XXXVlll 



INTRODUCTION. 



in his tran slation of the great work of Hiouen Thsang; 

 descriptive of the Buddhist country of India in the 

 seventh century.^ 



It is with pain that I advert to that portion of the 

 section which treats of the British rule in Ceylon ; in 

 the course of which the discovery of the private corre- 

 spondence of the first Governor, Mr. North, depo- 

 sited along with the Wellesley Manuscripts, in the 

 British Museum^, has thrown an unexpected light 

 over the fearful events of 1803, and the massacre 

 of the English troops then in garrison at Kandy. 

 Hitherto the honour of the British Government has 

 been unimpeached in these dark transactions ; and the 

 slaughter of the troops has been uniformly denounced 

 as an evidence of the treacherous and " tiger-like " spirit 

 of the Kandy an people.^ But it is not possible now to 

 read the narrative of these events, as the motives and 

 secret arrangements of the Governor with the treacherous 

 Minister of the king are disclosed in the private letters 

 of ]\Ir. North to the Governor-general of India, without 

 feeling that the sudden destruction of Major Davie's 

 party, however revolting the remorseless butchery by 

 which it w^as achieved, may have been but the consum- 

 mation of a revenge provoked by the discovery of the 

 treason concocted by the Adigar in confederacy with 

 the representative of the British Cro^vn. Nor is this 

 construction weakened by the fact, that no immediate 

 vengeance was exacted by the Governor in expiation of 

 that fearful tragedy ; and that the private letters of Mr. 

 North to the Marquis of Wellesley contain avowals of 



^ Memoires siir les Contrccs Occi- 

 dentales, traduites du Sanscrit en 

 Chinois^ en I'an G18; par M. Sta- 

 nislas JULIEN. 



2 Additional MSS., Brit. Mus., 

 No. 13864, &c. 



2 De Qtjincey^ collected Worhs, 

 vol, xii. p. 14, 



