The king being ill of a contagious distemper,
his two favourite ministers, Acede Khan and Calabate Khan, kept him
concealed in the palace, so that no person was allowed to see him.
The
prince and the people had recourse to arms, in order to force these
tyrants to admit them into the kings presence; on which they persuaded
the infirm king that the prince wished to depose him, so that the king
went to war against the prince, and defeated him with great slaughter,
upon which the Moguls were called in to their assistance, and used the
opportunity to plunder the country and appropriate it to themselves.
Towards the close of the viceroyalty of Don Duarte de Menezes, Raju who
had usurped the sovereignty of Ceylon, determined upon making a conquest
of the Portuguese fortress of Columbo, with a view of expelling them
from that island. For this purpose he collected an immense army, in
which were 50,000 soldiers, 60,000 pioneers, and nearly as many
artificers of various descriptions, with 2200 elephants, 40,000 oxen,
150 pieces of cannon, and 50,000 intrenching tools, axes, shovels,
spades, and mattocks, with an innumerable quantity of spare arms and
ammunition; among which were two wooden castles built upon enormous
carriages, each of which had nine wheels. Added to all which he had
nearly 500 craft of different kinds. Before proceeding upon this
expedition, he deemed it proper to consult the idols respecting its
success; and on this occasion he secretly placed men behind the idols,
who answered to his supplications for a favourable termination to his
great design, If you, would take Columbo you must shed innocent blood!
The people were astonished at this familiar and direct intercourse
between their idols and their prince; and he, pretending obedience to
the divine commands which they had all heard, caused 500 children to be
taken from the arms of their mothers, all of whom were sacrificed, and
the idols sprinkled with their blood.
After all his preparations were completed, he marched with his
prodigious army and invested Columbo, choosing the ground which he
deemed most advantageous, as the garrison was not sufficiently strong to
contend with him in the field. Joam de Britto, who then commanded in
Columbo, had sent intimation of his danger to the other Portuguese
possessions, and had arranged every thing for defence as well as he
could. To defend the place against the vast army by which he was now
assailed, he had only 300 Portuguese, a third of whom were useless, as
being old men or children; besides whom he had 700 armed natives and
slaves. This incompetent force he posted to the best advantage around
the walls, which were far too extensive, reserving 50 picked men to
attend upon himself to give relief wherever it was most needed. After
the commencement of the siege, Raju spent a whole month in draining a
lake which secured one side of Columbo from being assailed, and as the
Portuguese had several boats on the lake, there were frequent skirmishes
in which the enemy suffered considerable loss.
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