Madras fisheries bulletin

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were led from religious motives to look up to the
Portuguese as mediators in their concerns with the
Government of the country. When the Dutch drove
the Portuguese from Tuticorin they found the same
necessity of connecting themselves with the Parawars.
Without their aid, neither the pearl nor chank fisheries
could be of any use to the Dutch. To strengthen the
connection with the Parawars material advantages with
all the honour they had to bestow were conferred upon
the head of this caste whom they styled the Prince Sadi
Talavan and the greatest part of the mercantile business
of their Government was transacted throug-h them. The
residence of the Sadi Talavan when the Dutch obtained
the possession of Tuticorin was about 20 miles from
however induced him to settle at Tuticorin. ,
it ;
they
"
These encroachments appear to have been
sometimes tacitly admitted and at other periods of the
Mussulman government of the country to have been
denied and resisted. If the aumil of Tinnevelly was
ignorant of the Nawab's sovereignty over the Parawars
or had any reason to court or fear the Dutch, they
exercised that power without interruption. But if he
was well acquainted with the nature of the Dutch usurpations
and was not in want of military stores or money
from them, the assumption of this authority was not
permitted.
" The history which has been given by the curnam
of Tuticorin of the first settlement of the Portuguese and
of the Dutch at Tuticorin shows that the pearl and
chank fisheries were originally conducted by the Dutch
upon certain conditions prescribed by the Hindu Government
of the country and that owing to the convulsions
which distracted Tinnevelly upon the extinction of the
Gentoo sovereignty and the subsequent war of Chanda
Sahib and Muhammad Ali, the Dutch drew the revenues
of the fisheries of the coast for a
selves.
time entirely to them-
"
It was, however, one of the first acts of the
Nawab's Government after it became a little established
to claim his sovereignty in these fisheries, and this
demand continued to be made for several succeeding years
without any specified settlement taking place until the