No. 60. — 1908.] couto : history of ceylon. 257 



Again in X. x. xvi. (p. 376) we read of a Portuguese force from 

 Columbo in February 1588 landing north of Chilao and 

 marching on Maripo, which was put to fire and sword as a 

 punishment for the bad treatment shown by its inhabitants to 

 the people of an armada under the command of Diogo Lopes 

 Coutinho, that was wrecked there while going in succour 

 to Cevlon in the time of Count D. Luiz de Ataide, i.e., 

 between 31 August 1578 and 10 March 1581. Of this 

 event I have no details : but it is probable that the armada 

 was going to the relief of Columbo, which was besieged 

 by Raja Sinha for a year and a half (1579-80) with thirty 

 thousand soldiers, half of whom were harquebusiers, and 

 thirteen or fourteen thousand pioneers 1 . In his Tenth Decade 

 Couto makes several references 2 to this siege, which supply 

 us with a few items of information regarding it ; and he also 

 tells us that the captain of Columbo at that time was Manoel 

 de Sousa Coutinho, whose appointment to that post 3 he 

 doubtless recorded in his lost Ninth Decade. The fortress was 

 relieved by Mathias de Albuquerque, who, after going to the 

 help of Malacca with a force of four hundred men, returned to 

 Ceylon in the later part of 1580, and together with the captain 

 of Columbo made an onslaught on Raja Sinha's troops and 

 utterly defeated them 4 . 



1 These details I take from a manuscript in the public library at 

 Evora, Vida de Mathias de Albuquerque (pte. i., cap. ix.), to which, 

 apparently, Faria y Sousa had access (see Asia Port. I., Advertencias , 

 § 8) ; but, strangely enough, while quoting from a later portion (see 

 p. 393, note 2 , p. 394, note 2 ), he passes over this part. 



2 See infra, pp. 293, 297, 299, 335, 354. In VII. n. iv., as we have 

 seen, Couto makes an anticipatory reference to this siege. 



3 I cannot find when Manoel de Sousa took over the post, nor whom 

 he succeeded. We have seen above that in May 1572 D. Antonio de 

 Noronha became captain of Columbo ; but how long he occupied that 

 position there is nothing to show. However, as the epitaph of Fernao 

 de Albuquerque (printed in A. C. Teixeira de Aragao's Descripcdo 

 Oeral e Historia das Moed%s, &c. iii. 203-4) says that he was 

 " captain of Seilao in the era of 1578," I think we may conclude that 

 he held the post for the three years 1575-8. Unhappily, the royal 

 letters to the viceroys and governors of India, from which we migh 

 have obtained so much valuable information, have, so far as concerns 

 those written before Philip of Spain seized the throne of Portugal in 

 1580, almost entirely disappeared. 



4 These facts I gain from the Vida de Mat. de Alb. , u.s. Baldseus 

 {Ceylon ii.) refers to a siege of Columbo, which may be this one ; but 

 he speaks of a proposed mutiny by the Portuguese soldiers, to which 

 I find no other reference. Perhaps this refers to a later occasion (see 

 infra, p. 394). 



5 36-08 



