42 



MODERN HISTORY. 



[Part VI. 



A. P. 



1G32. 



A.D. 



1G38. 



A.D. 



1G38. 



It was ill the reign of this gloomy tyrant, that the Portu- 

 guese were eventually driven from Ceylon, and his Dutch 

 aUies installed in all tliek conquests. With thek wonted 

 bad faith, the Portuguese seized the opportunity of the 

 emperor's death to renew their forays into the pos- 

 sessions of his successor, and Eaja Singlia, forced to the 

 conclusion that their presence in the island was in- 

 compatible with the hope of any permanent peace, ad- 

 dressed himself to the Dutch at Batavia, and sohcited 

 tlieir active co-operation for the utter expulsion of the 

 Portuguese.^ 



The invitation was promptly accepted, and Commodore 

 Koster w^as despatched to Ceylon in 1638, to concert 

 the plan of a campaign preparatory to the arrival of the 

 Admiral with the squadron designed for service against 

 the Portusfuese forts. In the meantime, the Portuguese 

 Governor of Colombo, alarmed by the intelhgence of this 

 new alhance, and eager to defeat it, dkected a sudden 

 attack upon Kandy, which his troops entered and burned ; 

 but on retiring they were surrounded in the mountains, 

 at Gonnarua, and with the exception of a few prisoners, 

 the entke army was exterminated, and the skuUs built in 

 a pyramid by the Kandyans.^ 



At length, in May 1638, Admiral Westerwold appeared 

 with his promised fleet in the waters of Ceylon, and 

 the conflict was commenced between the Dutch and 

 the Portuguese, which terminated twenty years after in 

 the rethement of the latter from the island. The 

 story of this conflict has been told by two historians 

 who from opposite sides were eye-mtnesses, of the strife ; 

 — by Eibeyro, who served as a soldier in the armies 



' The letters of Raja Singlia II., 

 enumerjitiug the repeated acts of 

 aggi'ession and breaches of treaties 

 by the Portuguese, A\'ill be seen in 

 I3ali).eus, ch. xix. p. G32, 630. 



- RajavctU, p. 324 ; Bald^etis, ch. 

 XX. p. 041 ; Valentyn, ch. xi, p. 

 118 ; ch. xii. p. 142 ; llibeyro ascribes 



the iinincdiate cause of this ill-starred 

 expedition to an act of pei-fidy and 

 meanness on the part of the Portu- 

 guese Governor of Colombo, which 

 led to a personal altercation with 

 Eaja Singha 11. It is amusingly 

 told in the 4th chap, of his 2nd book, 

 p. 220. 



