5G9 



CHAPTEE L 



SIGIKI AND POLLANARRUA. 



Strange as it may seem, it is nevertheless true, that 

 Ceylon found no sufficient protection in its remoteness 

 from the turbulent scenes of 1848, against the sporadic 

 influence of the revolutionary miasma that overspread 

 Europe in the spring of that year. The intelligence that 

 monarchy had been overthrown, and a repubhc established 

 in France, though received mth indifference by the Ta- 

 mils in the French settlement of Pondicherry, was eagerly 

 employed to arouse the long suppressed wishes of the 

 Kandyans for the restoration of theu^ national indepen- 

 dence ' ; at a time, moreover, when a variety of circum- 

 stances concurred to fan the tendency to discontent.^ 

 The exertions which, notwithstanding an excess of outlay 

 over income, were successfidly made by the government 

 of Viscount Torrington to improve the financial system 

 and reheve the commerce of the island by revising the 

 tariff, had entailed the duty of re-distributing taxation, so 

 as to extend some share of the burden to classes which 

 had long been accustomed to almost total exemption from 

 fiscal demands. In order to include the native popidation, 

 who had previously contributed httle to the public reve- 

 nue, ordinances were passed to impose a small tax on 

 shops, on fire-arms and dogs ^, and to requke fi'om each 

 adult male six days' laboiu" in the j'car (or three shiUings 



' Papers relative to Ceylon, pre- 

 sented to Parliament, 184U, p. 154- 

 157. 



* Earl Grey's Cokmial Poliv;/ of 

 Lord John RusseWs Adniiuistration. 

 Vol. ii. p. 178, &c. 



■^ Tilt} tax on fire-arms was in- 



tended to place some check on their 

 possession by improper persons, and 

 the tax on dogs was designed to 

 diminish their numbers, and thus 

 ol)viate the barbarous expedient of 

 their annual slaughter in the streets. 

 See Vol. I. Pt. II. ch. i. p. 145. 



