THE PIRATES OF MALABAR
AND
AN ENGLISHWOMAN IN INDIA TWO
HUNDRED YEARS AGO


[Illustration: MAHRATTA GRABS AND GALLIVATS ATTACKING AN ENGLISH SHIP.]


THE
PIRATES OF MALABAR
AND
AN ENGLISHWOMAN IN INDIA
TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO

BY
COLONEL JOHN BIDDULPH

1907


PREFACE

For most people, interest in the doings of our forefathers in India dates
from our wars with the French in the middle of the eighteenth century.
Before then their lives are generally supposed to have been spent in
monotonous trade dealings in pepper and calico, from which large profits
were earned for their masters in England, while their principal
excitements were derived from drinking and quarrelling among themselves.
Little account has been taken of the tremendous risks and difficulties