The Oely service has, like the Officie Gelden, been described in detail by the late Mr. Blom in his report of August 20, 1692, so that I need not expand on this subject here. It may be seen from the document just mentioned what castes up to this time have been obliged to perform this service and how many men have to attend daily, as also how they are classified. The same rules are still observed, but, as I noticed during my residence, these people are very lazy in the performance of their servitudes, although they are only required to attend three days in every three months, or twelve days in a whole year. I think this may be considered as a sign of their increased prosperity; because they seem to find the means for paying their fines for non-attendance without any trouble. This fine is only 2 Dutch stivers for each day, or 1 rix-dollar for the twelve days in a year for each person, and the account for the year 1695 shows that on the 24,021 men Rds. 2,001.9 were paid in fines, and for the year 1696 for eight months (January to August) a sum of Rds. 1,053.9 for 12,640 men; so that the Company during the period of 20 months had to lose the daily labour of 36,661 men. It is therefore to be expected that the works have been considerably delayed at the Castle, in the loading and unloading of the vessels, at the wharf, at the gunpowder mill, at the brick-kiln at Point Pedro, in the burning of lime and the felling of wood on the borders of the Wanni, the digging and breaking of coral stones on the islands, the burning of coals for the smith's shop, &c. I therefore think that the said Sicos [20] money ought to be doubled, so that they would have to pay 1 fanam instead of 2 stivers for each day's absence; because I do not think this must be considered as a tax levied on the inhabitants, but as a fine and punishment imposed for negligence and as a means to make them perform the necessary labour in order to prevent delay. But, as these my Instructions are to be revised by His Excellency the Governor at Colombo, Your Honours will no doubt receive orders from him, I not being authorized to issue them. The reason why the last account of the Sicos runs only over eight months instead of as usual over a year is that I specially ordered this to be done because the account used to run from the beginning to the end of each year, while the Trade Accounts were closed on the last day of August, which formerly closed on the last day of February, which was always a source of confusion. In order to correct this I ordered the account of the Sicos to be made up for the last eight months only. Meantime Your Honours must not fail to see that these amounts are collected on behalf of the Company, because out of it only Rds. 180 has been received for Patchelepalle for 1695; so that out of the above-mentioned amount for the last 20 months the sum of Rds. 2,975.1 is still due to the Company. Besides the usual Caltementos received by the Collectors as