The Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts of the Bombay Presidency from the Earliest Historical Times to the Musalman Conquest c7.s8.114

c7.s8.114

have influenced them as long as the Portuguese were in possession, for as early as 1686 the conquest of Sálsette was proposed on a sufficient force coming from England, and the same course was suggested from home, and apparently only abandoned from doubts as to the complications that might ensue.¹ It must be evident that after the European trade with India had been turned into the route of the Cape of Good Hope the Malabár ports were of far greater value than those of the Konkan or Gujarát, which had their day when the line of traffic was by the Persian gulf and the Red Sea. The capture of Ormuz by the English in 1622 and of Cochin by the Dutch in 1663 deprived the Portuguese of commercial superiority and prestige on both routes, and in 1664 when peace was concluded the claim of the Portuguese to the monopoly of the trade was finally abandoned.² The Dutch gradually succumbed to the English, and never made any other settlement in the Konkan than Vengurla, though they are said in the eighteenth century to have greatly wished to establish a factory at Bassein.³