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Sri Lanka The British
Early Contacts
In 1592 an English privateer attacked the Portuguese off the
southwestern port of Galle. This action was England's first
recorded contact with Sri Lanka. A decade later, Ralph Fitch,
traveling from India, became the first known English visitor to
Sri Lanka. The English did not record their first in-depth
impressions of the island until the mid-seventeenth century, when
Robert Knox, a sailor, was captured when his ship docked for
repairs near Trincomalee. The Kandyans kept him prisoner between
1660 and 1680. After his escape, Knox wrote a popular book
entitled An Historical Relation of the Island of Ceylon in
which he described his years among his "decadent" captors.
By the mid-eighteenth century, it was apparent that the
Mughal Empire (1526-1757) in India faced imminent collapse, and
the major European powers were positioning themselves to fill the
power vacuum in the subcontinent. Dutch holdings on Sri Lanka
were challenged in time by the British, who had an interest in
the excellent harbor at Trincomalee. The British interest in
procuring an all-weather port was whetted when they almost lost
the Indian port of Madras to the French in 1758. The Dutch
refused to grant the British permission to dock ships at
Trincomalee (after The Netherlands's decision to support the
French in the American War of Independence), goading the British
into action. After skirmishing with both the Dutch and French,
the British took Trincomalee in 1796 and proceeded to expel the
Dutch from the island.
Data as of October 1988
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