1922] MADRAS PEARL FISHERIES 41 



gross revenue of 20,000 cully chucrums. This at Rs. 2 -I-ll^ per 

 cully chucrum gives a return in rupees of Rs. 42,447-14-8. Cald- 

 well (Iqc. cit.) notes that this fishery was the first conducted by the 

 English East India Company, Tuticorin being then temporarily in 

 their hands. 



This long series of blank years extending, with the doubtful 

 exception abovementioned, over a period of thirty-five years, may 

 have been due up to 1768 to imperfect inspection or to natural 

 causes or to a combination of the two, but the intermittence there- 

 after arose in the main from the reluctance of the Dutch to agree 

 to the pressing demands of the Nawab of the Carnatic to partici- 

 pate upon exorbitant conditions in the profits arising from the 

 fisheries both on the Ceylon and the Indian Banks. As already 

 mentioned, at the Ceylon Fishery held at Aripu in 1768 violent 

 disputes occurred with the Nawab's envoys who went to the fishery 

 attended by a large body of armed sepoys and tried to carry 

 matters with a high hand. 



The Dutch loth, with their usual caution and fear for the 

 interruption of their cloth monopoly in Madura, to bring matters 

 to a crisis, preferred to let the pearl fisheries remain virtually in 

 abeyance till a settlement was effected on equitable terms which 

 meant the curtailment if possible of the Nawab's pretensions. 



It was not till 1786 that the Dutch, pressed by the English 

 Government in Madras (to whom the Nawab had appealed as his 

 ally and virtual suzerain) to effect a settlement of the long-standing 

 dispute, made provisional terms with the Nawab.* By these the 

 Nawab obtained much greater advantage than had been contem- 

 plated twenty years previously, due to the dwindling power of the 

 Dutch and their growing fear of the rapid extension of the military 

 power and commercial supremacy of the English East India 

 Company. 



The chief articles of the agreement affecting. the pearl fisheries 

 were that the Nawab should be granted one-half of the profits 

 arising from fisheries off the Madura coast and have 36 free 

 dhonies at any fisheries held on the Ceylon side, privileges allowed 

 in return for a confirmation of the Dutch trading monopoly in 

 Madura cloth — ever one of the most lucrative sources of revenue to 

 the Dutch Company. 



* Two years later a definite treaty on the same lines was signed by the Dutch, 

 6 



