formerly been disputed, or which were now ceded; never to retain in his service any British subject, or the subject of any European or American state, without the consent of the British Government; to allow the permanent residence of an English Minister at the Court of Catmandoo, and to send accredited Ministers of his own to reside at Calcutta.
While the Anglo-Indian Army was thus extending its fame, and the Company its frontier, in the extreme north of India, an important acquisition was made at the southern extremity of this vast peninsula, in the full sovereignty of Ceylon; and though the King's government of that island was altogether distinct from, and independent of, the Company's government in India, their relative connexion and mutual interchange of advice and assistance render it necessary to take a passing notice in this work of the military events which led to our complete subjugation of that splendid colony.
Before the close of the last century, we had dispossessed the Dutch of all their maritime settlements in Ceylon; and in the year 1800 our sway extended over a territory of 12,000 square miles, in a broad belt which inclosed within it the semi-barbarous kingdom of Candy, occupying a similar extent of territory; the island being thus pretty equally divided between the British Government and the King of Candy. The interior of the island being excessively woody and mountainous, the Candians had been enabled to maintain for centuries their independence of the foreign nations who had settled on their coasts; but quarrels, usually accompanied with bloodshed, were constantly occurring between them; till at length the death of the King of Candy giving rise to a disputed succession, some of the adigars or chiefs courted the assistance of the English against the new king who was placed on the throne in 1802, and whose hostility had already been evinced in the plunder of some coast merchants, subjects of the British Government.
The Honourable Frederick North, then Governor of
