No. 50.— 1899.] van bok's kandyan expedition. 57 



to His Excellency the Governor to treat for peace, and so three 

 Dessaves presented themselves and held a conference with His 

 Excellency the Governor, and requested that the demands of the 

 Company might be given to them in writing. This was done. Mean- 

 while the officers and the main body of the army came up as far as the 

 river. Here the first Adigaar of the realm and two Dessaves, &c, 

 appeared and had an audience, in which everything was agreed to 

 according to the wishes of the Company, with the request not to 

 approach further the town and palace of Candia. Thereupon Iloratkis 

 Codes* said with senseless arrogance : " Your Excellency, now we 

 have the rogues in a corner, now the time is ripe to make the king a 

 vassal of the Company, and as a beginning he must first pay twice a 

 hundred thousand pagodas, and after that lay down the crown and be 

 again crowned by the Company, and, as a perpetual remembrance of 

 his vassalage, he must deliver to the Company four elephants every 

 year." All this the ambassadors were then given to understand. But 

 they assured us that the king would not agree thereto, and that they 

 were deprived of a basis for a convention ; they would, however, report 

 it to the king. Thereupon they went away. Thus, by the advice of 

 the Company's great Schf State Minister, they did not wait long to take 

 Candia ; and though Feber was also much against it, they crossed over 

 the river with the whole army, plundered the palace and the city, and 

 took possession of it. Then must they pursue the king to his other 

 residences, and to this work Major Van Wezel with 900 men was 

 ordered. By this circumstance the king easily escaped to the 

 mountains. Dear friend, it was after this expedition^ that the mistake 

 was first seen, and that they sought to persuade the king to that peace 

 which he himself had offered. But everything remains, and is still, 

 unanswered. Rein still stays with 1,600 men in Candia, but we can 

 receive no news from him. The gentlemen of the Secretariat are 

 occupied with forming a new plan, and have settled, just like stock- 

 jobbers, to go through the Three and Four Corles over Balane into 

 Candia.§ However, they will have to bring it to a conclusion, and not 

 merely have it in mind. 



* By this Horatius Codes was intended the Secretary Van Angelbeeik, 

 because he was very squint-eyed, and Codes, the brave Roman, had only 

 one eye. So also the matter here related is in the usual imperious manner 

 of speech of the said Angelbeek. — Marginal note. 



t " Sch " here means "squint." — Marginal note. 



% Certainly after this expedition S For they came back to the city 

 running in a most cowardly way with over 48 both dead and wounded. — 

 Marginal note. 



§ Time will show what will be the result of this dangerous expedition.— - 



Marginal note. 



