Io 
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 through 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. 
“ Tt 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 
