18 



MODERN HISTORY. 



[Part VI. 



A.D. 



1546. 



A.D. 



1547. 



iiity ; but too feeble to contribute any effectual aid to their 

 new allies, their treason and apostacy di'ew down on 

 them the indignation of then- rightful sovereign, and 

 served only to furnish pretexts for their overthrow and 

 liis further aggrandisement. 



It was thus that the territory of Kandy was seized by 

 Eaja Singha, in 1582. Jaya-weii^a, its king, in 1547, 

 invited the Eoman Cathohc fathers to liis dominions, 

 permitted a church to be erected at his capital, and 

 intimated a wish, Avliich was promptly comphed ^\'ith, 

 that a niihtary party should be stationed at Kandy, 

 with the double object of extending the faith and 

 protecting the sovereign from the resentment of his 

 own people, should he openly embrace Cliristianity.^ 

 An officer, with one hundi'ed and twenty men, was 

 despatched on this service, in 1548, and landed at 

 Batticaloa, whence his party crossed the island westward 

 to Kandy ; but a sudden change in the king's mtentions 

 led hhn to place an ambush to cut off the mihtant mis- 

 sion, which, mth difficulty, effected its escape to Colombo.- 



So intent were the Portuguese upon the extension of 

 the faith that, mitaught by this act of treachery, they 

 subjected themselves to a still more disastrous repetition 

 of it in A.D. 1550, when Kumara Banda, the son of Jaya- 

 weira^, renewed the apphcation of his father for spmtual 

 and mihtary assistance. A force despatched at liis re- 

 quest was permitted to march to "withui three miles of 

 Kandy, when they were smTOunded by the followers of 

 the prince, and lost upwards of seven hundred men (of 

 whom one-half were Em^opeans) in a headlong retreat to 

 the coast. '^ 



' The soldiers were despatched, 

 according to De Cono, at once to 

 'confirm liim in "the faith and in his 

 possessions," " 'pera invenar e assistar 

 com aquclle Rey ate (S scf/urarem na 

 Fe c no rcynoy De CorTO, dec. vi. 

 liv. iv. cli. vii. p. •'^24. 



2 De Couto, dec. vi. lib. iii. cli. 

 vii. viii. vol iii. pt. i. p. 320. 



^ He resided, according to the 

 Majavali, at Coral Taddea, and is 

 called by the Portuguese wiiters, 

 Caralea Pandur. De Coxjto, dec. 

 vi. lib. viii. ch. iv. torn. iii. pt. ii. 

 p. loo. c. xi. p. 105. 



'^ De Couto, dec. vi. lib. viii. ch, 

 ■vii. vol. iii. pt. ii. p. 178 ; Fakia y 

 SotrzA, vol. li. pt. ii. ch. viii. p. 148. 



