J.H.O. Paulusz on the 1638 Westerwolt treaty in Ceylon: A rejoinder

The historiography of the Treaty of 1638Before Paulusz entered the fray, almost every historian who had studied the original documents relating to this period had concluded, with varying degrees of certainty, that the Dutch behaved with duplicity in their dealings with Raja Sinha. [...]W. van Geer, the first historian to make a detailed study of these events, said: Again contrary to Paulusz's assertion, Raja Sinha sought every occasion to clear his debt by deliveries of cinnamon, until he realized the futility of the whole exercise. [...]after the conquest of Galle, he had a quantity of 1,150 bahars of cinnamon peeled and packed for delivery to the Dutch. [...]contemporary V.O.C. officials were horrified at this incident and their records reflect their outrage, seen from their own viewpoint. [...]they made serious errors of policy, relying on titbits of gossip, rumour and messages from sycophants (Arasaratnam 1958b:77-100).