-160 Political Events in the Car natic, from 1564 to 1687. [No. 150. 



dated under the general government established at Batavia, appear 

 about this time to have felt a sensible decline of their commerce and 

 trade on the coast of Coromandel, in consequence of which, a Commis- 

 sary General with unlimited powers had been sent out to enquire, 

 and reform their establishments on the coast. The celebrated Van 

 Rheide,* (a name well known to the cultivators of Indian science,) ap- 

 pears to have executed this invidious duty with a rigor and zeal that ex- 

 cited those compliments and remonstrances that are ever found in public 

 reforms to follow individual inconvenience. His death happening at 

 sea, proceeding to Surat, prevented the further execution of his plans, 

 which from some of the works published in Holland about that time, 

 appear to have been loudly inveighed against by their servants in 

 India. Even the industrious Havart gives place to too much of these 

 invectives, to warrant a full credence of his reflections on the plans of 

 reduction and reform, of which the expensive fortifications of Nega- 

 patam, and the removal thither of the seat of government on the coast, 

 formed a part. How far they were followed or departed from, does not 

 appear; but it is observed, that the decline of the Dutch power and 

 commerce on this coast from that period, proceeded with a slow though 

 imperceptible progress down to our own times. 



82. The Dutch, however, appear to have been then sufficiently sen- 

 A D. 1686. s ible of the weakness of the Golconda government, since 

 they ventured to seize upon the fort of Masulipatam, then a very con- 

 siderable mart (in 1686,) in retaliation of some commercial injuries 

 scarcely warranting such a measure ; but they restored it soon after, in 

 the November following. Immediately after the conquest of Golconda, 

 they sent an embassy to Aurungzebe, and Mr. Bacherus obtained 

 some immunities, and a renewal of their privileges. 



83. In perusing the works from which these notices are derived, it 

 appears that the Dutch Company's servants had by special orders from 

 Europe paid particular attention to acquire and methodize an useful 

 knowledge, not merely of the commercial advantages and trade of 

 their own establishments, but of the internal resources, geography, 



* Henr. Adr. Van Rheide after having served long in India and returned to Europe, was sent out 

 in 1684 on a salary of 1,000 guilders per month, to reform the Dutch establishments. He was on 

 the Coromandel Coast from 1684 to 1687, and died at Sea in December 1691 near Bombay, on his 

 way to Burat.— Havart, Vol. Ill, p. 59. 



