ABSTRACT
The eclipse of Bombay during the eighteenth century by the more prosperous settlements of the east coast is forcibly expressed by a minute of the Council in 1825. If the English were surprised at the cession of Bombay the Portuguese colonists were appalled; and it is amusing to find the Viceroy of Goa employing the arguments of retentive imperialism to which debates on colonies have accustomed us. None of the royal governors was very successful and the King was glad to hand Bombay over to the Company in 1668, the governors thereafter being appointed by the Company. In 1720 the most respected Hindu in Bombay, Rama Kamati, was arrested on a charge of corresponding with Angria, the pirate chief. Occasionally all Bombay was fluttered by some exotic romance. Bombay itself was continually menaced by Maratha power and by Malabar pirates. The Abbe Raynal who met her long afterwards in Bombay wrote ecstatically of her fascination.
