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



mistress of the seas, and punish those who have usurped 

 them. These usurpers had within a century got so corrupt in 

 wickedness and tyranny that they may be looked upon as 

 pirates, and their military fame condemned for disloyalty and 

 treason ; since force, robbery, and tyranny were the symbols 

 of their greatness, having been in antiquity a glorious nation 

 and throughout a terror to the Romans and an example to 

 subjects in constancy and fidelity, for which Tacitus praises 

 their native princes. From Catholics they became heretics ; 

 from loyal subjects rebels; from virtuous, wise, and noble 

 men they became slaves to a popular democratic republic, a 

 servitude under the fictitious name of liberty, worn out by 

 a long endless civil war under mercenary commanders, who 

 hated the easy yoke and government of the greatest monarch* 

 in Europe, their own natural lord and prince for so many 

 years. 



The just indignation which compels me to reply to the lies 

 with which these Calvinists provoke us may in some way 

 excuse this short digression. 



To return to the Gandian barbarian. The friendship and 

 alliance he contracted with them obtained complete success, 

 although at the time no serious evil happened to us, because 

 it was mingled with fear and mistrust of the Hollanders ; 

 for the Admiral Jacob Necius, returning the following year 

 to the port Batecalou with some ships, the King of Gandia set 

 out from his court to see him. The Admiral, disembarking 

 with his principal officers to pay the king honour, wanted to 

 entertain him on board his ships ; but these overdone 

 compliments made him suspicious, for his barbarous mind 

 measured the heretics with his own, accustomed as he was to 

 treason ; and his distrust being shared by his own principal 

 chiefs, he excused himself and avoided any ill-feeling by 

 entertaining them on shore, taking pains to please all sides.. 

 In this way that apostate kept up the friendship of his great 

 confederates : he trod upon all the sacred laws of hospitality, 

 as he had so often done by the sacrifice of so much innocent 



Philip II. 



