om his dunghill, and tore the
British flag with his spurs. What caused his ruin at last, was literally
the profundity of our own British humiliation; had _that_ been less, had
it not been for the natural reaction of that spectacle, equally hateful
and incredible, upon barbarian chief, as ignorant as he was fiendish, he
would have returned a civil answer to our subsequent remonstrances. In
that case, our government would have been conciliated; and the monster's
son, who yet lives in Malabar, would now be reigning in his stead. But
_Diis aliter visum est_--earth was weary of this Kandyan nuisance, and the
infatuation, which precipitated its doom, took the following shape. In
1814, certain traders, ten in number, not British but Cinghalese, and
therefore British subjects, entitled to British protection, were wantonly
molested in their peaceable occupations by this Kandyan king. Three of
these traders one day returned to our frontier wearing upon necklaces,
inextricably attached to their throats, their own ears, noses, and other
parts of their own persons, torn away by the pincers of the Kandyan
executioners. The seven others had sunk under their sufferings. Observe
that there had been no charge or imputation against these men, more or
less: _stet proratione voluntas_. This was too much even for our
all-suffering[20] English administration. They sent off a kind of
expostulation, which amounted to this--"How now, my good sir? What are you
up to?" Fortunately for his miserable subjects, (and, as this case showed,
by possibility for many who were _not_ such,) the vain-glorious animal
returned no answer; not because he found any diplomatic difficulty to
surmount, but in mere self glorification, and in pure disdain of _us_.
What a commentary was _that_ upon our unspeakable folly up to that hour!

[19] "_Took_ Kandy in his route." This phrase is equivocal, it
bears two senses--the traveller's sense, and the soldier's. But
_we_ rarely make such errors in the use of words; the error is
original in the Government documents themselves.

[20] Why were they "all-suffering?" will be the demand of the
reader, and he will doubt the fact simply because he will not
apprehend any sufficient motive. That motive we believe to have
been this: war, even just or necessary war, is costly; now, the
governor and his council knew that their own individual chances of
promotion were in the exact ratio of the econ