176 CEYLON BRANCH — ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY. 



For the purposes of taxation the Maritime Provinces of the 

 island which bounded their sway in Ceylon, appear to have 

 been divided into four principal Collectorates or Provinces, 

 much the same as they are at present, viz : Colombo, Ji ffnapatam, 

 Galle and Trincomalie, with the subsidiary stations of Calpen- 

 tyn, Manaar, Matura and Batticaloa. These we may term the 

 western, northern, southern and eastern Collectorates, 



In their own account of the local revenues as given in the 

 General Staat Reekening, they classified their Income under 

 but three principal heads: Farmed Revenues, Collected Reve- 

 nues and Profits and Gains. 



Before proceeding to give a detailed statement of these se- 

 veral branches of the Ceylon Revenue, it may be as well to 

 offer a few preliminary remarks concerning them. At the pe- 

 riod of which I am writing, the Dutch had abandoned several 

 of their early and most stringent monopolies, caused no doubt" 

 by a conviction of their impolicy. Governor Van Imhopf was 

 a man of more than ordinary ability in financial and com- 

 mercial matters, and to him the Dutch were indebted for seve- 

 ral relaxations in the system of trade existing between Ceylon 

 and the various port3 of the Indian Continent. The early 

 career of the Dutch in the East was one of unmixed monopoly 

 carried out with unrelenting severity. Commerce was the prime 

 object of their Government, as had been conquest and conver- 

 sion to Catholicism the aim of their predecessors, the Portuguese. 

 In Ceylon, as in all other of their possessions, the entire trade 

 of the place both export and import lay in the hands of the 

 Government. No vessel arriving in the Colony, whether Fo- 

 reign or Dutch, could dispose of their goods or purchase pro- 

 duce except at the Stores of the Company. In after days this 

 regulation was relaxed as regards the importation of Rice and 

 later still with reference to the trade in Coast Cloths, the im- 

 port of which was permitted to private individuals on pay- 

 ment of a duty rated at about the amount of the Company's 



