Sri Lanka

The French crown in Ceylon

The French East Indies Company, created in 1664, soon had the monopoly of French commerce and navigation in the Indian Ocean. In 1670 the French Minister of Finance Jean Baptiste Colbert summoned a naval force under the official name of “Squadron of Persia”. This was the first military squadron sent to the Indian Ocean, entrusted to Admiral Jacob Blanquet de la Haye. A few years earlier, the French East Indies Company had recruited François Caron, who had previously served the Dutch East India Company for 30 years. Caron was French by birth and Dutch by adoption. As Commander of the Dutch East Indies (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie -VOC) forces he succeeded in capturing Negambo (on the west coast of Ceylon) in 1644 from the Portuguese. When he offered his services to the French, he declared that he knew of a suitable location for them to establish their maritime base, and suggested Trincomalee, on the east coast of Ceylon. Caron became the Director General of the French East Indies Company. 

It was thus that the squadron reached the bay of Trincomalee in March 1672. The king of Kandy, in the central highlands of Ceylon, King Rajasinghe II was engaged in getting rid of the Portuguese. He had signed the Kandyan Treaty of 1638 with the Dutch, which secured the terms under which they would cooperate in defending the Kingdom from the Portuguese. Caron knew that King Rajasinghe was at war with the Dutch and made use of this situation to gain favor with the King. He negotiated with the King, offering French help to oust the Dutch, while requesting to occupy the bay of Trincomalee in return.

French at the court of King Rajasinghe II

The French saw Trincomalee as an important target in their greater aim of controlling trade in the Indian Ocean. Also known as Koddiyar Bay, it had received high praise for its beauty and location by countless travelers and explorers of all origins. The French too were prolific in their descriptions of the bay, as the journal entries of various officials show. Logbooks from the French National Archives provide insightful accounts of their encounters in Ceylon. The French were entranced by the customs and behavior of the natives in the Kandyan court. One of them is noteworthy. Sieur de La Nérolle arrived in 1672 and left behind a living legacy. He was part of an expedition which departed from La Rochelle in 1670 and arrived at Trincomalee Bay in 1672. The expedition failed to secure control of the Bay, although the French connection with Ceylon was not entirely severed. The members of de la Haye’s delegation sent to the Kandyan King’s court remained in Ceylon and the story of Lieutenant de La Nérolle, whose descendants today belong to the 12th generation, testifies to lasting connections surpassing trade or colonial ties. It emphasizes the impact the French strategies had on Sri Lanka’s history and identity. 

King Rajasinghe II officially handed over Trincomalee Bay to the French. On the 17th of June 1672 the French flag was hoisted on the Sun Island. However, the French occupation of the bay did not last long. De la Haye’s attempt to take over Trincomalee was foiled by the Dutch.

Second French naval expedition to Ceylon

A century after this expedition, many French governors and generals serving in India brought up the importance of Trincomalee again. General de Bussy and Admiral de Suffren pointed out that it was to be regretted that the French possessed no harbor equal to Trincomalee. In 1781, a French squadron was sent to the Coromandel Coast under the command of the experienced naval officer Suffren. In August 1782, his fleet anchored in front of Trincomalee in Ceylon. The French had joined up with Hyder Ali, the leader of Mysore, to counter the British. In fact, out of the five battles fought between Suffren’s fleet and the English fleet led by Admiral Edward Hughes in the Indian Ocean, the Battle of Trincomalee of August 1782 is the most well-known.

The second French expedition was carried out not through negotiations, but through battle. It also had a different focus. It aimed to destroy the English squadron, and to seize the English establishments in India. Unlike their first expedition, the French won the second battle for Trincomalee. However, their control of Ceylon was short-lived. As a result of the 1783 Peace Treaty in Europe, they had to restore Trincomalee back to the Dutch. The political forces in Europe, once again grasped the control of Ceylon from their hands. Then in 1795 it was taken over by the British.

Published in February 2025