PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
PERNIC.O. 882
1
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
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ing, Lord Torrington has never even exercised to their full extent his own authority as Commander- in-Chief.
But that which mainly tended to suppressing the Martial law. insurrection, and without which, in my opinion, all the other military precautions would have failed to prevent its spreading to the rest of the Kandyan kingdom, was the prompt proclamation of martial
law.
The propriety of this measure can scarcely be Universally approved.
said to have been impugned, for, with two excep-
tions, every witness who has appeared before the
Committee has declared its necessity, and ascribed
good effects to its adoption.
And I must add, that out of the whole popu- Except by two persons, Mr. Wode.
house and Mr. Anstruther. lation of Ceylon, European and native, two gentle. men, Mr. Wodehouse and Mr. Anstruther, are the only two individuals, official or private, whom I ever heard of, that expressed the remotest doubt as to the expediency and sound policy of this Observer" measure, except the Editor of the "" lately; and at the time even the hostile portion of the local press gave its approval to the proclamation of martial law; and those who doubted the neces- sity of its continuance were unanimous in the approbation of its imposition.
As regards the insurrectionary districts them- Bee Mr. Buller's letter and Colone selves, the expression of both the military and civil Drought's Statement. authorities was that its effect was, almost "elec- trical."
never occurred to the rebel leaders that there was any other tribunal before which traitors and rebels could be arraigned than the Supreme Court, and for five and twenty years no man who had been arraigned before the Supreme Court, for treason had been found guilty, with the single exception of Chandrayotty, who owed his convic- tion to his own weakness in making a confession. The trials of 1834, the arrests of 1842, and the acquittals of 1843, were all fresh in their recollec- tion; and looking to these, they entertained bat little apprehension of the civil tribunals, they had the delays and the technicalities and the proctors' ingenuities to rely on, and, failing these, they had the jury to fall back on, which in 1843 had already acquitted the Pretender himself in opposition to the Judges' charge. They now found them-
• 8 Colonel Drought's ststotnent, p. 2, as to the little alarm extertained for the Bapreme Court by the Kandyans.
↑ Bir William Norris.
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selves handed over to a'court which had, as one of the papers on the table says, neither proctors, Colonel Drought's statement, p. 19. technicalities, nor jurors. "Their hearts failed them, and they were driven back to their allegi- ance; the chiefs dare no longer be absent from their homes, and the lower classes, thus deprived of their leaders, dispersed to their villages far more quickly and quietly than would otherwise
Its effect on the waverers.
have been the case.”
Another large section who were similarly influ- enced by martial law as the body of those of the chiefs in the disturbed districts, who had not yet committed themselves by any overt act, but had signified their adherence to the Pretender, left their names for the purpose of joining him, and after his four defeats were lying concealed in the jungle in large parties to await the turn of events and the chances of war.
These men speedily found that in addition to actual war they had another force to contend with, the judicial powers of martial law; they saw the rapidity and the certainty of punishment, and one by one they crept back to their villages, resumed their allegiance, and gradually collected round the Government Officer with tenders of information and offers of assistance.
Its influence on the mass of the people was equally effectual and rapid; they began by har bouring the Pretender and his party, concealing them in their houses, supplying them with food, and acting as guards and guides during their movements. For the first time they were made aware that this harbouring and comforting of traitors was itself an act of treason, and after one or two arrests they desisted in terror from these practices, and the Pretender and his followers were driven to chance for their food and to caves and the forest for their hiding places and retreats; till stripped by degrees of his adherents and compa- nione deserted by the chiefs and abandoned by the people--the fallen leader was eventually be- trayed to the military by a member of the same family who had concealed him before the enact- ment of martial law, but who were no longer willing to incur the risk after its proclamation.
Mr. Hanna, the police magistrate of Kandy, expresses his opinion as to the capture of the Pre- tender under martial law and his impunity under the ordinary law of the Colony, as follows :—