Descripción

About the Book:-The author has portrayed that for three centuries the Sinhalese had struggled to maintain their independent existence in the face of Western aggression, and the story of their efforts, diminishing pitifully in effectiveness with the dwindling supplies of men and material, has been set out in previous books – Ceylon, the Portuguese era, and the Ceylon and the Hollanders. When in 1796 the British appeared on the stage they had to deal with a Kingdom crippled in size, negligible as a military power, and cut off from all access to the sea—with the Ruler, to use Ehelepola’s description, ‘living as fish encompassed by a net. Nineteen brief years had yet to elapse before the Kingship which had lasted for twenty-four hundred years came to an end with the capture of Sri Vikrama Raja Sinha, and this book sets out the true history of that period, stripped of the various cloaks which an active political propaganda, an apathy towards elucidation of fact, and an all too human weakness to accept without reserve anything that savours of sensationalism, have cast over it. The book is the product of extensive study of the capitulation of Sinhala rulers. The subject is delicate and interesting for general readers.