Colonial fragility in the early British period in Sri Lanka: John D’Oyly’s Diary revisited

Through a detailed analysis of John D’Oyly’s Diary on Ceylon, this essay contends that Doyly’s diary not only provides striking insight into the life of a colonial administrator but also becomes symbolic of the fragility of British colonial authority during the early British period in Sri Lanka, known as British Ceylon. The Diary documents the collapse of the Kandyan Kingdom in 1815 and offers a window into the complex and intricate negotiations and struggles of the British to gain control of territory in Ceylon. Drawing on the Letters to Ceylon, the correspondence addressed to D’Oyly by his family, which disclose not only D’Oyly’s private life, family and his social networking back in England but also reveal the tensions D’Oyly faces from home, I argue that the Diary exposes the insecurities of British colonial governance among British colonial administrators, as well as the tenuousness of British colonial rule.