An English privateer had attacked the Portuguese…

An English privateer had attacked the Portuguese off Sri Lanka's southwestern port of Galle in 1592.

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 had kept him prisoner between 1660 and 1680.

After his escape, Knox wrote a popular book entitled An Historical Rela-tion of the Island of Ceylon in which he described his years among his "decadent" captors.

By the mid-eighteenth century, it is apparent that the Mughal Empire (1526-1757) in India faces imminent collapse, and the major European powers are positioning themselves to fill the power vacuum in the subcontinent.

Dutch holdings on Sri Lanka are challenged in time by the British, who have an interest in the excel- lent harbor at Trincomalee.

The British interest in procuring an all-weather port is whetted when they almost lose the Indian port of Madras to the French in 1758.

The Dutch refuse to grant the British permission to dock ships at Trincomalee (after The Nether- lands'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 take Trincomalee in 1796 and proceed to expel the Dutch from the island.