it a Valuable Settlement."[12]

We left Mrs. Gyfford flying from Anjengo in a small country ship, with two
other English women and six children. The misery that the three poor
widows must have endured for a month, crowded into a small country boat,
without preparation or ordinary comforts, at the hottest time of the year,
must have been extreme. On the 17th May, the fugitives landed at Madras.
The Council there granted them a compassionate allowance, of which Mrs.
Gyfford refused to avail herself. After a time she made her way to
Calcutta and joined her father's family, leaving, with an agent in Madras,
the Anjengo factory books, which, after repeated demands, were surrendered
to the Madras Council. From Madras to Calcutta she was pursued by the
demands of the Bombay Council. The books had been restored at Madras, and
the Bengal Government extracted Rs.7312 from her; but, in reply to further
demands, she would only answer that she was 'an unfortunate widow,
struggling with adversity, whose husband had met his death serving our
Honourable Masters,' and that it was shameful to demand money from her,
when she herself was owed large sums by the Company. She could only refer
them to her agents at Madras and Anjengo. Still, she was in a considerable
dilemma, as she could not get out of the country without a full settlement
of accounts, and, if resistance was carried too far, her father might be
made to suffer.

At this juncture an unexpected way of escape presented itself. Twelve
months before this, Commodore Matthews had arrived in Bombay with a
squadron of the Royal Navy for the suppression of piracy. But Matthews was
more bent on enriching himself by trade than on harrying pirates; and, as
his own trading was inimical to the Company's interests and certain to set
the Company's servants against him, he had from the first assumed a
position of hostility to the Company. Every opportunity was seized of