Storia do Mogor 281.27.7

281.27.7

The Danes had sufficiently strong reasons for upholding and maintaining this bastard against the legitimate son. The father himself on his deathbed had made him over to the Danish commandant, knowing this son to be a man of intelligence, while his other son was incapable of governing or of supporting the Danes in their business. They dealt in several classes of goods which reached them from the interior, and during the father's government a practice had sprung up of paying no customs duty. They hoped to secure the same thing under the bastard [83], a great advantage for the company. It is for this and other similar reasons of interest that they protected him, and backed him up in his pretensions. Should the account of the war against Tranquebar have proved not unpleasing to the reader, I flatter myself that the following will not be disagreeable. It is the war of the Mahomedans against the English at Cudeloure (Kudalur). I begin with describing the situation of Fort St. David and Cuddalore, both belonging to the aforesaid English. They purchased them for the sum of sixty thousand patacas from Ram Rajah, [son of] Shiva Ji. In ancient times they belonged to the Kings of Bijapur, along with another town, also a dependency upon the said fort. Both places are strong, and surrounded by water supplied by a river which is near the sea.