Page:On the Coromandel Coast.djvu/130

118 With the advent of the Company's merchants the fishing village became a busy town containing the native traders, who served the Company as middlemen and procured goods from inland. The quarter occupied by the Hindu merchants was called the Gentoo town, and was included in that part which was generally known as Blacktown. When the fort was threatened by the enemy, the English were equally concerned for the safety of their native brokers without whom commerce would have come to a standstill as for their own safety. To ensure their better protection, Yale, when Governor, walled in the Gentoo town without the consent of his council. The houses came close up to the old fort wall on the north and stretched along the beach. The sea washed close in so close that in heavy weather the spray of the surf dashed into the -verandahs. In place of the present Broadway, the only street in Georgetown that has any pretension to respectable dimensions, there was a small stream, a tributary of the Cooum. The walling-in of Gentoo town was a subject of contention in the council. It had been Yale's pet scheme when the place was menaced by the wandering hordes of Mahrattas, and he conceived the idea of making it a kind of outwork to the fort. Being of an imperious disposition and apt to act impetuously, he took the work in hand on his own responsibility and erected the wall. He imagined that he would have no difficulty in justifying himself as soon as the directors understood the importance of his action; but he reckoned without his host. His tenure of office coming to an abrupt termination, his successor refused to accept the liability or sanction the outlay; and Yale was sued for twelve thousand rupees, the cost of the fortification. Upon the line of this old mud wall was subsequently built another of a more substantial character, portions of which may still be seen.