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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[AUGUST, 1916
loyalty and the seat of a line of Polygars, who were the traditional saviours of the Naik Raj from external foes. As we shall see presently that his great-grandson Ranganna Naik was the right hand man of Tirumal Naik's great general Ramappaiya, and took no small share in the military greatness of that hero.
The progress of European nations. The European nations made steady progress on the coasts and islands of the peninsula, even in this reign. In 1620 the Danes, for instance, obtained the village of Tranquebar, 6c 18 miles north of Negapatam, with a few adjoining villages, from the Naik of Tanjore for an annual rental. The Danish East India Company was established by Christian IV. in 1616. Their first ship left Denmark in 1618 under a Dutchman named Roeland Crape, and was attacked and sunk by the Portuguese off the Coromandel coast. The Commander and thirteen men escaped to the court of Tanjore. One Gedde, a Danish nobleman. was the second man who came to Tanjore. It was he and Crape that concluded the treaty with the Ndik in November 1620, by which Tranquebar and 15 villages in the neighbourhood were handed over to them for the annual rental of Rs. 3,111.
The English did not keep idle. They had already two possessions in the Coromandel coast, and they now asked Emperor Venkata to give them permission to establish factories further south in his dominions. Induced by the solicitation of the merchants of his country, he seemed disposed to grant a settlement to the agents of the English East India Company; but was dissuaded by the Dutch, who had already established themselves at Pulicat.67 The Dutch in fact were slowly becoming the masters of the East Indies trade. In 1614 they made a settlement at Siam, in 1617 at Ahmedabad, and in 1619 overthrew the English at Java and built the city of Batavia, henceforth the seat of their government. In 1621 they made alliance with the English aud even allowed them to establish a settlement at Pulicat, but soon jealousy led to the massacre of the Amboyna and to the decision of the English to turn in future to the mainland of India. The Dutch did not only stand in the way of the English, but also of the Portuguese, with whom they were in deadly contest. In the Indian coasts, in the coasts of Burma and Strait Settlement, in the Spice Islands, in the seas of China and Japan, the two nations fought; and the fight in Ceylon and Mannar was only a part of this world struggle. Slowly but steadily they took the Portuguese possessions. In 1610, the year of Virappa's accession, the Portuguese warred with the king of Kandy, drove him to take refuge in the mountains, captured and burnt his city, and compelled him to submit to their supremacy in the island and place his two sons in the hands of some Fransciscan monks to be brought up as catholics. But in March68 1612 the Dutch
66 Tranquebar remained in Danish occupation till 1865 when the English purchased it for Rs. 21,000. 'The healthy nature of the place made it an important place in the religious history of the South India In 1810 the settlement so flourished as to have 19,000 people. It is even now principal station of the Lutheran evangelical missions. The only Hindu building there is the Siva temple partially Washed away by the sea, wherein is found an insoription of Kulasekhara Deva Pardya (95 of 1891). Tranquebar was called Sadangampadi and Kulasekharanpatnam. Its God is called Maniswara or Masilamani. The Jerusalem church there was founded by Ziegenbalg," whose quaint but valuable treatise on the South Iodian Gods is still the only work of reference on the interesting subject of Tamil village deities." (Madr. Ep. Rep. 1891, p. 4). See also Ante, XXII, 1893, pp. 116-122.
67 Wilks, I, p. 39.
68 Danvers II, p. 148-149. The Portuguese, after this assumption of nominal authority, made a systematic settlement of the revenues. For details, see Danvers, II, pp. 157-168.
