Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan, Volume 1.djvu/416

408 possession of all the sea coast, from Tamanah to Bancoote, extending 120 miles, together with the inland country as far back as the mountains, which in some places are thirty, in others twenty miles from the sea. His successors, who have all borne the name of Angria, strengthened themselves continually, insomuch that the morattoes having no hopes of reducing them, agreed to a peace on condition that Angria should acknowledge the sovereignty of the Saha Rajah, by paying him a small annual tribute; but they nevertheless retained a strong animosity against him, and determined to avail themselves of any favourable opportunity to recover the territories he had wrested from them. In the mean time the piracies which Angria exercised upon ships of all nations indifferently, who did not purchase his passes, rendered him every day more and more powerful. The land and sea breezes on this coast, as well as on that of Coromandel, blow alternately in the twenty-four hours, and divide the day; so that vessels sailing along the coast are obliged to keep in sight of land, since the land-winds do not reach more than forty miles out to sea: there was not a creek, bay, harbour, or mouth of a river along the coast of his dominions, in which he had not erected fortifications and marine receptacles, to serve both as a station of discovery, and as a place of refuge to his vessels; hence it was as difficult to avoid the encounter of them, as to take them. His fleet consisted of grabs and galivats, vessels peculiar to the Malabar coast. The grabs have rarely more than two masts, although some have three; those of three are about 300 tons burthen; but the others are not more than 150: they are built to draw very little water, being very broad in proportion to their length, narrowing however from the middle to the end, where instead of bows they have a prow, projecting like that of a Mediterranean galley, and covered with a strong deck level with the main deck of the vessel, from which, however, it is separated by a bulk head which terminates the forecastle: as this construction subjects the grab to pitch violently when sailing against a head sea, the deck of the prow is not enclosed with sides as the rest of the vessel is, but remains bare, that the water which dashes upon it may pass off without interruption: on the main deck under the forecastle are mounted two pieces of cannon of nine or twelve pounders, which point forwards