63 



CHAP. III. 



BRITISH TERIOD. 



The first Englishman who ever visited Ceylon landed 

 at Colombo on the 5th March, 1589. This was Ealph 

 Fitch \ one of those pioneers of commerce, who, excited 

 by the successes of the Portuguese in Asia, longed to 

 secure for Great Britain a participation in the gorgeous 

 trade of the East. Twenty years prior to the granting 

 of the royal charter, that gave its first organisation to 

 the germ which afterwards expanded to the imperial 

 dimensions of the East India Company, foiu^ adventurous 

 merchants, — Leedes, Newberry, Storey, and Fitch, — 

 were commissioned by the Turkey Company to visit 

 India and ascertain what openings for British enterprise 

 existed there. They traversed Syiia, descended the 

 Tigris to Bassora, and thence took shipping to Ormus 

 and Hindustan. One entered the service of the Empe- 

 ror Akbar, another died in the Punjab, a third be- 

 came a monk at Goa, and the fourth, after wandering 

 to Siam and Malacca, halted at Ceylon on his return and 

 was probably the first of his nation who ever beheld the 

 island.'"^ 



AD. 



1766. 



^ PmcnAR, in his Pih/n'ms, calls 

 bim Ralph Fitz (vol. ii. p. 110). 



* Fitch's account of his voyage 

 ■will be found in Hakluyt, vol. ii. p. 

 263. Raja Singba I. was then in the 

 midst of hostilities against the Ptu'- 

 tuguese, and Fitch describes the 

 energy of his character and tlie 

 strength of his army " witli their 

 pieces which be muskets." — Mill's 

 Ilisf. of British India, b. i. ch. i. p. 

 ID. I take no account of Sir John 

 Mandeville, " the author/' as Cooley 



says, "of the most unblushing volume 

 of lies ever olJ'ered to the world," 

 who professed to have visited Cey- 

 lon between V-''-j2, wlien he set out 

 for St. Albans, and 1806, when he 

 retiu'ned to Liege, where he died. 

 He professes to have visited India 

 and China, but his book bears inter- 

 nal CA iilence that he had never wan- 

 dered further east than Jerusalem. 

 Ilis pretended description of Ceylon 

 is bonowed from Marco Polo and 

 Odoric of Portenau. 



