A Regulation for the Security of Property and the Establish- (See under The Tésawalamai, page 43.) Penalty if vessels found within the limits of the pearl banks. Regulation No. 3 of 1811. For the Protection of His Majesty's Pearl Banks of Ceylon. (See Ordinance No. 18 of 1843.) WH HEREAS there is reason to suspect that depredations are committed in the pearl banks of this island by boats and other vessels frequenting those places in the calm season without any necessity or lawful cause for being in that situation: If any boat or other vessel shall hereafter, between the 10th of January and the end of April, or between the first of October and the end of November, in any year, be found within the limits of the pearl banks, as described in the schedule hereunto annexed, anchoring or hovering and not proceeding to her proper destination, as wind and weather may permit, it shall be lawful for any person or persons holding a commission or warrant from His Excellency the Governor for the purposes of this Regulation to enter and seize such boat or other vessel and carry the same to some convenient port or place in this island for prosecution. And every such boat or other vessel is hereby declared liable to forfeiture by sentence of any court having revenue jurisdiction of sufficient amount, and shall be condemned accordingly, two-thirds thereof to the use of His Majesty and one-third to the persons seizing or prosecuting, unless such boat or other vessel shall have been forced into the situation aforesaid by accident or other necessary cause, the proof whereof to be on the party alleging such defence. SCHEDULE. Vessels navigating the inner or along shore passage are not to hover or anchor in deeper than four fathoms water. Vessels navigating the outer passage are not to hover or anchor within twelve fathoms of water. 9th March, 1811. Proclamation of 11th February, 1815. WHERE in have occupied and entered into complete HEREAS the armies of His Majesty the King of Great possession of the Kandyan provinces, denominated the Four Korles, the Saffragam Korle, and the Three Korles, and the chiefs and people of those provinces have fully and freely surrendered the same and submitted themselves without reserve to His Majesty's Government : The said provinces of the Four Korles, the Saffragam Korle, and the Three Korles, with all their royal rights and dependencies, are become, and they are hereby declared to be, integral parts of the British possessions in the island of Ceylon, and are henceforth received under the sovereignty and protection of His Majesty the King of Great Britain. THIS Official Bulletin of 2nd March, 1815. HIS day a solemn conference was held in the audience hall of the Palace of Kandy, between His Excellency the Governor and Commander of the Forces on behalf of His Majesty and of His Royal Highness the Prince Regent on the one part, and the adigars, dessaves, and other principal chiefs of the Kandyan provinces on the other part, on behalf of the people, and in presence of the mohottales, coraals, vidaans, and other subordinate head men from the different provinces, and a great concourse of inhabitants. A public instrument of treaty, prepared in conformity to conditions previously agreed on, for establishing His Majesty's government in the Kandyan provinces, was produced and publicly read in English and Cingalese, and unanimously assented to. The British flag was then for the first time hoisted and the establishment of the British dominion in the interior was announced by a royal salute from the cannon of the city. All the troops present in this garrison were under arms on the occasion of this important event. OFFICIAL DECLARATION OF THE SETTLEMENT OF THE KANDYAN PROVINCES. LED by the invitation of the chiefs, and welcomed by the acclamations of the people, the forces of His Britannic Majesty have entered the Kandyan territory and penetrated to the capital-Divine Providence has blessed their efforts with uniform and complete success-the ruler of the interior Provinces has fallen into their hands, and the government remains at the disposal of His Majesty's representative. In this sacred charge it is his earnest prayer that the Power which has vouchsafed thus far to favour the undertaking may guide his councils to a happy issue, in the welfare and prosperity of the people, and the honour of the British empire. Kandy (Convention). Under circumstances far different from any which exist in the present cases it would be a duty, and a pleasing one, to favour the re-establishment of a fallen prince, if his dominion could be fixed on any principles of external relation compatible with the rights of the neighbouring government, or his internal rule in any reasonable degree reconciled to the safety of his subjects. But the horrible transactions of the fatal year 1803, forced upon the recollection by many local circumstances and by details unknown before-the massacre of 150 sick soldiers lying helpless in the hospital of Kandy, left under the pledge of public faith, and the no less treacherous murder of the whole British garrison commanded by Major Davie, which had surrendered on a promise of safety, impress upon the Governor's mind an act of perfidy unparalleled in civilized warfare, and an awful lesson recorded in characters of blood against the momentary admission of future confidencewhile the obstinate rejection of all friendly overtures, repeatedly made during the intermission of hostilities, has served to evince an implacable animosity destructive of the hope of a sincere reconciliation. Of this animosity a daring instance was exhibited in the unprovoked and barbarous mutilation of ten innocent subjects of the British Government, by which seven of the number lost their lives-a measure of defiance calculated, and apparently intended, to put a final negative to every probability of friendly intercourse. If, therefore, in the present reverse of his fortunes and condition, it may be presumed the king would be found more accessible to negotiation than in former times-what value could be set on a consent at variance with the known principles of his reign?-or what dependence placed on his observance of conditions which he has hitherto so perseveringly repelled? Still less could the hope for a moment be entertained that any conditions of safety were capable of being established on behalf of the inhabitants, who had appealed to His Majesty's Government for protection, and yet more hopeless the attempt to obtain pardon or safeguard for the chiefs, who had deemed it a duty paramount to every other obligation to become the medium of that appeal. How far their complaints have been groundless, and their opposition licentious, or on the contrary their grievances bitterly and intolerably real, may now be judged by facts of unquestionable authenticity. The wanton destruction of human life comprises or implies the existence of general oppression,-in conjunction with that no other proofs of the exercise of tyranny require to be specified, and one single instance, of no distant date, will be acknowledged to include everything which is barbarous and unprincipled in public rule, and to pourtray the last stage of individual depravity and wickedness, the oblitera tion of every trace of conscience, and the complete extinction of human feeling. Kandy (Convention). In the deplorable fate of the wife and children of Eheylapola Adikar these assertions are fully substantiated, in which was exhibited the savage scene of four infant children-the youngest torn from the mother's breast-cruelly butchered, and their heads bruised in a mortar by the hands of their parent, succeeded by the execution of the woman herself and three females more,-whose limbs being bound, and a heavy stone tied round the neck of each, they were thrown into a lake and drowned. It is not, however, that under an absolute government unproved suspicion must usurp the place of fair trial, and the fiat of the ruler stand instead of the decision of justice; it is not that a rash, violent, or unjust decree, or a revolting mode of execution, is here brought to view, nor the innocent suffering under the groundless imputation of guilt; but a bold contempt of every principle of justice, setting at nought all known grounds of punishment, dispensing with the necessity of accusation, and choosing for its victims helpless females uncharged with any offence and infants incapable of a crime. Contemplating these atrocities, the impossibility of establishing with such a man any civilized relations, either of peace or war, ceases to be a subject of regret, since His Majesty's arms, hitherto employed in the generous purpose of relieving the oppressed, would be tarnished and disgraced by being instrumental to the restoration of a dominion exercised in a perpetual outrage to everything which is sacred in the constitution or functions of a legitimate government. On these grounds His Excellency the Governor has acceded to the wishes of the chiefs and people of the Kandyan provinces, and a convention has in consequence been held, the result of which the following public Act is destined to record and proclaim. PROCLAMATION OF 2ND MARCH, 1815. AT a Convention held on the second day of March, in the year of Christ 1815, and the Cingalese year 1736, at the Palace in the city of Kandy, between His Excellency Lieut.General Robert Brownrigg, Governor and Commander-inChief in and over the British settlements and territories in the island of Ceylon, acting in the name and on behalf of His Majesty George the Third, King, and His Royal Highness George, Prince of Wales, Regent, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, on the one part, and the adigars, dessa ves, and other principal chiefs of the Kandyan provinces on behalf of the inhabitants, and in presence of the mohottales, coraals, vidaans, and other subordinate headmen from the several provinces, and of the people then and there assembled on the other part, it is agreed and established as follows: 1 That the cruelties and oppressions of the Malabar ruler, in the arbitrary and unjust infliction of bodily tortures and the pains of death without trial, and sometimes without an Kandy (Convention). accusation or the possibility of a crime, and in the general contempt and contravention of all civil rights, have become flagrant, enormous, and intolerable, the acts and maxim of his government being equally and entirely devoid of that justice which should secure the safety of his subjects, and of that good faith which might obtain a beneficial intercourse with the neighbouring settlements. 2 That the Rajah Sri Wikreme Rajah Sinha, by the habitual violation of the chief and most sacred duties of a Sovereign, has forfeited all claims to that title or the powers annexed to the same, and is declared fallen and deposed from the office of king; his family and relatives, whether in the ascending, descending, or collateral line, and whether by affinity or blood, are also for ever excluded from the throne, and all claim and title of the Malabar race to the dominion of the Kandyan provinces is abolished and extinguished. 3 That all male persons being or pretending to be relations of the late Rajah Sri Wikreme Rajah Sinha, either by affinity or blood, and whether in the ascending, descending, or collateral line, are hereby declared enemies to the government of the Kandyan provinces, and excluded and prohibited from entering those provinces on any pretence whatever, without a written permission for that purpose by the authority of the British Government, under the pains and penalties of martial law, which is hereby declared to be in force for that purpose; and all male persons of the Malabar caste now expelled from the said provinces are, under the same penalties, prohibited from returning, except with the permission before mentioned. 4 The dominion of the Kandyan provinces is vested in the Sovereign of the British Empire, and to be exercised through the Governors or Lieutenant-Governors of Ceylon for the time being, and their accredited agents, saving to the adigars, dessaves, mohottales, coraals, vidaans, and all other chief and subordinate native headmen, lawfully appointed by authority of the British Government, the rights, privileges, and powers of their respective offices, and to all classes of the people the safety of their persons and property, with their civil rights and immunities, according to the laws, institutions, and customs established and in force amongst them. 5 The religion of Boodho, professed by the chiefs and inhabitants of these provinces, is declared inviolable, and its rites, ministers, and places of worship are to be maintained and protected. 6 Every species of bodily torture, and all mutilation of limb, member, or organ, are prohibited and abolished. 10 Provided always that the operation of the several preceding clauses shall not be contravened by the provisions of any temporary or partial proclamation published during |