Page:History of India Vol 7.djvu/279

 THE ENGLISH FACTORY AT ARMAGON 227 and still remains, an important seat of Indo-European trade. Armagon, the roadstead in which the fugitive fac- tors from Masulipatam sought shelter in 1628, lay a few days' sail down the coast, and about forty miles north of our first attempted settlement at Pulicat. Armagon now figures as " a shoal and lighthouse " on modern charts, and its port, locally known as Durga- rayapatnam, or Durgarazpatanam, is but a poor village ■wt^. r^fo"" mi fg ' ' W -'±jm.ZZ ^^^&^M S^^l!^*^-' -r ~ J i— _> ^^^H wt^M^g^tommgg^^^jMtdJBii* ^"^- - — cr^!» ^^^^^^^^^m^^^^^^^^^^^^^^e TOMBS OP THE KINGS OP GOLKONDA. with some solar salt-pans and no commerce. In 1626 the English council at Batavia had obtained leave from the petty coast chief at Armagon to erect a factory. The flight of our factors from Masulipatam, two years later, made Armagon, miserable as it was, our sole shelter on the east coast. Eesolved to hold it to the last, they landed twelve cannons from passing ships, and formed themselves into a small militia of twenty- three soldiers and merchants, against " the depreda- tions of the natives and of the Dutch "—our first for- tified garrison in India. But the place was too poor
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