Page:Vizagapatam.djvu/247

GAZETTEER. showing that the Dutch did actually coin copper there, but states that no territorial jurisdiction was attached to the factory (the only appendages to which were three washing-greens) and that it was 'merely a commercial factory or lodge with certain privileges.' On the outbreak in 1781 of the war between the English and the Dutch it (with the rest of the latter's possessions in India) was seized by the English East India Company and, under orders received from England, was destroyed. In accordance with the peace of 1784, it was restored in 1785. Ten years later war again broke out between the two powers and the place surrendered to the English. In 1819 it was restored by Mr, John Smith, the Collector, to the representative of the Netherlands Government in consequence of the convention of the allied powers in 1814; and was held by the Dutch until 1st June 1825, when, under the operation of the treaty of March 1824 between England and Holland, it was made over (with the other Dutch possessions in India) to the East India Company. The Collector, Mr. Robert Bayard, gave a receipt for 'the ruins of the Fort and Factory, with three bleaching grounds of Bimlipatam, with the Boundaries, according to the limits thereof.' Since then the place has been British territory and Government property. The three washing-greens (which are still known locally as Valanda bhimúlu, or 'the Hollanders' lands') have been rented since 1826 to the Rájas of Vizianagram, who pay Rs. 50 annually for them. Little now remains of the fort except its flagstaff bastion, facing the sea, on which the existing flagstaff stands, and some massive brick-work (in the Mála quarter of the town, about 50 yards east of the clock-tower) which was perhaps once a magazine. The land between these is still known as Kota dibba,or 'the fort mound.' An old plan of 1819 shows that the fort was then a rectangular construction, about 135 yards from east to west and 145 from north to south, containing a circular bastion at each corner and the ruins of certain ' ammunition godowns' and of the mint.

Some of the Dutch who manned this little outpost left their bones in the half-forgotten cemetery which lies hidden away among the plantain gardens and palm groves of Kummaripálem, near the 'Hollanders' lands' and about half a mile off the fort, in the angle formed by the two roads running to Vizianagram and Vizagapatam. This contains thirteen tombstones, made of the local garnetiferous gneiss, bearing Dutch inscriptions and coats-of-arms and ranging in date from 1661 (the oldest tomb in the Northern Circars) to 1720. In the other cemetery on the beach 227