420 Appendix. 
from his ambitious designs. With his usual dissimulation he professed on 
every public occasion the greatest friendship to our government : but as our 
alliance with the monarch gave him just grounds to suppose that his ambitious 
attempts would be resisted, it was to be expected that he would use every 
means in his power to dissolve the connection. As his controul at the court 
of Candy was unbounded, every thing done there contrary to our interests 
was to be attributed to him, for the feeble monarch durst in no instance dis- 
pute his pleasure. 
The circumstances which led more immediately to hostilites are described, 
in the following official documents. 
Extract of a Letter from His Excellency Governor North, to the Right Honour- 
able Lord Hobart. 
Columbo, April 14, 1803. 
The various events which have driven my government into a war with Candy have, 
as they have occurred, been regularly reported to your Lordship. I take the liberty, 
howfever, of laying before you, at present, a detailed account of that affair from its ori- 
gin, together with a complete series of the documents relating to it. 
To Robert Arbuthnot, Esq. Chief Secretary to Government. 
Sir — I had the honour of acquainting you, in a former dispatch, that I had spoken 
to a very confidential Moorman in Putelang (Putalom) to procure me precise intelligence 
from the frontiers of Candy, and as much as possible from the interior of that country, 
through the channel of his mercantile connections in that part of the Candian districts 
where he could penetrate under the disguise of trade : in compliance with my request, he 
sent one on whose prudence he could depend, who returned the day before last. He said, 
he would not be permitted to go far into the first country ; but that he met two Moormen, 
merchants, his intimate acquaintance, who told him that every person was actively en- 
gaged in preparing for hostile or defensive war ; that in the first, second, and third 
country, one fnan out of every village, however small, and in proportion in the more 
populous villages, were ordered to assemble at certain places of rendezvous, and put under 
the orders of officers, and every day were training in archery : that every one got pre- 
cise orders to provide themselves with six bows and a proportionate number of arrows; 
and that, in the other countries, similar preparations were also going forward. He says, 
that the utmost secrecy is enjoined every person, under pain of cutting out their 
tongues ; that those two Moormen took advantage of an obscure night and a very private 
place to give him this information, and said, that every person was closely watched, even 
their own subjects. I desired my friend to continue to procure every intelligence possi- 
ble of any appearance of the Candians approaching, in any numbers, the British set- 
tlements. 
