NO. 41.— 1890.] REBELION DE CEYLAN. 541 



a great deal less hold of power and authority than the others 

 ( Veedores) had to bring a Province under their arbitration ; so 

 that even to the smallest item the dispositions and sinews 

 of war depended not on the absolute person who governed, 

 but on another and inferior person in rank, who was often 

 opposed to the good designs of his Governor, or on the 

 indiscreet zeal of a bad minister, who confined himself to 

 his own personal interests and endeavours to thwart and 

 impair the best and most important schemes in which he 

 had no part. That great Governor of India, Martin Alonso 

 de Sosa, a minister who took the greatest care of the profits 

 of the royal revenue, said that there were many officers to 

 collect it and only one to spend it. A number of ministers 

 with equal powers and authority is the death of a State : a 

 few well chosen for their merits nourish it ; but too many 

 serve to confound and ruin it. 



The Veedor de la hazienda in Gey lan was one named 

 Ambrosio de Freitas, a man whose character and services it 

 is not my purpose to notice, and still less the causes which 

 made him leave his post, which I presume was owing to the 

 encounters he had with Constantino de Sa and the 

 animosity with which he opposed him ; so much so that he 

 sent in his resignation to the Count-Admiral. The General, 

 rather than that the King's service should suffer, proposed to 

 undertake it himself and carry out the war and conquest 

 of Candia without other help from the State than Portuguese 

 troops ; and what was more he sent to Bagora on His Majesty's 

 account two hundred dares of cinnamon in merchandise. 

 To transact this business he sent his procurators to Goa, and 

 so great was his zeal that he did more for his sovereign than 

 he did for his own private affairs and property, which he 

 pledged and consumed in public undertakings. Both offers 

 appeared so just and advantageous to the Count-Admiral 

 that he allowed them to pass, informing His Majesty of his 

 proceedings, whose royal warrant he hoped finally to receive. 

 For in matters of such importance it required a firm de- 

 termined policy: delay was always mischievous, and it 



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