XX 



year 1786 when it was mutually agreed between the 

 Nawab and the Dutch Government that each should 

 receive an equal share of the two fisheries, and upon 

 this footing they stood when Tuticorin was taken by us 

 in 1795. 



" Besides the factory of Tuticorin, the Dutch had 

 residents and factory houses at Poonacoil, Coilpatnam, 

 Manapaar, Vypaur and Vembar. These comprised the 

 whole of the sea-ports of Tinnevelly and although they 

 pretend to no power over the inhabitants in general 

 they uniformly claimed and generally exercised an 

 authority over the whole of the Parawars therein situated. 



" The knowledge of their circumscribed condition 

 would seem a sufficient answer to the arrogant and 

 extraordinary pretensions which the Dutch advance of 

 an exclusive right to regulate the navigation of the bay, 

 to employ the manufacturers upon the coast of Madura 

 and to have their imports and exports passed free of 

 duty. ' An additional internal evidence of the non-exist- 

 ence of any ancient deed authorising the exercise of 

 these privileges will be found in the different treatment 

 they received at Kilkarry in the province of Ramnad. 

 There nothing passed to or from them without paying 

 the regular port duties and their engagements with the 

 manufacturers were permitted because they benefited the 

 country, not upon any grounds of an exclusive right to 

 employ them. The Poligar himself being a considerable 

 trader through his servants would not have borne that 

 his vessels would have been impeded in their course, his 

 customs and his fisheries usurped and swallowed up or 

 the employment of his manufacturers left at the mercy 

 of a few strangers, who resided by his sufferance in his 

 country and it is not possible to ascribe either the attempt 

 or the success of this tiagrant usurpation in Tinnevelly to 

 anything but the convulsions which attended the downfall 

 of the Hindu Government and the profligacy and ignor- 

 ance of the succeeding Mussulman reign. 



" But in the actual enjoyment as the Dutch were at 

 the time of capitulation of these privileges, it becomes 

 very necessary to be provided in case they should again 

 attempt to exercise them. The chain of boats in the bay 

 of Tuticorin was kept up for the ostensible reason of 

 preventing depredation of the fisheries ; experience has 



