Indian Antiquary Vol 45

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 189

NOVEMBER, 1916]
THE HISTORY OF THE NAIK KINGDOM OF MADURA
181
world ; and a little thought shews that Råmappaiya must have obtained the cooperation of the Portuguese. At the time when Tirumal Nâik ascended the throne the Dutch had been gaining ground everywhere. Almost every year they blockaded Goa and subjected it to immense loss of trade. The English, then allies of the Dutch, acted with them and, with their superior ships and men, secured easy victories. Every where the Portuguese lost. Malacca, once the most flourishing centre of eastern trade, was reduced to a second-rate dependency, yielding barely & revenue 3,000 cruzados. In Ceylon, indeed, the Portuguese had their own way; for in 1628 they crected forts at Trincomali and Batticalao and provoked a successful war with Kandy. But the very next year the Portuguese general was decoyed into mountains and, deserted by the Singhalese section of his troops, was defeated and slain by Raja Singha. In 1633 their position, it is true, was somewhat bettered; for, a convention with the English East India Company introduced an era of comparative immunity from a formidable enemy; and at the same time, a number of victories in Ceylon made Rija Singha agree to a treaty in April 1633, by which he was to share his dominions with two other sons of queen Catherina, to refrain from wars in future without due notice and reasons, to give Betticalao to Portugul, to pay one elephant as tribute every year, and to permit a prelato of the order of St. Francis to reside in Kandy and minister to the religious waats of the Christians of that locality. But much of this success was undone by the weakness, the disunion and the cruelty of the Portuguese themselves. They thoroughly alienated the native populations as much by the barbarities perpetratel not only on their defeated enemies but on harmless and defenceless women and children, as by the persistency with which they endeavoured to force the Catholio religion on all who became subject to their rule". At the same time, owing to their defective management of commercial affairs, the revenues in the different ports dwindled down to practically nothing. More than these, the Jesuits and priests, whom they encouraged at their own expense, became enemies more deadly than the Dutch themselves. They assumed a tone of arrogance in their conduct and made bold to defy the viceroy himself. They retained bands of men at their own expense in total disobedience to the government. They interfered in politics and in tra le, and made themselves absolute masters of the pearl fisheries of Travancore and the Indian coast. They actually waged war against His Majesty's captains on the seas. They obtained, by underhand means, a general charge over the several fortresses of the north and refused to render any account of the expenditure. They purchased lands and received legacies without permission. Above all they held secret communications with the Dutch and even with the Muhammadans. Deriving every support from the government, they thus proved ungrateful intriguers against its authority. The government did indeed prohibit them in 1635 from purchasing land and receiving legacies without sanction, and from interference with pearl fisheries, on pain of the loss of the care of the Christians. But the large allowances they had been drawing and the large private property they had accumulated, made them indifferent to these threats. Financially the dependents of the State, they were actually richer than the State, which, on account of its poverty, could not even pay the soldiers and therefore drove them to be monks. The life of the monk in fact became the coveted life of the day. Hundreds of people who came every year from Portugal on the King's service, gave up their original object and embraced the easy and alluring occupation of monk. It is no wonder that the ecclesiastical men in Goa were far out of proportion to officials
For a detailed account of the religious activity of the Portuguese in Ceylon see Tennent's Christianity in Ceylon, 22-29.