POLITICAL HISTORY.
throne, the basis of the world, given them the aforementioned Circars, by way of enam or free gift without the least participation of any person whatever in the same.'
The Subadar, however, was in no way pleased at this cession of territory which he regarded as his own, and threatened to retaliate by an irruption into the Carnatic. In November 1766 a treaty 1[1] was accordingly hastily and weakly concluded with him by which the English agreed to pay nine lakhs annually for the territory that had already been granted them as a free gift. Soon afterwards the Subadar was defeated by the English in one or two actions, became more accommodating in consequence, and in February 1768 agreed to a new treaty by which the tribute was reduced.2[2] The new acquisitions were at first governed from Masulipatam, but in 1769 Mr, John Andrews, then Chief at that place, was sent to Vizagapatam and made the first Chief in Council of that district.
We may now go back and shortly trace the fortunes of the English settlement at Vizagapatam from its inception until it thus became the capital of the district.
The settlement was founded in 1682.3[3] In February of that year the Directors wrote to Fort St. George that an 'interloper (un-authorized trader) was designed for Metchlepatam or Gyngerlee' (i.e., Masulipatam or Vizagapatam 4[4]) and left it to the Madras
authorities to decide whether a factory should not be established at the latter place. The Madras Consultations of the 1st August 1682 say that 'The Comp having resolved to make some Investments this year at Gingerly & given order to y* Agent &c* to send down some psons to further the same, as likewise to hinder and defeat any Interlopers that shall come there, 'tis
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- ↑ 1 Aitchison's Treaties, etc., viii, 280.
- ↑ 2 This reduced amount continued to be paid until 1823, when the claim was extinguished by the disbursement of a large lump sum.
- ↑ 3 Sir George Birdwood's Report on the old records of the India Office (W. H.Allen, 1891) twice (pp. 89 and 222) states that the date was 1668, but does not quote the records on which the statement is based. A personal search by the present writer (under expert guidance) among the India Office records failed to discover any papers about Vizagapatam of an earlier date than 1684 The 'interloper' Thomas Bowrey, who traded in these parts between 1669 and 1679,makes no mention of the settlement in his Countries round the Bay of Bengal (Hakluyt Society, Second Series, Vol. XII, 1905); nor is it referred to in the Fort St. George records of 1670-1681; indeed a list of factories in the latter year specifically says that Masulipatam and Madapollara were the only subordinate stations on this coast. If, therefore, a settlement was in fact made in 1668, it must have been almost immediately abolished again.
- ↑ 4. Mr. Pringle's Diary and Consultation book of the Agent Governor and, Council of Fort St. George, 1684 (Madras Government Press, 1895), 170,
