CO885(1-2) — Page 177

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

TLC.O.

885

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-

COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

14

the Government became aware of the existence of a very extensive conspiracy among the chiefs and priests, at the head of which was Mollegodde the first Adegar, whose services had been so great in the rebellion of 1818, and who had been rewarded by a pension and by his lands being freed from taxation; the designs of the conspira- tors were apparently of the most treacherous description, involving the assassination of the Agents, and according to some accounts, the wholesale poisoning of all the British officers, including the Governor, at a feast to which they were to be invited.

The motives for this intended rebellion were apparently the same as those which led to all the former ones, viz., a desire on the part of the chiefs and priests to regain the power and influ- ence which they had lost under the British rule; and the manner in which they designed to gain their object, fully proves at the same time the justice of Sir R. Brownrigg's remarks respecting the excessive treachery and ingratitude of the higher orders of Kandians, and their extreme ignorance. Their intention was, after the mas- sacre of the English officers, to offer the island either to the French or the King of Siam on condition of their assistance against us; but these new allies were also to be disposed of on the first opportunity.

The Governor was early informed of the plot, and delayed the arrest of the principal conspi- rators as long as possible that ample evidence against them might be collected; but on the 6th of August, as they were about to leave Kandy and disperse themselves over the country for the purpose of preparing the different provinces, when both the difficulty of securing them would have been increased, and some bloodshed would probably have occurred, they were all seized to the number of twenty-seven. On the 9th, the Governor issued a proclamation warning the people against being deceived by the false stories which the conspirators had spread throughout the country, and which were to the effect that the Buddhist religion was about to be destroyed and the practice of compulsory servitude revived. A very copious narrative of the whole plot is

August 6.

;

}

October 18.

1842.

March 22. Confidential.

70. May 9.

177. Nov. 4.

1843.

187. Oct. 21.

15

contained in a despatch by Sir H. Horton, dated September 15, 1834, which is bound up in a volume containing all the documents which re- late to this conspiracy. Six of the prisoners, including Mollegodde, were brought to trial at Kandy on the 12th of January, 1835. The jury consisted of six Englishmen and seven natives, chosen at the request of the prisoners themselves from the inhabitants not of the Kandian but of the maritime provinces; but though there was no moral doubt of the truth of the facts alleged against them, they were acquitted, the vote of the seven Kandians being "Not guilty." They had however been of course deprived of all the titles and offices which they had held of the Government, and the effect produced upon the natives by the submission of the English Govern- ment to the laws which they had themselves made was perhaps better than could have been occasioned by the execution of these men.

In the year 1842, some excitement was caused in Ceylon by the rumour of the Affghanistan disasters. Meetings of a seditious character were held among the natives, and a pretender to the throne was set up in the provinces of Doombera, but with his principal supporter was speedily arrested. These two, and several others, were tried for high treason and acquitted"; but in the course of the next year the same person having again attempted to excite an insurrection, he and twelve of his adherents were again brought to trial for treason. The pretender himself was found guilty and sentenced to death, but the sentence was commuted to imprisonment with hard labour for fourteen years.

In these despatches the Governor, Sir Colin Campbell, gives the same account which bis predecessors, Sir R. Brownrigg and Sir R. W. Horton, had given before, as to the disaffection being wholly confined to the chiefs and priests, and its being attributable to the subversion of their influence over the lower classes by the British Government.

For the affairs of 1842 and 1843, ride collection of documents in Appendix to New Printed Papers laid before Parliament.