History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v3.c42.s6.3

v3.c42.s6.3

But these were private men unauthorized by their sovereign's representative in India. Their main occupation was piracy in the Bay of Bengal, varied by service as mercenary soldiers and private trade in salt and such other commodities. Their power, by reason of its isolation from the Government of their mother country, was easily broken by the local princes, and they failed to found any independent colony in these parts. In 1607 the king of Arrakan took Dianga and massacred the foreign settlers. The most notorious of these pirates, Sebastian Gonzalves Tibao,* seized Sondip and two other islands at the head of the Bay of Bengal and created a reign of terror at the mouths of the Ganges by the range and boldness of his depredations, the ruthless vigour of his rule, his administrative capacity and inborn command over men. But in 1617 the Arrakanese conquered Sondip and Gonzalves disappeared from history. Syriam, too, was wrested from the Portuguese. Thereafter, the Portuguese settlers in Arrakan gave up all attempts at independence and territorial power, and lived on as the obedient instruments of the local Rajah.