220 FIRST SETTLEMENTS ON THE MADRAS COAST ing at Pulicat. Floris was a Hollander who had learned the secrets of the Indian trade while in the Dutch serv- ice. Captain Hippon, with the knowledge thus ob- tained, resolved to strike into the port to port trade, which bartered the calicoes of the Madras coast for the spices of the Eastern Archipelago. Not unnaturally, the Dutch, who had meanwhile built a fort at Pulicat, " did beare a hard hand against them." The queen of the place refused even to see our captain, saying that a grant had already been given to the Hollanders. But Hippon, although cast down, was not dismayed. He sailed further up the coast, and landed at Pettapoli (the modern Nizampatam), at the mouth of a southern chan- nel of the Kistna delta— more exposed to the monsoon than Pulicat, yet sufficiently sheltered for a ship to ride out a storm. There he arrived on August 18, 1611, was well received by the local governor, and left two supercargoes to found our first shore settlement on the Bay of Bengal. Of its fortunes presently. In 1614 another captain of the English Company cast longing eyes on Pulicat. The Dutch " Rector of all the factories upon that coast " and his lieutenant, who was " English-born," feasted the visitors in their " castle," but firmly refused to let them trade. The Anglo-Dutch treaty of 1619 at length gave us this right, and at the same time compelled us to pay half the charges of the garrison. A band of English factors accordingly landed at Pulicat in 1620, and for a year their trade went " roundly forward." But the Dutch opposition, which was to culminate in the tragedy of
