Robert Knox (sailor)
| Robert Knox | |
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Robert Knox (P. Trampon, 1711)
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| Born |
Robert Knox 8 February 1641 Tower Hill, London |
| Died | 19 June 1720 (aged 79) St Peter le Poer, London |
| Resting place | St Mary's Church, Wimbledon |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation | Sea captain, trader, writer |
| Employer | East India Company |
| Known for | being a captive in Ceylon for 20 years |
| Notable work | An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon |
Robert Knox (8 February 1641 – 19 June 1720) was an English sea captain in the service of the British East India Company. He was the son of another sea captain, also named Robert Knox.
Born at Tower Hill in London, the young Knox spent most of his childhood in Surrey and was taught by James Fleetwood, later the Bishop of Winchester. He joined his father's crew on the ship Anne for his first voyage to India in 1655, at the age of 14, before returning to England in 1657. That year, Oliver Cromwell issued a charter granting the East India Company a monopoly of the Eastern trade, requiring the elder Knox and his crew to join the service of the Company.
The two Knoxes sailed for Persia in January 1658. They suffered the loss of the ship's mast in a storm on 19 November 1659, forcing them to put ashore on Ceylon, now Sri Lanka. The ship was impounded and sixteen of the crew, including the Knoxes, were taken captive by the troops of the Kandy king, Rajasinghe II. The elder Knox had inadvertently angered the king by not observing the expected formalities and had the misfortune to do so during a period of tension between the king and some of the European powers. Although the crew was forbidden from leaving the kingdom, they were treated fairly leniently; the younger Knox was able to establish himself as a farmer, moneylender and pedlar. Both men suffered severely from malaria and the elder Knox died in February 1661 after a long illness.
Robert Knox eventually escaped with one companion, Stephen Rutland, after nineteen years of captivity. The two men were able to reach Arippu, a Dutch fort on the north-west coast of the island. The Dutch treated Knox generously and transported him to Batavia (now Jakarta) in the Dutch East Indies, from where he was able to return home on an English vessel, the Caesar. He arrived back in London in September 1680.
During the voyage Knox wrote the manuscript of An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon, an account of his experiences on Ceylon, which was published in 1681. The book was accompanied by engravings showing the inhabitants, their customs and agricultural techniques. It attracted widespread interest at the time and made Knox internationally famous, influencing Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe as well as sparking a friendship with Robert Hooke of the Royal Society. It is one of the earliest and most detailed European accounts of life on Ceylon and is today seen as an invaluable record of the island in the 17th century.
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