NO. 41. — 1890.] REBELION DE CEYLAN. 



607 



enemies, the competitors and usurpers of their Eastern 

 Empire. He served his king for no reward, giving up his 

 home and leaving wife and family, and last of all his memory 

 exposed to the criticism of the evil tongues of idlers, who 

 qualify actions by the results, their judgment being without 

 licence and full of envy. 



It is true that the philosophers do not condemn nor 

 .pronounce judgment on things by their results, but only 

 by the causes and beginnings, because the former are due 

 to fortune, or rather to Providence, which governs and 

 disposes all things according to Its will ; but the latter are 

 framed by man's own reason, and begun according to the 

 care he takes as to the best means to bring about success. 



It is evident that Constantino de Sa behaved as a true 

 and honourable Cavallero : trusting traitors when he was 

 ignorant of treason, he was more unfortunate than culpable. 

 The success or failure of an enterprise neither gives nor 

 takes away from the glory which is due to a hero whose 

 deeds and virtues have made him illustrious to his country. 

 How full is history of the misfortunes of the most invin- 

 cible Captains. They are more as examples of the wonderful 

 vicissitudes of fortune than an attempt to tarnish their glory. 

 Pompey conquered, Hannibal defeated ; Francis, king of 

 France, taken prisoner ; the defeat and sinking of his oppo- 

 nent Charles the Fifth's fleet at Algiers : none of these 

 events wiped out the famous deeds of their soldiers, who, in 

 spite of these misfortunes, deserved the name of Great, 

 because of their steadfastness in suffering. Nor are they 

 worthy of less praise who fell by the sword, or by poison, 

 at the hand of traitors or of enemies, or by the violence 

 of fate, as happened to Variatus, Julius Caesar, Henry IV., 

 Alexander, and Germanicus, and in our own times in India 

 to the Almeidas, father and son ; in Africa, to the Menezes 

 and the Atraides ; and lastly, to the numbers of great men 

 and valiant soldiers who in our wars of conquest met 

 with tragical deaths, always mournful but glorious \ 

 for their fame was not buried with their bodies nor their 



