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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
A JOURNAL OF ORIENTAL RESEARCH
VOLUME XLVII-1918
AUSTRIA'S COMMERCIAL VENTURE IN INDIA IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
BY SIR R. C. TEMPLE, BART.
(Continued from Vol. XLVI, p. 286.)
Letter from Lieutenant Colonel William Bolts to the President and Council of Bombay, dated Gogo, 31 October 1777.20
Honble. Sir and Sirs
You have some time ago been informed of the accident which happened to the Imperial Austrian ship Giuseppe and Teresa, under my command, in the bay of Delagoa. A subsequent transaction there obliges me now to lay my complaints, on behalf of their Imperial Majesties, before you, against John Cahill, Captain of a ketch from your Presidency; the whole relation of which is briefly as follows.
On the 3d day of May 1777 I took formal possession of a certain district of land in the country called Timbe on the western side of the river Mafoome in the beforementioned bay from the Rajah Mohaar Capell, who by a deed of sale and a treaty, solemnly executed the same day, gave up the property and sovereignty thereof, together with the sovereignty of the said river, to their Imperial Majesties for ever. There are at this time in the river Mafoome two ketches from Bombay under English Colours, one commanded by Captain John McKennie and the other by Captain John Cahill, the latter of whom having partly erected an Indian hutt of cajan27 sticks, did on the 4th May wantonly erect a flagstaff and hoist thereon an English ensign within ten yards of the imperial flagstaff and even within the line of the guns we had planted upon taking possession. Wishing to avoid every act that would bear the smallest appearance of incivility, I therefore wrote the following letter to Captain Cahill.28
To this letter Captain Cahill did not think proper to give any answer. Nevertheless, I sent several other polite messages to him by my officer, requesting he would take down his ensign, but the Captain still refused to comply, at one time pretending he was going to give a dinner on shore, and at last alledging he had bought the ground, or some part of it, himself. Upon this I assured Captain Cahill that if he really had purchased any
28 Letters Received at Bombay (1777), XLIII, 372-376.
The shrubby plant, Cajanus Indicus (Malay kachang), producing the food stuffs known as dak a substitute for pulse.
28 See ante., Vol. XLVI, p. 286.
