THE ISLAND OF CEYLON. 
55 
the exaction has even been sometimes openly resisted. In June 
1800, a body of the natives, on the taxes being demanded of 
them, and the payment about to be enforced, assembled before 
the fort in a tumultuous manner, and seemed determined not 
to submit to the exactions. Two companies of the nineteenth, 
were immediately sent to the assistance of Major Ford, the 
commandant of the place ; but means were found to disperse 
them before the arrival of this reinforcement. It was these 
two companies of the nineteenth, which first passed from Manaar 
to Trincomalee by land. They forded the narrow channel, 
which, as we have observed, separates Manaar from Ceylon, 
and thence traversed the country to Trincomalee. Although 
the season was very bad, they suffered little from fatigue. 
These temporary commotions among the natives, though in 
general repressed with ease, are more frequent than might be 
expected from the ill success which always attends them. At 
Nigumbo, and Matura, similar insurrections to those at Ma- 
naar, and from the same causes, took place ; and they were 
in the same manner speedily quelled by the arrival of detach- 
ments of the nineteenth regiment. Captain Vincent, of that 
regiment, who commanded at Nigumbo, was attacked by a 
large body of the natives belonging to our settlements, on his 
way to that fort from Columbo, accompanied with a small 
party of Malay soldiers ; but he maintained a post, which he 
had taken, with very great ability, till a body of Europeans 
arrived to his assistance. The severe exactions of the Dutch, 
