9 
the war, I have considered it an important duty to as- 
certain as accurately as possible the extent of their 
possessions, the nature of their privileges, the means by 
which they were acquired and the effects which their 
unqualified or conditional restoration to Holland is likely 
to have upon the interests of the British Government in 
this province. 
“When Tuticorin and its dependent factories 
Poonacoil and Manapaar capitulated to the English in 
1795, the Dutch were in the actual possession of the 
chank and pearl fisheries off the coast of the Tinnevelly 
province, paying half the proceeds to the Nawab. To 
preserve these fisheries from depredation, they had 
employed for a series of years a scattered chain of armed 
boats extending nearly from Cape Comorin to Pamban 
and the owners of country crafts to avoid vexatious 
delays which their commerce suffered from the search 
exercised on all vessels passing these boats, did not 
hesitate to apply to the Dutch Presidents along the 
coast for passports under their signature—the possession 
thereof acquired by the payment of a fee exempted them 
from this vexatious scrutiny. 
“The landed possessions which the Dutch had 
acquired on the coast of Tinnevelly did not extend 
beyond the ground upon which the small fort of Tuticorin 
IS) S107 Ie uitas er aan Upon this and other similar occa- 
sions of dispute between the Dutch and the Nawab’s 
manager, the latter did not scruple to refuse to them water 
and fresh provisions neither of which are of course 
attainable within the walls of Tuticorin, so that not only 
their continuance upon this coast in a revenue and 
commercial character but even their physical existence 
evidently depends upon the disposition of the ruling 
authority in Tinnevelly to administer to their wants. 
“The town of Tuticorin which is close upon the 
fort, the Dutch affected to consider under their jurisdic- 
tion but the Nawab’s Government uniformly opposed 
this pretension and collected the revenues from the 
inhabitants residing in it. The grounds upon which 
they pretended to this assumption of sovereignty over 
the inhabitants of Tuticorin originates in the majority of 
_ the people being of the Parawa caste, a set of men who 
having been converted to Christianity by the Portuguese 
