Chap. IIT.] 



MR. NORTH. 



77 



ing his liigh position to discuss with him the terms of a.d. 

 a compromise m a matter so revolting ; and stii)ulating 1799 

 only for the personal safely and nominal rank of the 

 king, he came to an agreement by wliich the Kandyan 

 sovereign was to be reduced to a nonentity, and the 

 Adigar to be virtually invested with regal authority. 

 It was even contemplated that the king should be in- 

 duced to retire altogether from tlie capital, to take up 

 his residence at Jaffna within the Britisli dominions, and 

 that Pilame Talawe was to become regent of the king- 

 dom, within wliich a British force was to be maintained 

 at the cost of the Kandyan people.^ 



The project was to be carried into execution by 

 means of an embassy, wliich was forthwith to be de- 

 spatched, ostensibly to negotiate a treaty with the king, 

 but it was privately arranged that the ambassador was 

 to be the General commanding in the island ; and the 

 intended subsidiary force was to be introduced under the 

 name and guise of his " escort." 



It is impossible to read without pain the letters in 

 which Mr. j^orth communicates confidentially, for the 

 information and approval of the Governor-General of 

 India, the progress of this discreditable intrigue. He 

 labours to persuade himself that in taking a disingenuous 

 course he was adopting the only line open to him at 



.apology for his sliave in these trans- 

 fictions, and liis defence of his gene- 

 ral adniinisti-ation. Mscoiint Va- 

 LKNTIA, in 1804, spent three weeks in 

 Ceylon as tlie guest of tlie Governor, 

 and in the Travels which he after- 

 wards published, he has embodied an 

 elaborate re\-iewof Mr. North's policy. 

 But beijig, as he says, confined by in- 

 disposition, the particulars which he 

 supplies concerning the island were 

 " derived from the most authentic 

 sources'^ — and, in ftict, on comparing 

 his statement with the private letters 

 of Mr. North to the Marquis of 

 WoUesley, we find that they exliibit 

 internal evidence of being, in part at 

 least, tlie work of one hand ( Travels, 



vol. i. p. 277-270). About the same 

 time, the Kev. J. Cordinek, wlio had 

 been chapl.iin in the island from 1799 

 to 1804, wrote his Description of 

 Cei/Ion, and in pt. ii. ch. i. vol. ii. 

 p. 155, he gives a narrative of the 

 Kandyan campaigii in 1803, and the 

 causes which led to it ; and this, too, 

 evidently eniiiuatod from tlie same 

 source as the account given by Lord 

 Viilentia. IJeading these two' mani- 

 festoes by the light of Mr. North's 

 confidential correspondence with the 

 Governor-General, the events they 

 record assume an aspect gi-eatly to be 

 regi-etted. 



^ Lord Valenxia, ch. vi. p. 282. 



