ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY. 67 



their duty. Their orders were to proceed with circumspection, 

 lest the natives should fall upon them from their hiding places 

 along the road; and not to adopt severe measures until milder 

 efforts proved ineffectual. On their arrival their first measure 

 was to seize 53 dhonies of the fishers lying on the beach, which 

 contained provision and other articles, and cofirmed the suspi- 

 cion that it was the intention of the insurgents, in case they 

 should be pressed hard, to take refuge in their boats. With 

 the help of the Corale of the Alutcoor corle they apprehended 

 several of the ringleaders who were sent up to Colombo under 

 escort. On their arrival at Topoe and Pailanchene they found 

 all the native dwellings deserted, and the people collected in an 

 Island on the confines of the Company's territories. Several 

 messages went backwards and forwards between the insurgents 

 and the Military detachment of the Dutch, but the natives 

 would not return peaceably ; as however they made no oppo- 

 sition, the expedition ended in destroying all the Soman Ca- 

 tholic places of worship. The Government schoolmaster of 

 Pailanchene was discovered to have been an abetter in the late 

 affray, for in his house were found the very weapons spotted 

 with blood, employed in the attack on the Mohandirams and 

 Lascoreens sent from Negombo. The Ecclesiastical report of 

 the Galle district in 1754 says, that the native christians there 

 were not only destitute and ignorant of all that ornaments the 

 Christian character, but that also several Church members of 

 long standing after having seceded to Romanism, had seceded 

 also to heathenism. A controversial work against popery by 

 Mr. De Melho one of the native ministers, first written in 

 Dutch, and after being Ecclesiastically approved, translated 

 into Singhalese, was published about this time; as also the 

 Heildelberg catechism in Tamil. 



The same De Melho translated in 1757 the Dutch 



