Native piracy hereditary on the Malabar coast--Marco Polo's
account--Fryer's narrative--The Kempsant--Arab and Sanganian
pirates--Attack on the _President_--Loss of the _Josiah_--Attack on the
_Phoenix_--The _Thomas_ captured--Depredations of the Gulf
pirates--Directors' views--Conajee Angria--Attacks English ships--Destroys
the _Bombay_--Fortifies Kennery--Becomes independent--Captures the
Governor's yacht--Attacks the _Somers_ and _Grantham_--Makes peace with
Bombay--His navy--Great increase of European and native piracy.


Europeans were not the only offenders. The Delhi Emperor, who claimed
universal dominion on land, made no pretension to authority at sea. So
long as the Mocha fleet did not suffer, merchants were left to take care
of themselves. There was no policing of the sea, and every trader had to
rely on his own efforts for protection. The people of the Malabar coast
were left to pursue their hereditary vocation of piracy unmolested. The
Greek author of the "Periplus of the Erythraean Sea," who wrote in the
first century of our era, mentions the pirates infesting the coast between
Bombay and Goa. Two hundred years before Vasco da Gama had shown the way
to India by sea, Marco Polo had told Europe of the Malabar pirates.

"And you must know that from this Kingdom of Melibar, and from,
another near it called Gozurat, there go forth every year more than a
hundred corsair vessels on cruize. These pirates take with them their
wives and children, and stay out the whole summer. Their method is to
join in fleets of 20 or 30 of these pirate vessels together, and then
they form what they call a sea cordon, that is, they drop off till
there is an interval of 5 or 6 miles between ship and ship, so that
they cover something like a hundred miles of sea, and no merchant ship
can escape them. For when any one corsair sights a vessel a signal is