il 
year 786 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 
im 1705, 
‘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 1s not possible to ascribe either the attempt 
or the success of this flagrant 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 
