CO882-(1-2) — Page 113

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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Eighteen months have elapsed since the recal of martial law-the warrants for his apprehension are still out the reward is still proclaimed; but to this hour the civil power has not succeeded in effect- ing his capture, and he is still at large engaged in sowing sedition and hatching fresh plota against the Government.

In fact, at the present moment, I believe it to be. highly improbable that any political offender could be arrested in almost any part of the Kandyan Country, so helpless is the civil power in the hands of the chiefs for effecting such objects.

The knowledge of this disagreeable fact was one of the main inducements which weighed with the Government in the continuance of martial law for some weeks, after open insurrection had ap- parently ceased.

Information had been laid against vast numbers of headmen and chiefs on charges of rebellion; but how would it have been possible, in the dis- organized state of the country, to have effected their capture, had not the people been deterred by the fear of martial law, from harbouring and concealing those who were charged with high treason.

The guilty chiefs could not be relied on to ar- rest one another.

And even the loyal minority would have been powerless against the influence of the disaffected majority.

Mr. Mackenzie, the assistant Government Agent Badulla, says upon this point, "The chiefs and other headmen, being the only agents of the civil power to make arrests, how, I should like to know, could this be done when they themselves were to be arrested? the thing is preposterous. And the doubts that have been expressed on the subject; could only have proceeded from persons, either utterly ignorant of the facts, or perhaps having a purpose to serve by misstating them." (Page 78.) Even with all the exertions of the military during martial law, two months elapsed of in- cemant and nightly pursuits, before the Pretender and his body guard were taken; and upwards of 500 miles of jungle paths had to be out to keep up the communications and surround his retreats.

Mr. Morria the Government Agent at Kornegalle,

Continuance of Martial law.

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in alluding to this point says, that if the suppres sion of insurrection, and the arrest of the rebels had been entrusted to the civil power;

" had the civil law been allowed to take its sluggish course, and the formalities gone through of in- formation before a Justice of the Peace; then a re- ference to the Queen's Advocate; then a com- mittal for trial before the Supreme Court at the next assizes, the result would have been that before a single example could have been made, the whole of the Kandyan Districts would have been in arms.”

"The insurgents would have recovered from their panic occasioned by their first collision with the military, and grown bold from the delay and impunity allowed them; months must have elapsed; much blood would have been shed, before peace could be restored. In such a Guerilla warfare not an estate could have escaped destruction; and, as a colony, Ceylon must have been ruined."*

To demonstrate the necessity of the continuance of martial law, is much more difficult than to de- monstrate the necessity of its proclamation, be- cause the one is dependent on what actually oc- curred, the other on what was prevented from occurring; the one is a matter of fact, the other, to a certain extent, matter of judgment and opinion.

But a sufficient necessity having been shown to justify the declaration of martial law, in order to impugn the propriety of its continuance, it lies upon those who assail Lord Torrington on that ground to show proof that the necessity had ceased before it was discontinued.

But it is an error to suppose that the rebellion was at an end with the action at Warriapole and

the repulse of the insurgents at Kornegalle,

I have already mentioned that even after this encounter, the same attempts were renewed a few days after both at Matelle and Kornegalle.

But this was not all. On the 15th August the

• Mr. Morris states that the Queen's advocats told him, that, in his opinion, martial law musel be continued until an indemnity kill should have been passed by the Legislativo Council ; and that he (Mr. Bolby, the Queen's 'Adromie) quoted as provodoni at the Cape of Good Hope. Pago 102.