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Rh a standing menace to Bengal, and a cause of loss and dread to the traders at the mouth of the Ganges. Every kind of criminal from Goa or Ceylon, Cochin or Malacca, mostly Portuguese or half-castes, flocked to Chittagong, where the King of Arakan, delighted to welcome any sort of allies against his formidable neighbour the Moghul, permitted them to settle. They soon developed a busy trade in piracy, and, as Bernier said, "scoured the neighbouring seas in light galleys, called galleasses, entered the numerous arms and branches of the Ganges, ravaged the islands of Lower Bengal, and, often penetrating forty or fifty leagues up the country, surprised and carried away the entire population of villages. The marauders made slaves of their unhappy captives, and burnt whatever could not be removed." The Portuguese at Hugli abetted these rascals by purchasing whole cargoes of cheap slaves, and, as we have seen, were punished by Shah Jahan, who took their town and carried the remnant of the population as prisoners to Agra in 1632. But though the Portuguese power no longer availed them, the pirates continued with their rapine, and carried on operations with even greater vigour from the island of Sandip, off Chittagong, where the notorious Fra Joan, an Augustinian monk, reigned as a petty sovereign for many years, after contriving, in some mysterious way, to rid himself of the governor of the island.

When Shayista Khan, Aurangzib's uncle, came to Bengal as governor in succession to Mir Jumla, he judged it high time to put a stop to these exploits, and