to the Court of Candy. 401 
prevailed upon to send ambassadors to Madras, these persons 
very modestly desired Lord Hobart to prostrate himself before 
them, and to receive the king’s letter on his knees. This re- 
quest, however, his lordship declined to comply with ; but re- 
turned for answer, that as they were so much in the habit of 
kneeling, and so fond of prostration, a custom which his coun- 
trymen never adopted, their best plan to prevent the omission 
of this essential ceremony would be to prostrate themselves be- 
fore him wlio held the supreme authority there: and this alter- 
native, after they found his lordship would not submit to the 
other, they actually assented to. 
General Macdowal, understanding that this ceremony was ex- 
pected at his introduction, previously informed his majesty, by 
means of the Adigar, that he could not on any account sub- 
mit to it. The king made many objections to receiving him 
into his presence, unless he would consent first to prostrate him- 
self and then to remain kneeling during the royal audience. The 
general, however, positively refused compliance, and informed 
the minister that his sovereign acknowledged the superiority of 
no potentate upon earth ; and that sooner than degrade his 
sovereign in the person of his representative, he would return 
to Colombo without being presented. The king, not daring to 
come to an open breach with us, upon this waved his prero- 
gative ; but in order to reconcile this derogation from his dignity 
to his own feelings, he informed the general that it was his 
\ 
royal will to dispense in his case with the usual ceremonies 
required of ambassadors at their introduction, as the general 
came from his brother the King of Great Britain, whose great 
power and strength he acknowledged to be far above that of the 
Dutch or the East-India Company. 
3 F 
