the Madura Nayaks during this period. By right of effect- 

 ive occupation they enjoyed the full benefit of the pearl 

 and chank fisheries, but long ere the Dutch dispossessed 

 them they had to give both the Nayak of Madura 

 and his feudatory, the Setupathi of Ramnad, various 

 privileges in the former, though it appears they managed 

 to retain the whole of the profit from chanks. To this 

 disputed heritage the Dutch succeeded and throughout 

 the whole of their control of the Tinnevelly pearl and 

 chank fisheries they had to meet the continual claims 

 first of the Madura Nayaks and afterwards of the Nawabs 

 of the Carnatic. Control of the sea enabled them to 

 retain their hold on the fisheries though even then they 

 did so only by temporizing with the lords of the land. 

 With the advent of a stronger land power in the Nawab 

 of the Carnatic the claim of the native rulers to the poss- 

 ession of the pearl and chank fisheries was pressed with 

 greater vigour. The dispute as to their mutual rights 

 reached a head in 1768 when at the Ceylon Pearl Fishery 

 held at Arippu that year, violent disputes took place 

 between the Dutch officials and 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. 



As a consequence, the Dutch, with their usual caution 

 and fear for the interruption of their cloth monopoly in 

 Madura, loth to bring the matter to a crisis, preferred 

 to let the pearl fisheries remain in abeyance till a settle- 

 ment could be effected on what they considered equitable 

 terms — terms which meant the curtailment if possible of 

 the Nawab's pretensions. 



So matters stood at a deadlock when in 1782 the 

 Honourable East India Company took Tuticorin from the 

 Dutch, holding it till 1785. During this period, the 

 Nawab's revenues being assigned to the company under 

 the agreement of 1781, Mr, Irwin, the Collector of 

 Assigned Revenue, held a pearl fishery in 1784, carried 

 on departmentally, and also conducted a yearly chank 

 fishery, the profits, which amounted to 67,860 pagodas, 

 being credited to the head of assigned revenue. 



In a report to Government dated 1783, Irwin observed 

 that " a notion, I understand, has been entertained at the 

 Presidency that the Dutch will resume the pearl and 

 chank fisheries with their settlements on the coast of 



