516 JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). [VOL. XI. 



his intimacy being the greatest blind of all — his motive 

 was to render it impossible for the king to govern : he thus 

 made himself master of his person and will — the lowest 

 degradation into which a prince, who knows not his duties, 

 usually falls. He became hateful to all in the Island, and 

 all were sorry to see a poor prince, who, to enrich, honour, 

 and aggrandise a subject, abdicated his rights as king, 

 unable to pardon and unable to uphold his authority. For it 

 is not because the sun, who communicates its splendour to the 

 cloud, never leaves off shining on it; it also trusts it to fertilise 

 with its waters the tree for the light it gives : so it is the same 

 with the favourite, who is given these duties to serve without 

 ambition or avarice, and to be attentive to the preservation of 

 the State and of his master. 



Changili made use of this baseness as a means to serve 

 his own ends. He refused to pay tribute, and rejected all 

 friendship with the Portuguese, and making the king his 

 master unite with the enemies of Europe, he called to his 

 aid the Badaguas, idolators, a barbarous race who inhabit 

 the country within the kingdom of Bisnaga from the 

 Malabar Coast on one side and the Paravar on the other. 

 They were the enemies of all, and especially of the Christians, 

 cruel by nature, robbers by profession, and living on what 

 they could steal. These, joined with the Naigue of Tanjaor, 

 who was also their neighbour, were twice defeated and 

 driven from the Island (on this occasion by Constantino de 

 Sa on his way to the relief of Jafanapatan) ; but not before 

 the Captain Philip de Oliveira had utterly routed and taken 

 Changili with the blind king and some of his family. 



After having relieved the Fort of Manar and raised the 

 siege, the General was now free. He converted the king- 

 dom into a Province, and took every precaution to rid the 

 empire once and for all from all possibility of attack. He 

 erected a Fort in the middle of the kingdom and garrisoned 

 it sufficiently against any unforeseen emergency ; and at the 

 entrance of the principal part he placed two strong forts capable 

 of containing a number of Portuguese families, amongst 



