NO. 41. — 1890.] REBELION DE CEYLAN. 



565 



had committed against the honour of God and his royal 

 service, profaning temples, murdering Christians, and putting 

 to the sword so many Portuguese without any one to take 

 their part, and to demand from him an account for such 

 treachery and wickedness, and lastly for having given 

 shelter to the Moors who were expelled, and to thieves and 

 vagabonds and rebels to the Crown of Spain, no doubt with 

 new designs and expectations. 



As a pledge to their opinions the Captains offered their 

 lives, liberty, and property to the last mite, wishing for no 

 other reward, if happily successful, than the feeling of 

 having served and given their best advice to their lord and 

 king. It was evident that they were the first to face danger, 

 and the last perhaps to reap reward. They had a valiant, 

 honourable, and true Commander, loved by the natives, of 

 great knowledge and experience in war. He was both res- 

 pected and feared by the enemy, well versed in all their art 

 and trickery, but using all courtesy and kindness with his 

 friends and allies. 



Either the Count-Admiral had not the power or the skill 

 of a great minister to give his final decision, or he did not 

 wish to take upon himself the responsibility of deciding on 

 so great an enterprise. He would wait and see how matters 

 turned out, when the progress of events would absolve him 

 from giving his decision, and therefore abstained from using 

 his authority, — a perilous school, in which many proud and 

 rash ministers have perished, refusing their prince and his 

 counsellors that help and recognition which in grave matters 

 are so necessary, acting as a subject and not as a companion, 

 showing that the art of governing rightly in grave and 

 important affairs depended on the attitude of the prince and of 

 his servants and counsellors who assisted him, thus preventing 

 jealousy, ambition, envy, and other State crimes, which are 

 so many traps and stumbling blocks to their preservation and 

 increase : because to govern alone without a superior, and to 

 hold only an office under Government, or to act only as the 

 king pleases, are two very different things. 



