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JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). [VOL. XL 



to look into these matters so carefully. By these means he 

 knew all his subjects and the services they had done for 

 him : the deserving were therefore not at the mercy of any 

 corrupt mind, whose passions so often led them to gather 

 the profits in peace and plenty of what others had gained 

 in war, and who desired that the courtier should obtain the 

 rewards that ought to have been the soldier's — this class of 

 men being the sovereign's greatest creditors, to whom most is 

 due and who receive the least. Contrary to the laws of 

 Alexander Severus, who never gave either gold or silver to 

 any man who was not a creditor or to whom it was not due, 

 and who said that whatever his vassals gave for the public 

 cause was not to be spent to pamper their tastes and for 

 their comforts ; for to spend it otherwise it is certain that 

 when a kingdom came to produce a great man it was due 

 more to the force of events than to the disposition or to the 

 ability of the Government. 



From all this I infer that the achievements of the General 

 Constantino de Sa y Norona will call forth jealous emula- 

 tors, as the brave and virtuous generally do, and as his 

 death has proved by the variety of opinions and judgments 

 passed on it ; which in all human affairs is invariably the case, 

 especially when it happened to be his good fortune to be born 

 a Portuguese, and to have died amongst Portuguese. For 

 they behold the deeds of their sons with the jaundiced eyes 

 of envy, and deny even the praise they so readily give unto 

 strangers. 



With this fear I prepare myself to publish this dissertation, 

 so far that it renders it suspicious from having been written 

 by so near a relation, so much more so for this same reason 

 I am doubly bound to be truthful in what I have written ;■ 

 for I am too proud of my birth to tarnish such valorous 

 actions by even the shadow of a lie, and to defraud his merits 

 of the reward of fame which is all my pen can give for a 

 consolation and an example to his friends. Neither is it a 

 new thing nor is it ambitious what I undertake ; for whom, 

 if not to those most concerned, either by ties of relationship 



