Was there no vengeance, no retribution, for these things?  Vengeance there was, but by accident.  Retribution there was, but partial and remote.  Infamous it was for the English government at Columbo, as Mr Bennett insinuates, that having a large fund disposable annually for secret service, between 1796 and 1803, such a rupture could have happened and have found us unprepared.  Equally infamous it was, that summary chastisement was not inflicted upon the perfidious court of Kandy.  What real power it had, when unaided by villainy amongst ourselves, was shown in 1804, in the course of which year, one brave officer, Lieutenant Johnstone of the 19th, with no more than 150 men, including officers, marched right through the country, in the teeth of all opposition from the king, and resolutely took[19] Kandy in his route.  However, for the present, without a shadow of a reason, since all reasons ran in the other direction, we ate our leek in silence; once again, but now for the last time, the bloody little bantam crowed defiance from his dunghill, and tore the British flag with his spurs.  What caused his ruin at last, was literally the profundity of our own British humiliation; had that been less, had it not been for the natural reaction of that spectacle, equally hateful and incredible, upon barbarian chief, as ignorant as he was fiendish, he would have returned a civil answer to our subsequent remonstrances.  In that case, our government would have been conciliated; and the monster’s son, who yet lives in Malabar, would now be reigning in his stead.  But Diis aliter visum est—­earth was weary of this Kandyan nuisance, and the infatuation, which precipitated its doom, took the following shape.  In 1814, certain traders, ten in number, not British but Cinghalese, and therefore British subjects, entitled to British protection, were wantonly molested in their peaceable occupations by this Kandyan king.  Three of these traders one day returned to our frontier wearing upon necklaces, inextricably attached to their throats, their own ears, noses, and other parts of their own persons, torn away by the pincers of the Kandyan executioners.  The seven others had sunk under their sufferings.  Observe that there had been no charge or imputation against these men, more or less:  stet proratione voluntas.  This was too much even for our all-suffering[20] English administration.  They sent off a kind of expostulation, which amounted to this—­“How now, my good sir?  What are you up to?” Fortunately for his miserable subjects, (and, as this case showed, by possibility for many who were not such,) the vain-glorious animal returned no answer; not because he found any diplomatic difficulty to surmount, but in mere self glorification, and in pure disdain of us.  What a commentary was that upon our unspeakable folly up to that hour!