40 



MODERN HISTORY. 



[Part VI. 



A.D. 



1624. 



A.D. 



1627. 



A.D. 



1630. 



renew tlieir solicitations for a truce, which they suc- 

 ceeded in obtaining, in 1624 ; but, in \dolation of its 

 conditions, they commenced, in 1627, to fortify Batti- 

 caloa, having previously, in 1622, erected a fort at Trin- 

 comahe.^ 



The Emperor, alarmed by these proceedings, appa- 

 rently deserted by his Dutch alhes, and seemg his king- 

 dom encircled on all sides by Portuguese garrisons^, 

 made a vigorous and successful effort to rouse the native 

 Singhalese, and organise a national movement for the 

 expulsion of the perfidious Europeans. The flame of 

 war was simultaneously kindled at opposite points of 

 the island ; the most influential moodhars of the low 

 country entered earnestly into the conspkacy with the 

 Kandyans, and the people of Colombo, exasperated by 

 the treatment which they had experienced at the hands 

 of the common enemy, expressed their readiness to 

 revolt. The Governor, Don Constantine de Saa y 

 Norofia, akeady stung by sarcastic despatches from 

 the Viceroy of Goa, which insinuated inactivity and 

 indifference to the interests of Portugal, was induced, 

 by delusive representations from the chiefs of the high 

 country, to concentrate all liis forces for an expedition 

 against Oovah, where he was falsely assured that the 

 popidation were prepared to join his standard agamst 

 their native dynasty. 



In August, 1630, he advanced with fifteen hundred 

 Europeans, about the same number of half-castes, and 

 eight or ten thousand low-country Singhalese, and was 

 allowed ^\dthout resistance to enter by the mountain 

 passes and penetrate to the city of Badulla, which he 

 plundered and burned. But on his retmii his Singha- 

 lese troops, at a point previously arranged with the 

 Kandyans, deserted in a body to the enemy, and the 

 Portuguese, thus caught in the toils, were mercilessly 



^ EiBETHO, lib. ii. ch. i. p. 189. 

 ^ The Portuguese had now eight 

 fortified places around the coast : 



JafTiia, Manaar, Npfrombo, Colombo, 

 Cultura, Galle, Bolligam, liatticaloa, 

 aud Trincomalie. 



