Chap. II.] 



DEATH OF THE KING. 



37 



the attendants of the king, exceeding their orders, clove 

 his head in the ante-room, and massacred his boat's crew 

 on the beach. ^ The emperor returned to Kandy, and 

 anticipating a breach with the Dutch, sent a pithy mes- 

 sage to the ships of De Weert. " lie who drinks wine^ 

 comes to mischief. God is just If you seek peace^ let 

 it he peace; if war, war be it."^ The Government of 

 the Netherlands was too prudent to make even the mur- 

 der of their officer the ground of a ruptm^e with Kandy ; 

 no formal notice was taken of the event, and the decease 

 of the emperor, in the following year, did away with the 

 pretext for war. 



On the death of Wimala Dharma, in 1604, Donna 

 Catharina, as Queen in her own right, assumed the 

 sovereignty of Ceylon, her sons being childi-en. But 

 a contest ensued between the Prince of Oovah and a 

 brother of the late king^, then a priest in a temple at 

 Adam's Peak, relative to the guardianship of the minors, 

 which ended in the murder of the prince and the mar- 

 riage of the widowed empress with the assassin, who, on 

 his coronation in 1G04, assumed the title of Senaratena, 

 or Senerat. 



For a brief interval Ceylon enjoyed comparative tran- 

 quillity ; and although Donna Catharina dechned to enter 

 into any formal treaty of peace with the Portuguese, she 

 formed an aUiance offensive and defensive wdth the Dutch 

 in 1609. The opportunity for this convention arose out 



A.D. 



1617. 



^ Valenttx and ]?.\ld.t:us exte- 

 nuate the conduct of Wimala Dhar- 

 ma, by saying that the order which 

 he gave, was to " bind that dog," 

 ino'a isto can! But " ?«ro-rt" is not 

 Portuguese ; — and it is possible that 

 the king's order was atar, " to bind," 

 which may have been mistaken by 

 tlie bystanders for mcdar, " to kill." 

 Valentyn, ch. ix. p. 108, ch. xii. 

 p. 141. Bald^us, ch. vii. p. Gil. 

 Pteard, the French traveller, who 

 visited Ceylon shortly after, says the 

 Portuguese avowed to him that De 



"Weert was killed at their instigation ; 

 but this seems imtnie. — Voi/a</c, iSr., 

 I'aris, 1(379, pt. ii. ch. ii. p. 90. 



^ The emperor, from his early 

 education at Goa, spoke a little Por- 

 tuguese. His words on the occasion 

 were " Que bcbem Vinho tino he bon. 

 Deos ha faze justicia. Se quesieres 

 pas, pas; se yuerra, ffuerra.'^ — Bal- 

 M<:rs, ch. vii. p. G12 ; Valextyx, ch, 

 ix. 109. 



* Called by the Dutch historians, 

 '' Cenewierat." 



D 3 



