XXXV111 



INTRODUCTION. 



THSANG ; descriptive of the Buddhist country of India 

 in the seventh century. 1 



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, deposited 

 along with the Wellesley Manuscripts, in the British 

 Museum 2 , 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 Kandyan. 

 people. 3 But it is not possible now to read the narra- 

 tive of these events, as the motives and secret arrange- 

 ments of the Governor with the treacherous Minister of 

 the king are disclosed in the private letters of Mr. 

 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 was achieved, may have been but the consummation 

 of a revenge provoked by the discovery of the treason 

 concocted by the Adigar in confederacy with the repre- 

 sentative of the British Crown. 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 

 ineffectual efforts to hush up the affair, and to obtain a 



1 Memoires sur les Cordrees Occi- 

 dcntales, traduites du Sanscrit en 

 Chinois, en Van 648, frc. Par M. 

 STANISLAS JULIEN. 



2 Additional MSS., Brit. Mus., 

 No. 13,864, &c. 



3 DE QUINCEY, collected Works, 

 vol. xii. p. 14. 



