Madras fisheries bulletin

12
shown that such a precaution Is unnecessary. From the
time these fisheries came under the Company's management,
no such means of preservation have been adopted
and no instance of depredation has ever been detected or
suspected. The fisheries have latterly yielded five hundred
per cent, more to us than they did to the Dutch
Government. It hence follows that the means by which
the Dutch exercised that sovereignty in the bay is not
necessary to the prosperity of their fisheries and ought
not therefore to be permitted.
"With no landed possession but that upon which
the fort of Tuticorin stands and with no power of jurisdiction
even in the village of Tuticorin or any other, with
no means of supplying themselves with the common
necessaries of life, but from the Company's districts and
no divers to work in the fisheries but those who inhabit
the Company's villages, it is very evident that to make
the possession of Tuticorin desirable to the Dutch or the
fisheries upon the coast of Tinnevelly a source of revenue
to them depends upon the disposition of the British
Government to befriend them.
" Though not possessed of any territory within
Tinnevelly district except the small spot about i,ooo
yards square on which the fort of Tuticorin stood, the
Dutch claimed the right to the pearl and chank fisheries
on the coast of Tinnevelly, half the proceeds of which
they paid to the Nawab in consideration of being allowed
the sovereignty over all the Parawars in the district and
the right to employ the manufacturers of cloth to the
exclusion of all other European nations."
From 1801 when the sovereignty of the Carnatic
passed from the Nawab to the East India Company we
have complete records of the net proceeds of each
season's chank fishery ; the table appended gives the
yearly net revenue together with the amount yielded by
the pearl fisheries held during the same period. Refer-
ence to this shows that during the first 27 years of
British administration the chank fishery enjoyed a period
of unexampled prosperity. During the whole of this
period on one occasion only did the net revenue fall
below Rs. 17,000 per annum, while in 13 years the net
profits exceeded Rs. 30,000 per annum. The most prosperous
season was that of 1824-25 when the net revenue