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Later, when peace was restored, the East India Company would have given him command of an allied fleet of English and Dutch ships, the objective being trade along the coast of Malabar and an attempt to open commerce with the Chinese. But Sir Thomas Dale was opening commerce with a vaster, hidden land, for at Masulipatam he died.
Day found the landing so exciting that in his report to the Council at Masulipatam he wrote of 'the heavy and dangerous surf'. But after an inspection of the surroundings he was satisfied with the conditions; he considered that at the mouth of the Cooum river there was an advantageous site for a commercial settlement; and the local ruler, the Naik of Poonamallee, following the advice of the Portuguese authorities, encouraged him in the idea of an English settlement within the Poonamallee domain.
The deputies came to the colonel's tent, and told him that all were resolved to fight no more; unless they were immediately paid the amount of prize money due to them, and were assured of the whole booty, in case Masulipatam should be taken. Colonel Forde promised that they would receive their prize money out of the very first funds which reached him.
The English traders were employees of the newly-established East India Company, and were sent out to do business for the Company in the East; and they had to face the opposition of the Dutch as well as of the Portuguese. Their earliest enterprise was in the East India Islands, and it was eleven years before they gained their first footing in India, at Masulipatam.
The capture of Masulipatam in 1758, the defeat of the French at Wandewash, between Madras and Pondicherry, and the successful siege of Pondicherry in 1761, finally established the British as masters of all the coveted eastern coast of India.
They bring likewise much cotton yarn, dyed red with a root called saia, which never loses its colour, a great quantity of which is sold yearly in Pegu at a good profit. The ships from Bengal, San Thome, and Masulipatam, come to the bar of Negrais and to Cosmin.
The first English trading stations were opened at Masulipatam and at Surat . In the latter year and again in 1615 Portuguese fleets were defeated, and in 1622 the Portuguese were driven out of the important Persian city of Ormuz.
Thus, with about three hundred and forty European soldiers, a handful of seamen, and seven hundred sepoys, colonel Forde took by assault the strong town of Masulipatam, garrisoned by five hundred and twenty-one Europeans, two thousand and thirty-nine Caffres, Topasses, and sepoys; and here he found above one hundred and fifty pieces of cannon, with a great quantity of ammunition.
Louis XV. and his ministers had shown no opposition; the treaty was soon concluded, restoring the possessions of the two Companies within the limits they had occupied before the war of the Carnatic, with the exception of the district of Masulipatam, which became accessible to the English.
The French retreated to Masulipatam, the capital of the province, a port which rivalled Madras in its commerce. Forde determined to follow them there, but he was hindered by want of money to pay his troops.
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