Could it be Robert Knox?

"I have Reason to believe, that upon the Sight they immediately sent an account of a Ship being there, and of the Condition we were in; for the next Day there appeared a great Man, whether it was their King or no, I knew not, but he had Abundance of Men with him, and some with long Javelins in their Hands, as long as Half Pikes; and these came all down to the Water's Edge, and drew up in very good Order just in our View.”
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by Richard Boyle

(April 26, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian) Although William Knighton's, 'Forest Life in Ceylon' (London, 1854) is the first novel in the English language to be set predominantly in Ceylon, there is a twenty-page episode in Daniel Defoe's 'The Life, Adventures and Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton' (London, 1720) that is located on the island. iThis may come as a surprise to those who believe that Defoe's sole connection with Ceylon is his use of Robert Knox as a part model for the castaway character, Robinson Crusoe.

As this episode in Captain Singleton antedates Knighton's work by 134 years, it warrants examination and a re-telling. There are, however, other reasons why it deserves to be focused upon, apart from the purely chronological. The prime one is that, for his own dramatic purposes, Defoe harps on the manner in which Knox and the other crew members of the Anne were duped, captured and detained by King Rajasingha II. In doing so he reinforces the contemporary European view of the islanders as being particularly skilled in the art of entrapment. Another reason is that the author gives credible details of the south coast of Ceylon and the methods of warfare adopted by the islanders.

When Defoe took to writing fiction in 1719 he was almost an old man, the most prolific writer of his day, and perhaps the most widely read. For thirty years he had been turning out books and pamphlets on trade, politics, religion, and many other subjects of topical interest. However, after the success of his first novel, 'The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe' (1719), he realized that there was an untapped market for fiction in England. For the next few years, therefore, he fed the appetite of the reading public with a rapid succession of novels, including 'The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe' (1720), the aforementioned Captain Singleton, and the better-known Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders (1722).

The contemporary popularity of such books as William Dampier's, 'New Voyage Round the World' (1699) demonstrates that the reading public of the early 18th century was, in particular, eager for stories about adventures at sea. It is not difficult to see why, of course, for at the time Defoe was writing, large areas of the earth were still undiscovered or very imperfectly explored. There is, however, another reason why Defoe's early readers were interested in such a story as Captain Singleton, for the period was the golden age of piracy, when pirates generated the kind of curious interest that the criminal class invariably has done over the ages.

Defoe's manner of writing was episodic - or to put it more bluntly, he made it up as he went along, trusting in the inspiration of the moment to propel him from one page to the next. Even by Defoe's standards, though, Captain Singleton is a loosely knit story. The basic fault of the novel is that Defoe has hardly troubled to give Singleton's character any substance, and appears more concerned with the man of action rather than the man within. This was possibly due to his lack of experience as a fiction writer, for a year later he created Moll Flanders, who is at once an accomplished criminal and a woman in whom the reader is genuinely interested.

Nevertheless, the author's intention becomes apparent as the narrative progresses. H. A. I. Goonetileke puts it in a nutshell: "Singleton's piracies launch him upon a global sweep from the Atlantic to the Pacific, probing into the remotest parts of the East. But the novel is not mere travel-narrative. It reveals Defoe's deeper concern with the human predicament - man's vulnerability to sin under the pressure of circumstances, and his innate craving for redemption and divine grace."ii

The novel begins with the abduction of Singleton as a baby, when a suitor distracts his nursery maid. He passes through the hands of a beggar woman and then a gypsy woman before going to sea under a kindly captain. But his benefactor dies and Singleton ends up on a Portuguese ship in which "Thieving, Lying, Swearing, Forswearing, joined to the most abominable Lewdness, was the stated Practice of the Crew." The "vulnerability to sin" of which Goonetileke writes, surfaces: it is the beginning of the boy's descent into piracy.

Defoe lets Singleton relate his life story in the first person singular. He tells of the plunder of countless ships, of brutal murder, and of extraordinary adventures, such as an epic trek across unexplored Africa. In due course he becomes a highly prosperous pirate captain, whose success is due in part to his reliance on the excellent judgement of his friend William, a Quaker turned pirate. It is the character William that readers of Captain Singleton usually find the most attractive. The humanizing effect of William on the otherwise unremitting record of pillage and piracy can hardly be over-estimated.

On one Far Eastern voyage Singleton's ship touches at Java. After it is re-provisioned, the Captain informs us: "We went merrily on for the Coast of Ceylon, where we intended to touch to get fresh Water again, and more Provisions. We put in upon the South Coast of the Island, desiring to have as little to do with the Dutch as we could; and as the Dutch were Lords of the Country as to the Commerce, so they are more so of the Sea Coast, where they have several Forts, and in particular, have all the Cinnamon, which is the Trade of that Island.

"We took fresh Water here, and some Provisions, but did not much trouble ourselves about laying in any stores. We had a little Skirmish on Shore here with some of the People of the Island, some of our Men having been a little too familiar with the Homely Ladies of the Country; for Homely indeed they were, to such a Degree, that if our Men had not had good Stomachs that way, they would scarce have touch'd any of them.

"I could never fully get it out of our Men what they did, they were so true to one another in their Wickedness; but I understood in the main, that it was a barbarous thing they had done; for the Men resented it to the last Degree, and gathered in such Numbers about them, that had not sixteen more of our Men, in another Boat, come all in the Nick of Time, just to rescue our first Men, who were but Eleven, and so fetch them off by main Force, they had been all cut off, the Inhabitants being no less two or three Hundred, armed with Darts and Launces, the usual Weapons of the Country, and which they are very dexterous at the throwing. As it was, seventeen of our Men were wounded, and some of them very dangerously. But they were more frightened than hurt, too; for every one of them gave themselves over for dead Men, believing the Launces were poisoned."

His men having perpetrated this "barbarous thing" on the local women, Singleton has the gall to declare: "We had enough of Ceylon." Some of the crew were bent on going ashore to exact revenge for the casualties, but William eventually convinces them of the futility of killing "poor naked Wretches" who "have no Money," and that it would destroy "innocent men, who had acted no otherwise than as the Laws of Nature dictated." So they set sail from the island.

"But another Accident brought us to a Necessity of further Business with these People, and indeed we had like to have put an End to our Lives and Adventures all at once among them; for about three Days after Putting out to Sea, from the Place where we had that Skirmish, we were attack'd by a violent Storm of Wind from the South, or rather a Hurricane of Wind from all the Points Southward.

"The ship I was in split three Topsails, and at last brought the Main Top-mast by the Board; and in a Word, we were once or twice driven right ashore; and one time, had not the Wind shifted the very Moment it did, we had been dash'd in a Thousand Pieces upon a great Ledge of Rocks, which lay off about Half a League from the Shore.

"We found a fair Opening between the Rocks and the Land, and endeavoured to come to an Anchor there; but we found there was no Ground fit to Anchor in, and that we should lose our Anchors, there being nothing but rocks. We stood thro' the Opening; the Storm continued, and now we found a dreadful foul Shore, and knew not what Course to take. We look'd out very narrowly for some River, or Creek, or Bay, where we might run in, and come to an Anchor, but found none a great while. At length we saw a great Head-Land lye out far South into the Sea, and that to such a Length, that in short, we saw plainly, that if the Wind held where it was, we could not weather it; so we ran in as much under the Lee of the Point as we could, and came to an Anchor in about twelve Fathom Water.

"But the Wind veering again in the Night, and blowing exceeding hard, our Anchors came home, and the Ship drove till the Rudder struck against the Ground; and had the Ship gone Half her Length further, she had been lost and every one of us with her. But our Sheet Anchor held its own, and we heaved in some of the Cable, to get clear of the Ground we had struck upon. It was by this only Cable that we rode it out all Night, and towards Morning we thought the Wind abated a little, and it was well for us that it was so; for in spite of what our sheet Anchor did for us, we found the Ship fast a-ground in the Morning, to our very great Surprize and Amazement.

"When the Tide was out, tho' the Water here ebb'd away, the Ship lay almost dry upon a Bank of hard Sand, which never, I suppose, had any Ship upon it before; the People of the Country came down in great Numbers, to look at us, and gaze, not knowing what we were, but gaping at us as at a great Sight or Wonder, at which they were surpriz'd, and knew not what to do.

"I have Reason to believe, that upon the Sight they immediately sent an account of a Ship being there, and of the Condition we were in; for the next Day there appeared a great Man, whether it was their King or no, I knew not, but he had Abundance of Men with him, and some with long Javelins in their Hands, as long as Half Pikes; and these came all down to the Water's Edge, and drew up in very good Order just in our View. They stood near an Hour without making any Motion, and then there came near twenty of them with a Man before them, carrying a white Flag before them. They came forward onto the Water as high as their Wastes, the Sea not going so high as before, for the Wind was abated, and blew off Shore."

The "Great Man" or King makes a long speech and then gestures the men aboard the ship to come ashore. Captain Singleton is initially eager to do so, but William intervenes, imploring the captain to exercise caution:

"Upon which I asked him (William), if he had any Knowledge of the Place, or had ever been here? He said, No. Then I asked him, if he had ever heard or read anything about the People of this Island, and of their Way of treating any Christians that had fallen into their Hands? And he told me, he had heard of one, and he would tell me the story afterward. His name, he said, was Knox, Commander of an East India ship, who was driven on Shore, just as we were, upon the Island of Ceylon, tho' he could not say it was at the same Place, or whereabouts: That he was beguiled by the Barbarians, and enticed to come on Shore, just as we were invited to do at that time; and that when they had him and eighteen or twenty of his Men, and never suffered them to return, but kept them Prisoners, or murdered them, he could not well tell which, but they were carried away up into the Country, separated from one another, and never heard of afterwards, except the Captain's Son, who miraculously made his escape after twenty years Slavery."

Such is the manner in which Defoe weaves the real "Mr. Knox" into the tapestry of his fictional narrative. Regrettably, however, Defoe introduces Knox solely in order to support his portrayal of the Ceylonese as enticers, rather than employ Knox's shrewd observations on the islanders to give his Ceylon episode more substance. Edmund Leach suggests that Knox's patrons in the Royal Society manipulated his work, and that the one-sided account of Rajasingha's despotism may have been designed to expose the corruption of Charles I. Furthermore, Leach goes on to speculate that Defoe was among those who were involved in the production of the book." iii There is no doubt, though, that with the publication of An Historical Relation and its many translations in Europe, Rajasingha and the Ceylonese acquired a not altogether fair reputation for their treatment of outsiders.

At this juncture it is apposite to acknowledge the undoubted influence that An Historical Relation of Ceylon had on Defoe's Captain Singleton. One of the first to allude to this influence is the indefatigable researcher Donald W. Ferguson back in the last decade of the 19th century. Ferguson (son of A. M. Ferguson, proprietor and editor of the Ceylon Observer) states: "We know that among those who acquired a copy of Knox's book was Defoe, who made use of it in his story of Captain Singleton."iv

In the late 20th century, H. A. I. Goonetileke has proved to be a notable Knox scholar among the current generation of researchers. "The fact that Daniel Defoe drew on Knox's An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon for material for his later works of fiction is well-known," Goonetileke declares. "The similarity between the prose of the two writers was first pointed out by Herbert White v and James Ryan mentioned it in his 1911 edition of Knox. John Masefield in A Mainsail Haul (1913) cursorily noted the indebtedness, and took it for granted that Knox and Defoe were acquaintances. He concludes that certain things occur in Robinson Crusoe and Captain Singleton because he had read Knox, and even further that he had access to Knox's manuscript notes."

Others who have contributed significantly to the subject include the American academic Arthur Wellesley Secord, author of a lengthy study of Defoe's narrative method,vi and the island's very own E. F. C. Ludowyk,vii who, as H. A. I. Goonetileke attests, "goes further than Secord in demonstrating Defoe's debt to Knox."viii.

Having been made aware of the possible risk that placing himself and his crew in the hands of the King's army on shore might entail, Captain Singleton invites the trusted William to formulate a plan of action. This is a crucial point in the Ceylon episode contained in Daniel Defoe's novel, The Life, Adventures and Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton (London, 1720). Defoe engineers the plot so that William uses his proven diplomatic skills and perceptive nature to outwit the designs of the King. In doing so he avoids for his characters the real-life fate of Robert Knox Senior, his son, and the crew of the Anne.

William suggests that some of the crew venture towards the shore in two boats flying a white flag, but with concealed fire-arms in case of trouble. Singleton agrees with this strategy, and appoints William as Captain for the duration of the encounter with the islanders.

"Upon this Conclusion of our Debates, he (William) ordered four and Twenty Men into the Long-Boat, and twelve Men into the Pinnace, and the sea being now pretty smooth, they went off, being all very well arm'd. Also he ordered, that all the Guns of the great ship, on the side which lay next the Shore, should be loaded with Musquet Balls, old Nails, Stubbs, and such like pieces of old Iron, Lead, and any thing that came to Hand; and that we should prepare to fire as soon as ever he saw us lower the white Flag, and hoist up a red one in the Pinnace.

"With these Measures fix'd between us, they went off towards the Shore, William in the Pinnace with twelve Men, and the Long-Boat coming after him with four and twenty more, all stout, resolute Fellows, and very well arm'd. They row'd so near the Shore, as that they might speak to one another, carrying a white Flag as the other did, and offering a Parle. The Brutes, for such they were, shewed themselves very courteous, but finding we could not understand them, they fetch'd an old Dutchman, who had been their Prisoner for many years, and set him to speak to us."

Dialogue is not one of Defoe's strengths. His may reflect the conversational patterns of the period, but it becomes tedious and interferes with the progress of the narrative. How unfortunate, then, that at this point there begins a considerable dialogue between the Dutchman and William. The former extends an invitation from the King to come ashore, to partake of his hospitality.

The latter, after voicing his concern about the sincerity of the King's intentions, asks for the Dutchman's assessment of the situation:

"Will. Then answer me plainly, if thou art a Christian: is it safe for us to venture upon their Words, to put our selves into their Hands, and come on Shore?

Dutchm. You put it very home to me: Pray let me ask you another Question: Are you in any Likelihood of getting your Ship off, if you refuse it?

Will. Yes, yes, we shall get off the Ship, now the Storm is over, we don't fear it.

Dutchm. Then I cannot say it is best for you to trust them."

Upon hearing this, William requests the Dutchman to tell the King that they are strangers, driven ashore by a storm. That they would like to accept his invitation, but that they cannot leave the ship at present due to the damage it has sustained. The Dutchman protests that the King will expect them to pay their respects, that otherwise he will be in a great rage. Nevertheless, he agrees to deliver the message and arranges to return the next day.

"It was our good Fortune to get our Ship off that very Night, and to bring her to an Anchor at about a Mile and a Half further out, and in deep Water, to our great Satisfaction; so that we had no need to fear the Dutchman's King with his Hundred Thousand Men; and indeed we had some Sport with them the next Day, when they came down, a vast prodigious Multitude of them, very few less in Number, in our Imagination, than a Hundred Thousand, with some Elephants; tho' if it had been an Army of Elephants, they could have done us no Harm, for we were fairly at our Anchor now, and out of their Reach; and indeed we thought ourselves more out of their Reach, than we really were; and it was ten Thousand to One, that we had not been fast aground again; for the Wind blowing off Shore, tho' it made the Water smooth where we lay, yet it blew the Ebb further out than usual, and we could easily perceive the Sand which we touch'd upon before, lay in the Shape of a Half Moon, and surrounded us with two Horns of it.

"On that Part of the Sand which lay on our east Side, this misguided Multitude extended themselves; and being most of them not above their knees, or most of them not above Ancle deep in the Water, they, as it were, surrounded us on that Side, and on the Side of the main Land, and a little Way of the other Side of the Sand, standing in a Half Circle.

"We had a very leaky Ship, and all our Pumps could hardly keep the Water from growing upon us, and our Carpenters were over-board working to find out, and stop the Wounds we had received, heeling her first on one Side, and then on the other; and it was very diverting to see how, when our Men heel'd the Ship over to the Side next the wild Army that stood on the East Horn of the Sand, they were so amazed between Fright and Joy, that it put them into a kind of Confusion, calling to one another, hallooing and shrieking in a Manner it is impossible to describe."

After providing this stereotypical picture of the ignorant, excitable and unrestrained native, Singleton goes on to relate how a column of the army, along with the Dutchman, detaches itself and moves towards the ship. Once again, William is sent in the Pinnace to act as plenipotentiary. There then follows more lengthy and convoluted dialogue between William and the Dutchman that seriously impedes the action.

The Dutchman begins by repeating the King's request. William pours scorn on the idea, reminding him that there is a hostile army awaiting them onshore. He continues:

"Will. Do'st not thou know that we are out of Fear of all thy army, and out of Danger of all that they can do?

Dutchm. You may think your selves safer than you are: You do not know what they may do to you. I can assure you that they are able to do you a great deal of Harm, and perhaps burn your Ship."

A sloop belonging to the pirate fleet suddenly arrives off shore and fires it guns. The Dutchman becomes agitated, saying that if there is any more firing, the general leading the army will take it that the truce is broken, and will command the archers to let fly their arrows. William suggests that he swims out to the boat, but the Dutchman answers that he would have a thousand arrows in his back before he reached it. "Just at this time our Ship fired three Guns, to answer the Sloop, and let her know we saw her, who immediately, we perceived, understood it, and stood directly for the Place; but it is impossible to express the Confusion and filthy vile Noise, the Hurry and universal Disorder, that was among that vast Multitude of People, upon our Firing of the three Guns. They immediately all repaired to their Arms, as I may call it; for, to say they put themselves into Order, would be saying nothing.

"Upon the Word of Command then they advanced all in a Body to the Sea-side, and resolving to give us one Volley of their Fire Arms, for such they were, immediately they saluted us with a Hundred Thousand of their Fire-Arrows, every one carrying a little Bag of Cloath dipt in Brimstone, or some such thing; which flying thro' the air, had nothing to hinder it taking Fire as it flew, and it generally did so." "Nor did they fire, as I may call it, all at once, and so leave off; but their Arrows being soon notch'd upon their Bows, they kept continually shooting, so that the Air was full of Flame. "I could not say whether they set their Cotton Rag on Fire before they shot the Arrow, for I did not perceive they had Fire with them, which however it seems they had.

The Arrow, besides the Fire it carried with it, had a Head, or a Peg, as we call it, of a Bone, and some of sharp Flint Stone; and some few of a Metal, too soft in itself for Metal, but hard enough to cause it to enter if it were a Plank, so as to stick where it fell." William and his men take cover at the bottom of their boat, so as to defend themselves from anything that "came Point blank, as we call it." Then they fire a volley of their small arms at the soldiers who stand beside the Dutchman, taking care not to injure their fellow European. They row nearer and fire a second volley. Several soldiers fall. On the ship, meanwhile, Captain Singleton and the rest of the crew are anxious not to miss out on the "sport":

"We thought this was a very unequal Fight, and therefore we made a Signal to our Men, to row away, that we might have a little of the Sport as well as they; but the Arrows flew so thick upon them, being so near the Shore, that they could not sit to their Oars; so they spread a little of their Sail, thinking that they might sail along the Shore, and lye behind their Waste-boards: But the Sail had not been spread six Minutes, but it had five Hundred Fire-Arrows shot into it, and thro' it, and at length set it fairly on Fire; nor were our Men quite out of the Danger of its setting the Boat on Fire, and this made them paddle and shove the boat away as well as they could, as they lay, to get further off.

"By this time they had left us a fair Mark at the whole Savage Army; and as we sheer'd the Ship as near to them as we could, we fired among the thickest of them six or seven times, five Guns at a time, which shot old Iron, Musquet Bullets, etc.

"We could easily see that we made Havock of them, and killed and wounded Abundance of them, and that they were in great Surprize at it; but yet they never offered to stir, and all this while their Fire-Arrows flew as thick as before." However, a while later the arrows do cease to rain down, and the Dutchman runs towards William's boat waving a white flag. He has a message from the General of the Army, who pleads with them to come ashore otherwise he will be put to death by the King.

William suggests that the Dutchman ask the General for permission to come aboard the ship in order to persuade Captain Singleton to comply.

The strategy works, the Dutchman boards the ship, and they set sail.

"As we went out, being pretty near the Shore, we fired three Guns as it were among them, but without any Shot, for it was no Use to us, to hurt any more of them. After we had fired, we gave them a Chear, as the Seamen call it; that is to say, we halloo'd at them by way of Triumph, and so carried off their Ambassador; how it fared with their General, we know nothing of that.

"This passage, when I related it to a Friend of mine, after my Return from those Rambles, agreed so well with his Relation of what happened to one Mr. Knox, an English Captain, who some time ago was decoyed on Shore by those People, that it could not but be very much to my satisfaction to think what Mischief we had all escaped; and I think it cannot but be very profitable to record the other Story, which is but short, with my own, to shew, whoever reads this, what it was I avoided, and prevent their falling into the like, if they have to do with the perfidious People of Ceylon."

Asks H. A. I. Goonetileke: "Could 'a Friend of mine" have been Robert Knox himself, who died in the year Captain Singleton was published?" Needless to say, we will probably never know, unless new correspondence or such evidence comes to light.

Defoe then proceeds to tell "the other Story," that of Robert Knox taken from An Historical Relation of Ceylon, over the course of a dozen, tersely written pages. The conclusion of this summary marks the end of the Ceylon episode. In fact, it heralds the close of Singleton's story. Soon afterwards he tells William that he wants to renounce the pirate life, a decision that prompts his friend to do the same. They take their stash, fool the crew into thinking they have been captured (so as not to invite retribution), and proceed to England. In a neat romantic twist, Singleton ends up by marrying William's sister, and of course they live happily ever after on his ill-gotten gains.

There it is, then, the first fictional taste of Ceylon for early 18th century readers of English: perhaps not the best introduction to the island, but an introduction nevertheless. Although there was a 134-year hiatus before William Knighton provided the next example of Ceylon-based fiction, since the mid-19th century literally scores of novels in English have been written by outsiders that feature the island to some degree or other. But none relates a story quite like that of Captain Singleton.

Footnote: Related research has revealed that Captain Singleton is referred to in the Oxford English Dictionary (2nd edition, Oxford, 1989) in connection with two of the words of Sinhala origin first brought to the English language by Robert Knox. One of the words is dissava, which is employed by Defoe in his synopsis of Knox's story - "The King of the Country . . . sent down a Dissuava, or General, with an Army," and the other is talipot-leaf - "Two great tallipat leaves for tents."

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Footnotes

i pp 264-288
ii "Robert Knox in the Kandyan Kingdom, 1660-1679: A Bio-Bibliographical Commentary" - The Sri Lanka Journal of the Humanities, Vol.1 No. 2, December 1975.
iii "What happened to An Historical Relation . . .on the way to the printers?" (University of Adelaide: 1989)
iv Captain Robert Knox: Contributions towards a Biography (Colombo & Croydon, 1896-1897).
v "Notes on Knox's Ceylon in its literary aspect," Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (Ceylon Branch) Vol. 13, No. 44, 1893.
vi Studies in the narrative method of Defoe (Urbana, Illinois: 1924).
vii "Robert Knox and Robinson Crusoe," University of Ceylon Review (Vol. 10, No. 3, July 1952) and "Two Englishmen and Ceylon," Ceylon Observer Annual, 1949.
viii Ibid. ii
- Sri Lanka Guardian