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JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). [VOL. XVI ^ 



A CHAPTER IN CEYLON HISTORY IN 1630.* 



By D. W. Ferguson. 



In the Monthly Literary Register , Vol. IV., pp. 210-214, 

 is given the translation of a " Memorandum on the Affairs 

 of Ceilao," written about 1609, in which the anonymous 

 writer refers, inter alia, to the tyranny exercised towards 

 the natives by Portuguese officials and the rigorous treat- 

 ment of new converts by the ecclesiastics. This was during 

 the generalship of the cruel Dom Jeronymo de Azevedo ; 

 but matters do not seem to have improved under his imme- 

 diate successors ; and it was not until Constantino de Sa e 

 Noronha assumed the command of the Island that the 

 Sinhalese began to be treated more as human beings than as 

 brutes. But even under the milder rule of Sa e Noronha 

 the natives still had to endure many vexations and oppres- 

 sions at the hands of officials and ecclesiastics, as is proved 

 by the following report by Ambrosio de Freitas, vedor da 

 fazenda or Accountant-General of Ceylon, in reply to a letter 

 from the King, Philip IV. of Spain. f The writer of this 

 report, Ambrosio de Freitas da Camara, left Lisbon in March, 

 1619, for India, to take up the post of vedor da fazenda in 

 Ceylon, to which he had been appointed ; but on reaching 

 Goa he remained there as acting provedor mor dos contos 

 (chief supervisor of accounts), and did not take up his sub- 

 stantive office at Colombo until the end of 1623 or beginning 

 of 1624. We learn from J. R. de Sa e Menezes's Rebelionde 



* Paper not read, but printed in this Journal in accordance with the 

 Council's Resolution No. 13 of January 25, 1900. 



f The letter and the report were printed for the first time by the late 

 Sr. J. N. da Cunha Rivara, in the Chronista de Tissuary, torn. IV., p. 8, 

 from the Portuguese records in G-oa. I have collated the letter with the 

 copy in Addtl. MS. 20,872 in the British Museum Library. — D. F. 



