NO. 41.— 1890.] REBELION DB CEYLAN. 507 



into which the Paravas had fallen, for they made no profit 

 for want of accommodation and of boats. 



The Fort of Manar became more a place of danger than 

 of profit to its Captains, and a great anxiety to the Captain- 

 Generals of Ceylan under whose orders they were. The 

 first Captain was Manuel Rodriguez Coutino, the same who 

 was at Puticale at the time of the change of site. 



But it was not for its trade and commerce that it deserved 

 a name or any reputation. These could not be compared 

 to what it was celebrated for, as being the first land in 

 India sprinkled with the glorious blood of more than six 

 hundred martyrs, who were the missioners of the sweet fruits 

 of faith and of baptismal grace, which the holy Apostle of the 

 East, that marvellous holy man, St. Francis Xavier, intro- 

 duced into these parts in the year 1454,* of whom the Padre 

 Juan de Lucena, a religious Jesuit, and notable preacher of our 

 times, a man of great learning and eloquence, relates in the 

 book he wrote of that glorious saint. The instigator and 

 executioner of this cruel massacre was an idolatrous and 

 tyrannical king of Jafanapatan, of whom we shall speak 

 hereafter, and the place where it occurred, because of its 

 having been successfully carried out there, was called " the 

 City of Martyrs."f 



Constantino de Sa, immediately he heard of the exigence 

 at Manar, sent to its relief by sea two galleys and some 

 small vessels which were anchored in the port of Columbo ; 

 and overland direct to the kingdom of Jafanapatan he sent 

 Philip de Oliveira, his lieutenant, who was, we have said, in 

 command of the garrison at Sofragan (replacing him by the 

 Captain Francisco Barbosa), with sealed orders to call to 



* Francois Xavier, the Apostle of the Indies, was born in 1506. A close 

 friendship sprung up between him and Ignatius de Loyola, the founder of 

 the Jesuits. Entering the new Order in 1534, he made a vow to go abroad 

 and preach the Gospel for convertion of the heathen. He left for the East 

 Indies in 1541 and died in 1552. 4 



f Regarding the massacre of the Paravas in 1544, by Sankili Raja of 

 Jaffna, see Tennent, Christianity in Ceylon, 10, 11 ; Brito, Yalppana-vai- 

 panamalai, 33, xxxvi. ; Ceylon Lit. Reg,, III., 327. — B., Hon. Sec. 



97—93 G 



