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CEYLON BRANCH 



it was completed only in A. I). 1632. In A. D. 1627, whilst 

 the Portuguese were embroiled with the Singhalese, a Raja of 

 Malabar is stated by Baldeus to have attempted to recover 

 Jaffna from the Portuguese, but to have been completely routed 

 and put to flight by Philip D'Olivera, who then commanded 

 the garrison. 



During the possession of Jaffna by the Portuguese, which 

 embraced only a period of forty years, they seem to have de- 

 voted much attention to the propagation of the Christian 

 religion amongst the natives, and with this view divided the 

 district into thirty-two parishes, building in each a substantial 

 Church and parsonage house, and providing them with priests and 

 catechists. They also supported a College and a Monastery in 

 the town, of which the former belonged to the Jesuits and the 

 latter to the Dominicans, and each of these establishments 

 contained upwards of 20 or 25 ecclesiastics. Their exertions 

 in this respect were attended with much success, and it is more 

 than probable that had they not been interrupted by the Dutch, 

 who became masters of Jaifna in A. D. 1658, they would have 

 completely obliterated every trace of heathenism in the country. 

 " The Dutch," Major Forbes observes, " having dispossessed 

 the Portuguese of all the territory they held in Ceylon, at- 

 tempted to supersede the Roman Catholic religion by the 

 Protestant, and took an effectual way of making hypocrites 

 under the pretence of improving that system of Christianity 

 which had been already introduced. The Dutch declared that, 

 to enable a native to hold office, it was necessary he should 

 profess the Reformed faith. In consequence of this rule, those 

 who aspired to office apostatised, while those who had nothing 

 to gain by a change remained steadfast in their religion.''* 



Forbes' Eleven Years in Ceylon, vol. i. p. 63, 2d edition. 



