The Dynasties of the Kanarese Districts of the Bombay Presidency from the Earliest Historical Times to the Musalman Conquest c7.s8.87

c7.s8.87

The trade in this country was at first, as has already been stated, a royal monopoly. The Portuguese had gradually obliged all trading vessels to take out their passes; but as early as 1570 the Malabár pirates, who Gemelli says⁴ were composed of Moors Gentiles Jews and Christians, began to give trouble,⁵ and a little later the Arabs followed their example, so that after this there were always two fleets sent out from Goa, called the fleet of the North and the fleet of the South,⁶ occupied nominally in protecting the Portuguese ships and possessions from the pirates. In 1598 six small vessels were built and fitted out at Thána and had great success against the pirates.⁷ But the Musalmán historians, and even some European writers,⁸ put the case of the Portuguese and of the so-called pirates in a very different light. They describe the Malabár and Arab mariners as honest traders who only wished to carry on in peace the traffic which their fathers had enjoyed for centuries, but who were constantly harried and plundered by the Portuguese unless they consented to pay them tribute. The free-traders, as they were they called, who were generally discharged or deserted Portuguese soldiers,⁹ deprived the natives of even that part of the coasting trade which the Government of Goa had left them, and it is acknowledged by all that these free-traders, like the Interlopers who gave the English East India Company so much trouble,¹⁰ were little, if at all, better than pirates. “They infested every creek on the coast in the double capacity of pirates and merchants,” and caused a perpetual petty but sanguinary war. “They seldom scrupled to defraud those who traded with them if they felt themselves strong enough to do it with impunity, and frequently they procured their cargoes entirely by plunder. By such acts of piracy they brought disgrace upon their country and became a principal cause of the downfall of the Portuguese empire in India.¹ The army and other departments of the Government service were deserted for this illicit trade, while Portuguese sailors after coming to India despised any places but those of captain or officer, so that the merchantmen were chiefly manned by Arab and Abyssinian sailors, who were cheap and docile.² Both on account of these inconveniences and for the sake of the profits of the Government monopoly the Portuguese Governors did all they could to put down this private trade, but with little effect. The universal practice of illicit trading, in which all the servants of Government from the Viceroy down to the private soldier indulged,³ was of course another hindrance to the King's Government getting the fair profits of the trade. Linschotten says that even before the end of the sixteenth century all the officials from the Viceroy downwards thought of nothing but enriching themselves, and he ascribes this in great measure to the fact that all appointments were held for three years only.⁴ The result of all this was that in 1586 the monopoly of the trade was made over by Government to the Portuguese East India Company. But the private trade was never stopped.⁵