58 



MODERN HISTORY. 



[rART yi. 



A.D. 



1GG4. 



Christianity to discourage the Moors and Mahometan 

 traders.^ 



In the promotion of agricultm-e tlie interests of the 

 Government were identified Avith tliose of the peasants, 

 and the time was eagerly expected, but never arrived, 

 when the necessity would cease for the importation of 

 rice for the troops from Batavia and the coast of 

 Canara.^ But notwithstanding these partial efforts for 

 the advancement of the people, successive governors 

 were obhged to admit the fact of habitual oppression, 

 by the headmen and officials ^ ; and to record their con- 

 viction that as the condition of the Singhalese was 

 no better under the Dutch than it had been under 

 the Portuguese, so would they one day tiu-n on them, 

 as they had before shaken themselves fi^ee of their pre- 

 decessors.* 



ISTor was the discontent confined to the Singhalese 

 alone ; disappointment was felt in Holland at the failure 

 of those brilliant estimates wliich had been formed of 

 the wealth to be drawn from Ceylon ; the hopes of the 

 emigrants who had rushed to the island were crushed 

 by the reahty ; and the Company's officers and servants 

 were loud in their complaints of the impossibihty of 

 subsisting on their salaries and perquisites. The former 

 were absurdly small, the permission to trade formed the 

 great supplementary inducement, and as trade was un- 

 productive, discontent was ine\dtable.^ To this the 

 condition of the Governors formed an exception ; for 

 although then- nominal income was but 30/. per month ^ 

 besides rations and allowances, j'-et, according to Va- 

 lentyn, such were the secret opportunities for personal 



^ Yaleuttn, ch. xii. p. 134. For 



a narrative of the exertions made by 

 the Dutch for the extension of educa- 

 tion and relig-ion, see Sir J. Emersox 

 Tenni:>'t's Ilistonj of Christiauiti/ in 

 Ceylon, ch. xi. p. 37. A detailed 

 account of the churches and schools 

 vnW. be found in the seventeenth 

 chapter of Valextyx, p. 40!). 



2 VALENTYIf, ch. xii. p. 148. 



' Il)i(l., ch. xiii. p. 176. 



* This account will be found in 

 the Report o/" IlivXDiuc Adrian Van 

 Uheede, 1077j Valenitn, ch. xv. 

 p. 27.'}. 



^ Yalextyx, c. XV. p. 252. 



® Bertolacci, p. 56. 



