The Pirates of Malabar Author:John Biddulph Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III THE E18E OF OONAJEE ANGBIA Native piracy hereditary on the Malabar coast—Marco Polo's account —Fryer's narrative—The Kempsant—Arab and Sangania... more »n piraten —Attack on the President—Loss of the Josiah—Attack on the Pheenix—The Thomas captured — Depredations of the Gulf pirates — Directors' views—Conajee Angria — Attacks English ships — Destroys the Bombay — Fortifies Kennery — Becomes independent—Captures the Governor's yacht—Attacks the Somers and Orantham—Makes peace with Bombay—His navy—Great increase of European and native piracy. Europeans were not the only offenders. The Delhi Emperor, who claimed universal dominion on land, made no pretension to authority at sea. So long as the Mocha fleet did not suffer, merchants were left to take care of themselves. There was no policing of the sea, and every trader had to rely on his own efforts for protection. The people of the Malabar coast were left to pursue their hereditary vocation of piracy unmolested. The Greek author of the " Periplus ofthe Erythraean Sea," who wrote in the first century of our era, mentions the pirates infesting the coast between Bombay and Goa. Two hundred years before Vasco da Gama had shown the way to India by sea, Marco Polo had told Europe of the Malabar pirates. " And you must know that from this Kingdom of Melibar, and from another near it called Gozurat, there go forth every year more than a hundred corsair vessels on cruize. These pirates take with them their wives and children, and stay out the whole summer. Their method is to join in fleets of 20 or 30 of these pirate vessels together, and then they form what they call a sea cordon, that is, they drop off till there is an interval of 5 or 6 miles between ship and ship, Bo that they cover something like a hundred miles of sea, and...« less