8 
Tuticorin in 1791, when the net produce was divided 
equally between the Dutch and Mr. Torin acting for the 
Madras Government who had assumed the revenues of 
the Nawab. And in 1794 the Dutch received as their 
half share in the chank fishery for that year, the sum of 
2,000 pagodas. In the next year the Madras Govern- 
ment had again to take possession of Tuticorin from the 
Dutch to whom it was not given back till 1818. 
Upon the rendition of the fort and factory, the Nether- 
lands Commissioner demanded an admission of his right 
to the whole revenue from the pearl and chank fisheries, 
a claim which the East India Company resisted as having 
succeeded to the sovereign rights of the Nawab of the 
Carnatic. The Madras Government pointed out that 
the pearl banks being scattered along the coast of 
Tinnevelly could not therefore come within the limits of 
any Dutch settlement; that the Portuguese and after- 
wards the Dutch usurped the command of the whole 
Gulf, they said was very probable and it was quite 
probable that the Dutch for a time kept to themselves 
the whole revenues derived from these fisheries, but as 
they held them by no deed and by no cession, they might 
be said to have held them so long only as they could 
keep them. Voluminous evidence was collected to prove 
that the native rulers—the Nayak of Madura and the 
Nawab of the Carnatic had never relinquished their 
claims to these fisheries and the dispute had been 
referred to Europe for settlement when, in 1825, the 
annexation of all Dutch settlements in India rendered it 
unnecessary to further debate this contention ; since 1825 
and indeed since 1801, when the Carnatic was ceded 
finally to the British, the Madras Government have 
exercised absolute and undivided control of both the 
pearl and chank fisheries off the Tinnevelly coast. 
A summary of the condition of the fishery coast 
during the Dutch period contained in a letter dated 30th 
June 1803 from the Collector of Tinnevelly to the Board 
of Revenue at Madras is so interesting that no apology 
is needed for its reproduction here. It runs as 
follows :— 
“As the preliminary articles of peace with the 
French Republic stipulate for the restoration to Holland 
of all the possessions she held on the coast previous to 
