PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
C.O. 882
1
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-
COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
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those who, form Mr. MacChristie's committee, are of this profession-and a key to whose expressions of dissatisfaction may be discovered in the following passage from the letter of Mr. Dunnewelle, himself a proctor, and not inactive in the present proceedings. In writing to the Maha Moodliar, on the 4th August, 1848, he says "The town is at present very quiet, but we are all starving almost, for the Courts being closed, the lawyers have no business whatsoever: they are obliged to shut up shop, and I fear it will be long before order is restored, and
things brought to statu quo.”—(Page 258.)
The civil courts were not formally closed, but, owing to the state of the country, all business before them was at an end. The judge, Mr. Staples, writing to Mr. MacChristie, he says "I speak as a civil judge myself-I speak as the representative of the highest nominal civil power at the time in the Kandyan provinces, and I tell you candidly, I was quite helpless--I was para- lysed. The whole machinery of the law courts was
soner.
as a dead lock. I could not get a single process exe- cuted-My writs could not rur-I could not effect a single arrest-I could not capture a single pri- You will ask, how then were the prisoners captured? My answer is, they were captured by the military, and the facilities afforded by martial law. If it had not been for martial law, not a man of them would ever have been made a prisoner-the people would have screened them. The chiefs would have protected them. It was only the terror of martial law and its consequences which prevented them from harbouring and hiding the rebels. Well, even if they had been made prisoners, do you think they would have been brought to trial? Not a man of them. Where would the witnesses have come from? How could they have been got to come forward, if the country and the civil power had been in the hands of the chiefs, and not of the military No; believe me, you have been utterly mislød: it was martial law that saved Ceylon, and I, as the chief judge of Kandy, give you this as my árm and conscientious opinion. Then, as to the continuance of martial law, after the capture of the puppet- king-why, it was only after his capture that wo really knew the extent of our danger, and the extent to which the chiefs were involved.
Take
Iocl 5, p. 80.
Ib. p. 5.
lb. pp. 20, 84, 79.
Ib. p. 21.
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my word for it, and I have the assurance of many, that the loyal and peaceable of the peasantry, 80 far from being discontented or displeased at the continuance of martial law, never did complain of it; but, on the contrary, they saw as clearly an we did, the remarkable protection it afforded them at a remarkable crisis, when they felt and knew that the civil power had not the means to defend their lives and property from the rebels."
But the most striking evidence of what might have been the consequence of the too early su8- pension of martial law, was exhibited in what followed almost immediately on its discontinuance.
The restraint which it imposed on the dis- affected, and the confidence which it inspired in the loyal and peaceful, were at once at an end; and within a very few weeks the two districts, pre- viously the scene of disturbance, became agitated by renewed commotion and disorganized by the report and belief of a newly arranged ontbreak. The purchase of salt-a sure indication of an approaching movement--recommenced with mach anxiety to obtała pomemtion of it, that it rose 200 per cent. in the bazaars of Kandy and Korne- gulle.
Mr. Baller reported that on a journey to Ma telle he found the roads crowded like a fair, and the people crowding into Kandy to exchange coffee for malt. (Letter 12, Dec.)
The owners of shops in the village bazaars closed them in haste, concealed their property in the jungle, and fed with their women to seek concealment in the jungle. The people were thus troubled with reports that the Kandyans in this renewed struggle were to be aided by foreign co- operation. That Mahomedan emimmaries had ar- rived to promios co-operation from India, and that a French force was to be lunded at Trincoma- lee and marched to Kandy.
The probable time of the outbreak was to be about Chrlicemen when the Malabar Coolles begin to restru to their own country after saving the coffee creps on the plantations; and threatening notices'Wild's served on the Ceollen on the estates, warning them to fly the country. (Page 16.) Threets which the more timid prepared to obey. (Page 89.) Chunpowder was in great demand, and reinu.
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