12 



shown that such a precaution Is unnecessary. From the 

 time these fisheries came under the Company's manage- 

 ment, no such means of preservation have been adopted 

 and no instance of depredation has ever been detected or 

 suspected. The fisheries have latterly yielded five hun- 

 dred per cent, more to us than they did to the Dutch 

 Government. It hence follows that the means by which 

 the Dutch exercised that sovereignty in the bay is not 

 necessary to the prosperity of their fisheries and ought 

 not therefore to be permitted. 



"With no landed possession but that upon which 

 the fort of Tuticorin stands and with no power of juris- 

 diction even in the village of Tuticorin or any other, with 

 no means of supplying themselves with the common 

 necessaries of life, but from the Company's districts and 

 no divers to work in the fisheries but those who inhabit 

 the Company's villages, it is very evident that to make 

 the possession of Tuticorin desirable to the Dutch or the 

 fisheries upon the coast of Tinnevelly a source of revenue 

 to them depends upon the disposition of the British 

 Government to befriend them. 



" Though not possessed of any territory within 

 Tinnevelly district except the small spot about i,ooo 

 yards square on which the fort of Tuticorin stood, the 

 Dutch claimed the right to the pearl and chank fisheries 

 on the coast of Tinnevelly, half the proceeds of which 

 they paid to the Nawab in consideration of being allowed 

 the sovereignty over all the Parawars in the district and 

 the right to employ the manufacturers of cloth to the 

 exclusion of all other European nations." 



From 1801 when the sovereignty of the Carnatic 

 passed from the Nawab to the East India Company we 

 have complete records of the net proceeds of each 

 season's chank fishery ; the table appended gives the 

 yearly net revenue together with the amount yielded by 

 the pearl fisheries held during the same period. Refer- 

 ence to this shows that during the first 27 years of 

 British administration the chank fishery enjoyed a period 

 of unexampled prosperity. During the whole of this 

 period on one occasion only did the net revenue fall 

 below Rs. 17,000 per annum, while in 13 years the net 

 profits exceeded Rs. 30,000 per annum. The most pros- 

 perous season was that of 1824-25 when the net revenue 



