INTRODUCTION. xxvii 



other of the native chronicles ; but that few had ever 

 read them, and none had succeeded in reproducing them 

 for popular instruction. 



A still more serious embarrassment arose from the want 

 of authorities to throw light on questions that were some- 

 times the subject of administrative deliberation : there 

 were native customs which no available materials sufficed 

 to illustrate ; and native claims, often serious in their im- 

 portance, the consideration of which was obstructed by 

 a similar dearth of authentic data. With a view to 

 executive measures, I was frequently desirous of con- 

 sulting the records of the two European governments, 

 under which the island had been administered for 300 

 years before the arrival of the British ; their experience 

 might have served as a guide, and even their failures 

 would have pointed out errors to be avoided ; but here, 

 again, I had to encounter disappointment : in answer to 

 my inquiries, I was assured that the records^ both of the 

 Portuguese afid Dutch, had long since disappeared from 

 the archives of the colony. 



Their loss, whilst in our custody, is the more re- 

 markable, considering the value which was attached to 

 them by our predecessors. The Dutch, on the conquest 

 of Ceylon in the seventeenth century, seized the official 

 accounts and papers of the Portuguese ; and a memoir 

 is preserved by Valentyn, in which the Governor, Van 

 Goens, on handing over the command to his successor 

 in 1663, enjoins on him the study of these important 

 documents, and expresses anxiety for their careful pre- 

 servation.^ 



The British, on the capture of Colombo in 1796, 

 were equally solicitous to obtain possession of the re- 



1 Valentyn, Olid en Nieuw Oost-Indien^ ^c, ch. xiii. p. 174. 



