NO. 41.— 1890.] REBBLION DE CEYLAN. 



441 



The first fifty years of Portuguese ascendency in India and 

 the East was an age of heroes, beginning with Vasco de 

 Gama, and producing such men as the great Affonso d'Albo- 

 querque, Francisco and Lourence d'Almeida, Joao de Castro, 

 and Duarte Pacheco Pereira, whose daring deeds have been 

 immortalized by the Portuguese arch-poet Camoens, in his 

 famous " Lusiad s." This empire, which they tried to establish 

 in India, lasted without any serious opposition from 1500 to 

 1600 ; but before the latter end of the sixteenth century and the 

 beginning of the seventeenth it was on the downward slope of 

 decline, and corruption of the worst stamp had entered into 

 every department of its officialism. Even in the middle of 

 the sixteenth century scenes of drunkenness and debauchery 

 were so common that they excited the disgust of Camoens, 

 who, unfortunately for his welfare, wrote his famous satire 

 Disparates na India (" Follies in India "), in which he lashes 

 these vices with the scourge of Juvenal. 



One of the weak points of Portuguese dominion in India 

 was the intermarriage with the natives. Affonso d'Albo- 

 querque wanting men, in order to supply them baptized his 

 women captives and married them to his soldiery. It might 

 have been necessary at the time ; but it was a policy which 

 certainly helped to bring about the ultimate downfall of the 

 Portuguese supremacy ; for a race of Meticos (half-castes) 

 sprang up, despised equally by Hindu and Muslim, and 

 totally unable to cope with the hardy and stubborn Hollander. 



When in 1580 the Portuguese crown was united to that 

 of Spain under Philip II., and the interests of Portugal 

 in Asia came into collision with the Spanish affairs in 

 Europe, it was then that the Dutch, the sworn foes of Spain, 

 began to turn their eyes to the Portuguese possessions in 

 Asia, which ultimately ended in all being wrested from 

 Portugal in Asia, leaving only a few straggling dependencies, 

 such as Goa, Damaon, Diu, Macao, &c. 



The Hollanders arrived in Ceylon when the Portuguese 

 were hardly able to hold their own against the native 

 princes. De Sousa had been beaten ; Dom Jeronimo d'Aze- 

 vado had been defeated in the pass of Balana by Kunappu 

 Bandara, when the Dutch Admiral Spilbergen landed in the 

 roadstead of Batticaloa. 



These Hollanders had been tampering with the natives 

 for some years when Constantino de Sa arrived as Governor- 

 General in Colombo. The officials in the Island were in a 

 deplorable state of depravity, the exchequer had been rifled, 

 and the soldiers were in rags, discontented, mutinous, and 



