Page:A history of the military transactions of the British nation in Indostan, Volume 1.djvu/417

Book V. through the port holes cut in the bulk head, and fire over the prow; the cannon of the broadside are from six to nine pounders. The gallivats are large row-boats built like the grab, but of smaller dimensions, the largest rarely exceeding 70 tons: they have two masts, of which the mizen is very slight; the main mast bears only one sail, which is triangular and very large, the peak of it when hoisted being much higher than the mast itself. In general the gallivats are covered with a spar deck, made for lightness of bamboes split, and these carry only petteraroes, which are fixed on swivels in the gunnel of the vessel; but those of the largest size have a fixed deck on which they mount six or eight pieces of cannon, from two to four pounders; they have forty or fifty stout oars, and may be rowed four miles an hour.

Eight or ten grabs, and forty or fifty gallivats, crowded with men, generally composed Angria's principal fleet destined to attack ships of force or burthen. The vessel no sooner came in sight of the port or bay where the fleet was lying, than they slipped their cables and put out to sea: if the wind blew, their construction enabled them to sail almost as fast as the wind; and if it was calm, the gallivats rowing towed the grabs: when within cannon shot of the chace they generally assembled in her stern, and the grabs attacked her at a distance with their prow guns, firing first only at the masts, and taking aim when the three masts of the vessel just opened all together to their view; by which means the shot would probably strike one or other of the three. As soon as the chace was dismasted, they came nearer and battered her on all sides until she struck; and if the defence was obstinate, they sent a number of gallivats with two or three hundred men in each, who boarded sword in hand from all quarters in the same instant. It was now fifty years that this piratical state had rendered itself formidable to the trading ships of all the European nations in India, and the English East-India company had kept up a marine force at the annual expence of fifty thousand pounds to protect their own ships, as well as those belonging to the merchants established in their colonies; for as no vessel could with prudence venture singly to pass by Angria's dominions, the trade was convoyed at particular times up and down the sea coasts by the company's armed vessels. But as