Chap. II.] 



DUTCH TKADE. 



53 



penetrate to tlie dominions of tlie emperor, carrying a.d. 

 up commodities from the low coimtiy for the supply 1^64. 

 of the Kandyans. The Portuguese offered no opposition 

 to this proceeding, and when freed from apprehension 

 of the Moors as military aUies of the enemy, they were 

 utterly indifferent to their operations as dealers. Not 

 so the Dutch, with whom commerce was more an object 

 tlian conquest ; and not content with having secured 

 to themselves a rigid monopoly of all the great branches 

 of trade, they evinced a narrow-minded impatience of 

 the humble industry carried on by the enterprising 

 Moors. 



Among the principal articles protected, were the 

 nuts of the areca, which, at the time when the Dutch 

 took possession of Galle, the Moors were in the habit 

 of collecting in the interior of the island, to be ex- 

 changed on the coast for cotton cloths, to be sold 

 at a profit to the Kandyans and Singhalese. This 

 traffic the Dutch resolved to stop, not from any design 

 to profit by it themselves, but with the determination, 

 even with the anticipation of a loss, to extinguish the 

 commerce of the Moors, whose name is seldom in- 

 troduced into thefr official documents without epithets 

 of abhorrence.^ 



^ Ryklof Van Goens, tlie Gover- 

 nor of Ceylon, in the Memoir whicli 

 he left in 1G75 for the guidance of 

 his successor, describes the ]\Ioors a,s 

 a detested race, the offspring of 

 Malabar outcasts converted to Islam 

 by the Mahometans of ]3assora and 

 Mocha, and vrhose appearance in the 

 Ceylon seas was first as pirates, and 

 then as pedlars. (Valknttn, ch. 

 XV. p. 140.) Every expedient was 

 adopted to crush them; their trade 

 was discouraged — tliey were forbid- 

 den to hold land in the coimtiy (Ibid., 

 ch. xii. p. 148), and prohibited from 

 establishing thenisehes in the forti- 

 fied towns (Ibid., ch. xiii. p. IGG), 

 a small number only been per- 

 mitted to reside at Colombo as 



tailors. (Ibid., ch. xiii. p. 174.) The 

 celebration of their worship was in- 

 terdicted (Ibid., p. 128) ; they were 

 subjected to a poll tax ; they were 

 obliged once a year to sue out a 

 licence for pennission to live in the 

 villages (Ibid., p. 174) ; and, at death, 

 one third of their property was for- 

 feited to the Go^•ernme^t. (Ibid., p. 

 174.) But all these devices of 

 tyi-anny were misuccessful ; the en- 

 durance and enterprise of the Moois 

 were not to be exhausted, .and at 

 length the Dutch were compelled to 

 admit that every effort to " extirpate 

 these weeds," " onkruiil te zuiveren,'' 

 had only tended to increase their 

 numbers and energy. — Valeistyx, 

 ch. xvi. p. 409. 



E 3 



