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 1,000 
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 perannum. ‘The most pros- 
perous season was that of 1824-25 when the net revenue 
