The Galle fort commanded 282 villages, which contained most fertile cinnamon lands in southern Sri Lanka[14] It was also an important strategic coastal defense of Portuguese Ceylon.

The Portuguese garrison, led by Captain Lourenço Ferreira de Brito, mounted a stiff resistance and unexpectedly high casualty rates among Dutch troops gave rise to the proverb “Gold in Malacca, lead in Galle”.

[11][note 1] With this victory the Dutch gained access to a large port which they later used as a convenient naval base to attack Goa and other South Indian Portuguese defenses.

[66] However, the Dutch council wanted additional information and instructed Coster, “if Portuguese of position are taken prisoner get them to confess by good or bad means.”[66] In July 1639, a fleet of nine ships was sent to blockade Goa.

[5][76] At the beginning of March, Portuguese Generals Manuel Mascarenhas Homem and Dom Brás de Castro left from Cochin, with a strong force of reinforcements in eight ships and 15 galleys.

Natives from the area informed them about the relief force of "350 white men”[81] that was expected by the Portuguese garrison, but Coster decided to continue to Pitigale as planned.

[80] When the launches approached the bay, Captain Lourenço Ferreira de Brito (commander of the Galle fort) sent a force under Francisco Antunes to open up trenches at Magale to check the landing of the Dutch.

[7] Eight hundred European musketmen, with an unknown number of Bandanese, occupied the trenches on the high ground under the command of Commodore Willem Jacobz Coster and Master of the Field Andriao Cornelio.

[86] Official Dutch records give an indirect figure; “the arrival of 350 men two days later was regarded as a welcome reinforcement to bring the army up to its original strength”.

[57] Most of the Portuguese gunners were veterans who used to serve in galleons and they laid down an accurate fire disregarding the mounting casualties, but despite their efforts the Dutch managed to maintain a steady barrage.

They decided to send Sebastião d’Orta, the captain of Kalutara fort, to Colombo to negotiate for reinforcements and ammunition as they were running out of 16-, 14-, and 12-pound shots despite the continuous efforts of the blacksmiths who were casting fresh ones.

The bastion of Santiago, where the main attack was expected, was assigned to a company of 29 regulars under Ensign Major Valentim Pinheiro and 16 companions under a casado Captain Pedro Carvalho.

In retaliation, Lourenço Ferreira de Brito, the captain of the fort, organized a raiding party consisting of Lascarins, but after sallying and arousing the Dutch, they defected to them.

The enemy, who found himself strong enough for anything, took occasion by this insult to refuse quarter thenceforth ...[95]Later that day, the Dutch war council gathered on board of their flagship Utrecht.

Cruz de Gale, and the enemy are nightly filling up with palm trees and osier-work the breaches made by us in the day-time, with out our being able to prevent them from doing so, and as it is greatly feared that the besieged will find means to strengthen themselves more and more on those points where they have expect our attacks, therefore ...[90]The Dutch army was divided into four groups.

[93] The captain of the fort, Lourenço Ferreira, realized that this was just a diversionary attack and without committing additional troops he ordered the units defending that area to assist each other.

[99] The Dutch commander of the vanguard, Commisaris Jan Thysen, later wrote “at the beginning of the storm, matters seemed very doubtful in consequence of the powerful resistance offered by those in the city”.

[101] The Dissawe of Four Korale, António de Fonseca Pereira, who was called up from the inner stockade to strengthen the defenses with his troops, mounted a stiff resistance with the remaining defenders and the Kaffir reserve force.

[47] Portuguese author Fernão de Queiroz wrote, “... so many women at the sight of their husbands, sons, brothers and relations, killed in these streets, or others who gave up their souls to God and were killed under their own eyes, which made some offer their own throats, either to deliver them or to escape from the affronts which they already experienced and dreaded?”[47] After securing St. Domingo, the Dutch sent a detachment to attack the Portuguese forces that were still defending the southern tip of the fort.

[3] "The streets were littered with dead Portuguese and Hollanders, some scorched to death by fire, others torn to pieces by shot, and others riddled with bullets; and the Caffirs [Kaffirs] had to spend three days in burying them, 10 or 12 in each pit.

[11] There were a few unmarried Mestiços women and a large number of widows within the fort and Dutch commanders gave permission to the soldiers to marry them “to prevent all future unpleasantness”.

[107] In retaliation for the actions of the Dutch at Galle, the Portuguese were determined to not to give quarter to the defenders but the veterans managed to convince their commanders to accept the surrender.

[108] Fiscal Gerard Herbers delivered the news of the conquest to Batavia by the ships Utrecht and Middelburg[97] and the victory was celebrated on 29 April 1640 with a thanksgiving service and a military display.

[47] The large numbers of deaths have been attributed to a variety of factors including wounds suffered during the battle, disease and the trauma of sailing port-to-port from Galle to Batavia.

For want of medicine and nursing not a single pregnant escaped, and the same fate befell nearly all the children, and persons of the weak sex and delicate breeding died without any wound.

Luís Pinto, Captain Lourenço Ferreira de Brito and others, conditions improved slightly and after nine months the Dutch agreed to release the civilians in exchange for a ransom.

[117] On the day which the Galle fort was captured, Pedro de Basto,[note 5] a Jesuit priest of Kochi, had a vision of Jesus Christ as Ecce Homo which Queiroz believes was related to the outcome of the battle.

He wrote, "whoever considers well all the blood that was shed there [Galle], the scourge of the State of Ceylon and of the Portuguese honor on that field and in that praça, and how much our reputation was exposed to shame in the east, seeing the scepter and crown of Ceylon turned to a mockery of fate, and a disgrace to the faith among heretics and infidels who do not know it, will find that this misfortune cannot be represented by a better or more appropriate figure than an Ecce Homo..."[112] He further adds "...The wounds inflicted on His [God] feelings were no less than the scourges of our punishment, for as He cannot fail in Himself, He felt compassion for what his justice punished, and more justly He afflicted us, the greater was the grief He represented Himself as the suffering.

"[117] António Jorge, the Portuguese captain in charge of the gate through which the Dutch infiltrators gained access to the fort during the siege of Negombo, was later court martialed despite the fact that he believed it had been closed by his subordinate officer.

However, during the battle of the bazaar, just before the Portuguese charged the reforming Dutch troops in a palm grove, he was seen in splendid attire as his former self causing another captain to exclaim "Ah!