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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[AVOUST, 1916
reasonable, and acknowledge, by a formal treaty, the right of the Dutch to trade with the East. From this time the Dutch progress was even more rapid. In 1609 they established a settlement, with Emperor Venkatapati's permission, at Pulicat, a place of the greatest commercial importance in the 16th century, and built a fort therein.
The English were comparatively not so successful. The first Englishman to arrive in Ceylon was Ralph Fitch (in 1609). Three years later, Lancaster touched on the island on his way home from the East Indies. In the subsequent voyages of the London East
India Company the objective was primarily the East Indies Archipalego, and secondarily Western and Northern India. The first really serious attempt to establish a trade settlement in India was made in 1611. In that year Captain Hippon departed from the usual route of trade, and sailed up the east coast of India, and touched at several points occupied by the Dutch. The latter were jealous of the new competitors, and tried, both by direct opposition and by intrigue with Indian States, to prevent them from effecting a settlement. Captain Hippon touched at Pulicat, for instance, but the Dutch governor, Von Wersicke, refused to allow him to trade. Leaving a small establishment at Pattapoly, Hippon sailed to Masulipatam, and there succeeded in establishing, with Golconda's permission, a factory. It was the first in South India, in fact the whole of India, and formed the foundation of the English trade in the East Indies. The Company, of course, owned
territory here, but were simply permitted by the Kutb Shah to build a factory or trade-house and transact business on the coast. "The factory was not a manufactory, for nothing was made there; it comprised merely warehouse, offices and residential accommodation for the factors and their guard. The trade consisted in the importation from Bantam, and occasionally from England direct, of specie and European manufactured goods, the sale of the latter, and the investmont' of the former in purchase of calicoes, chintz, and muslins by advances made to local weavers. The calico or longcloth' was sent to England, while other cotton goods were readily absorbed by the Java market."53 The Dutch possessed not only a mere factory at the Goloondah port, but a fortified settlement at Pulicat, 160 miles further south, and this gave them a double strength in their endeavour to check the English trade. Pulicat and its neighbourhood produced the best cotton goods, while at the same time the fortress of Geldria enabled its possessors to save themselves from the oppressions of any local chief. The English, on the other hand, were subject to the twofold evils of official oppression and comparative lack of trade facilities.
SECTION IV.
Muttu Virappa (1609-23). In the year 1609 Muttu Krishnappa died and was succeeded by his son Muttu Virappa, who had Tirumal Naik, to become famous later on, as his second. The history of Muttu Virappa's reign5c is a dark age in the Madura annals. There is no inform
55 H. D. Love's Vestiges of Old Madras, I, p. 12.
56 The Carna. Dynas, and Supple. MS. say that he ruled from 1680 (8. 1502, Vikriti) to 1622 (8.1544, Dunmati). The formor of these mentions nothing about this monarch except that his second was Tirumal Naik. The Pand. Chron. on the other hand, attributes his reign to from 1609 (Subhakrit Vykdsi) to 1623 (Dundumi ini). Wheeler says that he ruled from 1604 to 1626. This is of course wrong, as well as his statement that it was Muttu Virappa that created the Setupati. He is also wrong in saying that “Vijaya Ragananda" of Tanjore wished to give Trichinopoly to Virappa in exchange for Vallam, but that nothing was done; for we have already seen that Trichincpoly came into the hands of Visvanatha I. and was the real capital of the Naiks.
