6 s 
the Madura Nayaks during this period. By right of effect- 
ive occupation they enjoyed the full benefit of the pearl 
and chank fisheries, but long ere the Dutch dispossessed 
them they had to give both the Nayak of Madura 
and his feudatory, the Setupathi of Ramnad, various 
privileges in the former, though it appears they managed 
to retain the whole of the profit from chanks. To this 
disputed heritage the Dutch succeeded and throughout 
the whole of their control of the Tinnevelly pearl and 
chank fisheries they had to meet the continual claims 
first of the Madura Nayaks and afterwards of the Nawabs 
of the Carnatic. Control of the sea enabled them to 
retain their hold on the fisheries though even then they 
did so only by temporizing with the ‘lords of the land. 
With the advent of a stronger land power in the Nawab 
of the Carnatic the claim of the native rulers to the poss- 
ession of the pearl and chank fisheries was pressed with 
greater vigour. The dispute as to their mutual rights 
reached a head in 1768 when at the Ceylon Pearl Fishery 
held at Arippu that year, violent disputes took place 
between the Dutch officials and the Nawab’s envoys who 
went to the fishery attended by a large body of armed 
sepoys and tried to carry matters with a high hand. | 
As a consequence, the Dutch, with their usual caution 
and fear for the interruption of their cloth monopoly in 
Madura, loth to bring the matter to a crisis, preferred 
to let the pearl fisheries remain in abeyance till a settle- 
ment could be effected on what they considered equitable 
terms—terms which meant the curtailment if possible of 
the Nawab'’s pretensions. 
So matters stood at a deadlock when in 1782 the 
Honourable East India eee took Tuticorin from the 
Dutch, holding it till 1785. During this period, the 
Nawab’s revenues ee second to the company under 
the agreement of 1781, Mr. Irwin, the Collector of 
Assigned Revenue, held a pearl fishery in 1784, carried 
on departmentally, and also conducted a yearly chank 
fishery, the profits, which amounted to 67,860 pagodas, 
being credited to the head of assigned revenue. 
Ina report to Government dated 1783, Irwin observed 
that “a notion, I understand, has been entertained at the 
Presidency that the Dutch will resume the pearl and 
chank fisheries with their settlements on the coast of 
