Madras fisheries bulletin

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 Government
had again to take possession of Tuticorin from the
Dutch to whom it was not given back till 18 18.
Upon the rendition of the fort and factory, the Netherlands
Commissioner demanded an admission of his ria^ht
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 afterwards
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