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JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYTLON). 



[Vol. XX. 



got these against him it would soon be very easy for him to 

 make himself master of the whole island. 



All these contracts having been made according to the wishes 

 of Madune, without Afonso Pereira de Lacerda's suspecting 

 his falsehoods, they at once prepared to prosecute the war : 

 and the captain apprehended the persons that Madune had 

 indicated, and the grand chamberlain he sent at the beginnnig 

 of summer 1 to Goa, where the governor Francisco Barreto 2 

 received him cordially , and ordered him to be intrusted to the 

 friars of Sao Francisco 3 , where he remained, and commanded 

 him to be given all that he needed, and they treated him with 

 so much kindness, that they succeeded in making him a 

 Christian, and baptized him with great rejoicings, the governor 

 Francisco Barreto being his godfather, and bestowing his name 

 on him ; and afterwards he sent him back to Geilao with gifts 

 and honours 4 . 



1 That is, in September 1555. 



2 He succeeded to the governorship on the death of the viceroy D. 

 Pedro Mascarenhas on 16 June 1555. 



3 On the convent and church of St. Francis of Assisi see Fonseca 

 220-5. 



4 In VIII. xii. (p. 244) Couto again refers to this "conversion" of the 

 grand chamberlain. All that the Rdjdvaliya says (81) is, that "his 



'* [Vidiye's] younger brother, Tammit.a Siirya Bandara, was captured and 

 sent to Goa" ; and no mention is made of his return to Ceylon. The 

 version used by Valentyn, however, says {Ceylon 78) : — " Meanwhile the 

 deported councillor Tammutta Bala Soeria Sena Dipati [sic] f ound means 

 of making himself so esteemed by the viceroy [sic] of Goa, that he returned 

 to Ceylon with great gifts." In what year or years the chamberlain's 

 baptism and return to Ceylon took place, I cannot find : but, as Fran- 

 cisco Barreto's governorship ceased on 8 September 1558, they 

 must have occurred before that date. The " conversion " and baptism 

 of Dharmapala must also have taken place during this period, for in the 

 Arch. Port.-Or. (v. No. 257) is printed the summary of a provision by the 

 governor Francisco Barreto, dated at Chaul, 21 March 1558, allowing 

 the king of Ceylon, on account of his " being now converted to our holy 

 faith," to send to India yearly fifty extra bahars of cinnamon, besides 

 the usual 150 of tribute. The wording of this would seem to imply 

 that the " conversion " took place in 1557. I have quoted above 

 (p. 150, note 1 , p. 155, note x ) a passage from the Rdjdvaliya (80) 

 which implies that Dharmapala was " converted " and baptized by 

 means of a padre named " Vilponsi Aponsu Perera," who accompanied 

 the viceroy D. Affonso de Nbronha to Ceylon in 1551. The key to this 

 mysterious and obviously anachronistic passage is to be found in Valen- 

 tyn (Ceylon 78), whose more correct version of the Rdjdvaliya reads : — 

 " At this same time there left for Ceylon a Franciscan priest Fra Joan 



