names, in addition 

 to the Singhalese patron^nnics in 

 families of the highest rank in the 

 maritime provinces. They were as- 

 sumed at baptism three centuries 

 back, and are still retained even 

 where the bearers have abandoned 

 Christianity. 



2 Fakia y Souza, vol. ii. pt. ii. ch. 

 ix. p. 159 ; De Couxo, dec. vi. lib. ix. 



ch. xviii. torn. iii. pt. ii. p. 350 ; 

 RajavaU, p. 292. liestitution was 

 made at a later period, Jolin III. 

 having ordered the restoration of all 

 the plunder ; and this order came to 

 Ceylon, says Faria y SorzA, in the 

 same ship which can-ied the poet 

 Camoens, A.D. 1553, " to try if he 

 could advance by his sword that for- 

 time which he had failed to A\-in by 

 his pen." (Vol. iii. p. 1G9.) 



