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were led from religious motives to look up to the 

 Portuguese as mediators in their concerns with the 

 Government of the country. When the Dutch drove 

 the Portuguese from Tuticorin they found the same 

 necessity of connecting themselves with the Parawars. 

 Without their aid, neither the pearl nor chank fisheries 

 could be of any use to the Dutch. To strengthen the 

 connection with the Parawars material advantages with 

 all the honour they had to bestow were conferred upon 

 the head of this caste whom they styled the Prince Sadi 

 Talavan and the greatest part of the mercantile business 

 of their Government was transacted throug-h them. The 

 residence of the Sadi Talavan when the Dutch obtained 

 the possession of Tuticorin was about 20 miles from it ; 

 they however induced him to settle at Tuticorin. , 



" These encroachments appear to have been 

 sometimes tacitly admitted and at other periods of the 

 Mussulman government of the country to have been 

 denied and resisted. If the aumil of Tinnevelly was 

 ignorant of the Nawab's sovereignty over the Parawars 

 or had any reason to court or fear the Dutch, they 

 exercised that power without interruption. But if he 

 was well acquainted with the nature of the Dutch usur- 

 pations and was not in want of military stores or money 

 from them, the assumption of this authority was not 

 permitted. 



" The history which has been given by the curnam 

 of Tuticorin of the first settlement of the Portuguese and 

 of the Dutch at Tuticorin shows that the pearl and 

 chank fisheries were originally conducted by the Dutch 

 upon certain conditions prescribed by the Hindu Govern- 

 ment of the country and that owing to the convulsions 

 which distracted Tinnevelly upon the extinction of the 

 Gentoo sovereignty and the subsequent war of Chanda 

 Sahib and Muhammad Ali, the Dutch drew the revenues 

 of the fisheries of the coast for a time entirely to them- 

 selves. 



" It was, however, one of the first acts of the 

 Nawab's Government after it became a little established 

 to claim his sovereignty in these fisheries, and this 

 demand continued to be made for several succeeding years 

 without any specified settlement taking place until the 



