Travels in India (Tavernier) 35.2.3

35.2.3

The treaty having been concluded with the King of Porakad, the Dutch General held a review of all the survivors both of the sailors and the soldiers, and the number amounted to about 6000 persons, all the rest having died of disease or having been slain. A few days after he commanded some companies to go to lay siege to the town of Cannanore, which yielded at once without any resistance. When they returned the General had a crown made to place on the head of a new King of Cochin, the other having been driven away ; and on the day which he selected for this grand performance he seated himself on a kind of throne, at the foot of which a Malabari called Montani, conducted by two or three captains, placed himself on his knees to receive the crown from his hand and to take possession of a kingdom of very limited extent — that is to say, some small territories in the neighbourhood of Cochin. This General when coming from Holland had been ship’s cook, and this crowning of a miserable Malabari by the hands of a man who had more frequently brandished a pot-ladle than a sword, was without doubt a brilliant spectacle.