KOYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY. 



83 



hundred soldiers to be stationed at J affnapatam ; but it does 

 not appear that the King had ever changed his religion, 

 though he did not afterwards molest his Christian subjects. 



Valentyn relates, * that about a. d. 1580, the Portuguese 

 having obtained the permission of the King to build a Fran- 

 ciscan Church at J affnapatam, they, in marking out the site, 

 carefully included a square place beyond its precincts, in the 

 angles of which they constructed circular bastions and fur- 

 nished them with ordnance, and being thus provided with the 

 means of attack they suddenly fell upon the King, slaugh- 

 tered him, together with his wives and children, and secured to 

 themselves the exclusive dominion of the country. This ac- 

 count, however, is at variance with that given by the anonymous 

 author Philalethes in his History of Ceylon, p. 227. It is 

 there stated that Jaffna was subjugated by the Portuguese 

 under the brave Don Andra Hurtado De Mendoza, who had 

 been sent there by Mathaias Albequerque, Viceroy of Goa> 

 only in a. d. 1591, but even then the royal race was not ex- 

 tirpated, the King was only reduced to a state of vassalage 

 and forced to furnish the expedition against Kandy, which was 

 undertaken by Don Pedro Lopus De Sousa, with 19,900, fight- 

 ing men, 10 war elephants, 3,000 draft bullocks, and 2,000 

 Coolies. f What became of the King after this period is not 

 known with any degree of certainty. There is, however, a 

 vague tradition, that some time afterwards he was deprived of 

 his dignity and expelled the kingdom under a pretence that he 

 had engaged in treacherous proceedings. The foundation of 

 the Jaffna Port was laid by the Portuguese in a. d. 1624, but 



* History of India, yoI. v. p. 216. 



t Baldeus' Besckryvinge van net Macktige Eyland Ceylon, cap. 

 >. 6. 



M 



