Page:Views in Suffolk, Norfolk, and Northamptonshire.djvu/82

 We have subjoined from Orme's History of Hindostan a more explicit account of the conquests here recorded, which must necessarily be introduced by some prefatory matter.

"The Malabar coast, from Cape Comorin to Surat, is intersected by a great number of rivers, which disembogue into the sea: it appears that from the earliest antiquity the inhabitants have had a strong propensity to piracy; and at this day, all the different principalities on the coast employ vessels to cruise upon those of all other nations which they can overpower. The Mogul empire, when it first extended its dominion to the sea in the northern parts of this coast, appointed an admiral called the Sidee, with a fleet to protect the vessels of their Mahometan subjects trading to the gulfs of Arabia and Persia, from the Malabar pirates, as well as from the Portuguese. The Morattoes were at that time in possession of several forts between Goa and Bombay, and finding themselves interrupted in their piracies by the Mogul's admiral, they made war against him by sea and land. In this war one Conageee Angria raised himself from a private man to be commander-in-chief of the Morattoe fleet, and was intrusted with the government of Severndroog, one of their