Ceylon, sent 3,000 men to occupy the mountain capital, and to place a more friendly king upon the throne.
This was accordingly effected; but the king we had made had no party in the country, and our troops were consequently treated as invaders and usurpers. Every night some of them were brought down by the fire of concealed marksmen, or they were assassinated in the jungles, or treacherously led into ambuscades and butchered. It was determined, therefore, to withdraw our troops and our unpopular king; another adigar, who had partisans, being invested with the supreme authority, on condition of his ceding some territories to the English. On the faith of this treaty, General McDowall quitted Candy for the coast, leaving behind him a garrison of 700 Malays and 300 Europeans, under the command of Major Davie, who unfortunately proved to be an officer of great incapacity.
This garrison, including a number of sick and wounded, was soon reduced to a state of starvation, no proper measures having been adopted to secure magazines and depôts of provisions; and in less than three months the new king fairly starved the British out of Candy. Finally, the sick and wounded were butchered as they lay in the hospital incapable of resistance; and Davie capitulated in the jungle, when all his troops were murdered, and he himself taken back to Candy, where he lingered out a miserable existence.
The Candians now became invaders in their turn, and carried terror and devastation to within fifteen miles of Colombo, the seat of government; but reinforcements fortunately arrived from Bengal and the Cape, and the Candians were driven back to their woods and mountains. In the year 1804 war was again carried into the interior, but not upon any fixed plan; it therefore degenerated into a desultory series of outrages, perpetrated on both sides with great barbarity. These continued with little intermission till 1814, when, during the government of Sir Robert Brownrigg, intelligence was received that
