"Tulagi Angria! Tulagi Angria!" the captain cried, and the crew took up the refrain.
The name that they uttered fully accounted for their terror.
[Chapter 15]: The Pirates' Hold.
Sivagi, the founder of the Mahratta Empire, had, in 1662, seized and fortified Yijiyadrug; or, as the English call it, Gheriah, a town at the mouth of the river Kanui, one hundred and seventy miles south of Bombay; and also the island of Suwarndrug, about half way between Gheriah and Bombay. Here he established a piratical fleet. Fifty years later, Kanhagi Angria, the commander of the Mahratta fleet, broke off this connection with the successors of Sivagi, and set up as a pirate on his own account. Kanhagi not only plundered the native vessels, but boldly preyed upon the commerce of the European settlements. The ships of the East India Company, the French Company, and the Dutch were frequently captured by these pirates.
Tulagi Angria, who succeeded his father, was even bolder and more successful; and when the man-of-war brig, the Restoration, with twenty guns and two hundred men, was fitted out to attack him, he defeated and captured her. After this, he attacked and captured the French man-of-war Jupitre, with forty guns; and had even the insolence to assail an English convoy guarded by two men-of-war; the Vigilant, of sixty-four guns, and the Ruby, of fifty.
The Dutch, in 1735, sent a fleet of seven ships of war, two bomb vessels, and a strong body of troops against Gheriah. The attack was, however, repulsed with considerable loss. From that date the pirates grew bolder and bolder, and were a perfect scourge to the commerce of Western India.
Charlie Marryat had, of course, frequently heard of the doings of these noted pirates, and the cry of "Tulagi Angria" at once explained to him the terror of the master and crew.
"What is it, Mr. Charles, what on earth is the botheration about? Is it the little ships they're afeared of?"
"Those ships belong to a pirate called Tulagi Angria," Charlie said, "and I am very much afraid, Tim, that we are likely to see the inside of his fortress."
"But shure, yer honor, we're not afeared of those four little boats."