REDUCTION OF THE PIRATE ANGRIA. 133 



The coast of the Concan, between Bombay and Goa, 

 which belongs to the Mahratta territory, has always been 

 the seat of tribes who exercised in piratical expeditions 

 those predatory habits which elsewhere impelled them to 

 inroads by land. In the middle of the seventeenth century, 

 during the first rise of the Mahrattas, and while they were 

 carrying on a maritime war with the Mogul, one of their 

 officers, Conajee Angria, conceived the design of founding an 

 independent kingdom. He was greatly aided by the natural 

 barrier of precipitous rocks, which along this coast rises 

 out of the sea, like the hill-forts from the Indian plain. On 

 the two insulated cliffs of Gheria and Severndroog reigned 

 this chief and his successors of the same name, where they 

 became more and more formidable, till at length they felt 

 themselves able to cope with the greatest European powers, 

 and even aspired to the dominion of the Indian seas. 

 They made many valuable captures from different nations, 

 who, through dread of their power, could not proceed along 

 these coasts without a convoy. In February, 1754, a Dutch 

 squadron of three ships, carrying 50, 36, and 18 guns re- 

 spectively, was attacked, and the whole either burned or 

 taken. The British then considered themselves called upon 

 to take vigorous steps for putting down this growing and 

 dangerous power ; and the Mahrattas willingly afforded 

 their co-operation. In March, 1755, Commodore James 

 sailed with a squadron against Severndroog, where Angria's 

 fleet was stationed ; but his ships, on the approach of the 

 enemy, slipped their cables and ran out to sea. They were 

 of light construction, and the crews, by fastening to flag- 

 staffs their robes, quilts, and even turbans, caught every 

 breath of wind, and completely outsailed the English. The 

 commodore then steered for the place itself, which was 

 found to consist of several forts on the island and opposite 

 coast, the works of which were either cut out of the solid 

 rock, or strongly framed of blocks ten or twelve feet square. 

 By throwing in bombs, however, which blew up a large 

 magazine, and caused a general conflagration in the princi- 

 pal stronghold, he spread such an alarm, that the inhabitants 

 and garrison successively evacuated the different stations. 

 Rear-admiral Watson, having arrived with a much larger 

 fleet, proceeded to the attack of Gheria, the capital, which 

 Colonel dive undertook to blockade on the land side. On 

 Vol. II- M 



