PUBLIC RECORD
OFFICE
Reference :-
TTIC.O. 882
1
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH—NOT TO
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strikingly confirms the opinion of the Dessave of Oovah. Mr. Mackenzie was in attendance at the great temple of Kattragam, many miles distant from Badulla, when he received the intelligence of the first assemblages of the Kandyans, at Kandy, on the 6th July, to meet the authorities on the subject of the taxes. Fearing some extension of these tumults, he hurried back to his district. This was upwards of three weeks before the rebellion actually broke out at Matelle; but nevertheless, on the line of his march to the hill country, he de- scribes the unusual aspect of the people and their villages. Their manner was uneasy and con- strained, the villages deserted, the houses stripped of their furniture, and the female part of the population nowhere to be seen; all sure signs that something serious was apprehended.
The headmen disclaimed all knowledge of any. thing to account for these appearances; and even professed their ignorance of what had occurred at Kandy, although Mr. Mackenzie knew they must be fully aware of it. Mr. Mackenzie says: "Finding the headmen so disposed, I assembled as large a number of the people themselves as I could bring together, and insisted on being informed of the cause of their alarm? and the simultaneous answer WBS, 'The war is coming! we are afraid to remain in the villages, and only feel safe in flight, and in the jungle.'
"It will be observed," he continues, “that all this display of alarm and deliberate preparation took place many days before the actual outbreak at
Matelle and Kornegalle." (Page 70.)
A few days after, the intelligence reached Badulla, of the insurrection; and then, says Mr. Mackenzie, "the greatest consternation prevailed throughout the Badulle country: reports reached me in rapid succession, that the villagers had blocked up the forest roads and bridle-paths in Bintenne and Wel- lasse; that the people were leaving their homes, abandoning their houses and property, and taking refuge in the fastnesses of the mountains and the depth of the jungle.
"It is my deliberate opinion that this unhappy condition of the people rendered the policy adopted absolutely necessary, and that the proclamation of military law was dictated by sound judgment; and
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it is my firm belief had not the insurrection been stifled in its birth, or had success instead of discom- fiture attended the first outbreak at Matelle and Kornegalle, not only my own district of Oovah, but all the adjacent ones, would have been constrained and compelled by the rest of the population to rise in one common rebellion for the expulsion of the British. Nothing but the promptitude of Lord Tor- rington's measures, and their signal success, saved Ceylon from this fearful catastrophe." (Page 75.)
There are two other populous districts which go to compose the ancient Kandyan kingdom, that of "Saffragam,and that called the "Four Korles." Mr. Mitford, the resident Government officer in Saffragam, wrote to me a review of these events on the 8th of October, 1848, in which he clearly inti- mates that the inhabitants of his district, a most populous and powerful one, were equally prepared to unite with the rebels had they not been deterred
by their discomfiture, and the proclamation of martial law.
Scenes very similar to those exhibited in the ad- joining district of Oovah were enacted in Saffragam. There was "an eager watching what success might attend the rebels at Kandy" (page 209), whence intelligence of the intended insurrection reached
the capital of the district Ratnapoora. The inha- bitants began about the 17th of July to desert the bazaars; the rumour was general that an insurgent force was on its march from Kandy to Safagam, where it was to be joined by another from the adjoining principality of Oovah, and the inhabitanda began, as usual on such occasions, to retire to the recesses of the woods and mountains (page 211); and Mr. Mitford maya, “I would now remark on the fact as of some importance, that although the first overt act did not take plaos at Matelle until the 97th July, intellingsson of what was on foot had already remehed the station in the middle of that month, from which the probability may be inferred was combined, and that there dlatzjet in correspondanas will 211.)
that
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