No words can express my surprise on now learning, for the first time, that it was not intended that I should proceed to Candy; that the General, on arriving at Jaffnapatam, had found obstacles to the combined attack, which he considered to be insurmountable--(the principal of these I have since understood to be the want of Coolies; but of this, or of any other impediment to the success of the expedition, I was at the time totally unapprized)--that the orders of the 8th were intended as a countermand of the former plan; and that my having gone to Candy was deemed a disobedience of orders; that it was merely meant that the divisions should enter those parts of the enemy's territory adjacent to their respective districts, and return after laying waste the country; that the other five divisions had accordingly made these incursions, and had long since returned; and that the Government, having learnt from the Cingalese on the borders of my detachment having been in Candy, had despaired of our ever returning. It does not become me to decide on the origin of this unfortunate mistake, or to pronounce whether the fault lay in the orders, or in my interpretation of them. The General, on making the tour of our stations, had taken great pains to explain to me the nature of his plans, the ultimate object of which was the possession of Candy; nor did he, in the various conversations I had the honour to hold with him on that subject, seem to entertain any doubt of the practicability of the proposed plan of operations. These conversations were followed by an order to march, transmitted from Trincomalé; and so fully convinced was I that everything was in a complete state of preparation, that I considered the orders of the 8th in no other light than as a modification of the preceding instructions, as a change of the day of march and of the route; I never entertained the most distant idea that _the plan_ was relinquished; as, after the devastation of that part of the country pointed out in the instructions, no ulterior object being presented, the original purport of the occupation of the enemy's capital remained unrevoked, and consequently to be followed up. Cut off as I was by the remoteness of Batticolo from any intercourse with the other stations, I had no intimation of the changes that had taken place with respect to the destination of the other columns, to the commanders of which the orders had, it seems, been more explicit. I hope that it may be allowed me to remark, that the General had seen some of them more recently than he had communicated with me; that the territory adjoining their districts was in general better known, and of course susceptible of clearer description than the province of Ouva.