 During the Napoleonic Wars, Great Britain, fearing that French control of the Netherlands might deliver Ceylon to the French, occupied the coastal areas of the island with little difficulty in 1796.In 1802 by the Treaty of Amiens the Dutch part of the island was ceded to Britain, and became a crown colony.In 1803 the British invaded the Kingdom of Kandy in the 1st Kandyan War, but were bloodily repulsed.