greater part of the cinnamon-trees lay in the domin- 

 ions of the King of Candy, who frequently, with or 

 without apparent reason, refused the cinnamon peelers 

 admission into his dominions, and the Dutch were, in 

 consequence, often restricted to less than half their 

 required annual exports. 



Governor Falk, in his attempt to remedy this evil, 

 by cultivating the cinnamon-tree in the territory be- 

 longing to the Dutch, was discouraged by the pre- 

 judices of the natives, and discountenanced by the 

 parsimony of the Supreme Government of Batavia. 

 It was said, ' for one hundred and fifty years Ceylon 

 had supplied the requisite quantity of cinnamon, the 

 expense of which was ascertained and limited: why 

 then risk the success of a new plan, attended with 

 extraordinary charges.' This public-spirited gover- 

 nor nevertheless persevered in his undertaking, and 

 to his success the English owe the flourishing state 

 in which they found the cinnamon plantations of 

 Ceylon, when they captured that island. This tree 

 is now cultivated in four or five very large gardens, 

 the extent of which may in some measure be imag- 

 ined by the quantity of cinnamon annually exported 

 thence, amounting to more than 400,0001bs; and 

 from the number of people who are employed in the 

 cinnamon department, these being from twenty-five 

 to twenty-six thousand persons.* 



The trade in this produce had always been a mo- 

 nopoly; during the government of the Dutch this 

 was enforced with an excessive degree of rigour, at 

 which humanity revolts. It is painful to contem- 

 plate man, when greediness for exclusive gains, the 

 meanest of all motives, incites him to acts of op- 

 pression and tyranny. ' The selling or giving away 

 the smallest quantity of cinnamon (even were it but 



* Trans, of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol. i. 



