Chap. H.] 



REVOLT AT IL\NDY. 



49 



When, after twenty years of captivity, Knox made a.d. 

 his escape from Kancly in 1679, Eaja Singha held in de- l^^*^- 

 tention or imprisonment upwards of fifty subjects of the 

 Netherlands ; including five with the rank of ambas- 

 sador, besides a number of French and English, whose 

 hberation Sir Edward Winter had in vain soUcited by a 

 mission from Madras fifteen years before.^ 



Unable, from his defective mihtary resources, to direct 

 any decisive measures against his enemies in the low 

 country, the fury of the tyi'ant expended itself in savage 

 excesses against his own subjects in the hills, — putting 

 to death with remorseless cruelty the famihes and con- 

 nections of all whom he suspected of disaffection or of 

 intercoiurse with the Dutch.^ At length, the hniit of 

 endurance being passed, the Kandyans attempted a a.d. 

 revolt in 1GG4. Having forced the emperor to fly to ■^'^^"*' 

 the mountains, they proclaimed his son, a boy of twelve 

 years old, his successor. But the child fled in terror to 



miskiten-of inuggen-broek, en een 

 liof-nar, met zyn muts vol plujTiien 



RAJA Sli>;GHA. — FBOM KNOX. 



clan wel een keizer geleek." — Cb. 

 XV. p. 200, ch. iii. p. 45. It is an- 

 other coincidence (if anything were 

 wanting) to attest tlie 'truthfulness 

 of Knox's Relation of Ceylon, that 

 the portrait which he gives of the 

 VOL. n. 



king includes the feathered cap 

 spoken of by the Dutch Governor. 



1 Knox's Relation, ^-c, pt. iv. ch. 

 xiii. p. 180. In 1680, two English 

 sailors reached Colombo, who twenty-- 

 two years befoi-e had been seized at 

 Calpentyn, where they had landed 

 for fresh water. — Valenttn, ch. xv. 

 p. 302. 



* " Ilis cruelty appears both in 

 the tortiu'es and painful deaths he 

 inflicts, and in tlie extent of his 

 punishments, viz., upon whole 

 families for the miscarriage of one 

 of them. And this is done by cut- 

 ting and pulling away their tlesh by 

 pincers, burning tliem with hot irons ; 

 sometimes be commands to hang 

 their two bands about their necks, 

 and to make them eat their oa^ti 

 flesh, and mothers to eat of their 

 own chikh-en ; and so to lead them 

 througli the city in public view, 

 to terrify all, unto the place of execu- 

 tion, the dogs following to eat them. 

 For the dogs are so accustomed to 

 it that they, seeing a prisoner led 

 away, ft)llow after." — Knox, pt. ii. 

 ch. ii. p. 39. 



