6 THE PI KATES OF MALABAR

were kept for two months, being only released on
payment of Rs.l,70,000, and on solemnly swearing
to respect Mogul ships.

The Civil War brought these courtly piracies
to an end, and the decay of the Spanish power
drew the more turbulent spirits of Europe and
America to the Spanish main, so that for a time
there was a diminution of European piracy in
Indian waters. As buccaneering became more
dangerous, or less lucrative, adventurers of all
nations again appeared in Eastern waters, and the
old trouble reappeared in an aggravated form.
The Indian Eed Sea fleet offered an especially
tempting booty to the rovers. Lobo, a Jesuit
priest, writing in the seventeenth century, tells
us that so vast was the commerce of Jeddah, and
so great the value of the ships trading to that
place, that when, in India, it was wished to
describe a thing of inestimable price, it was
customary to say, 'It is of more value than a
Jeddah ship.' Every year during the winter
months, Indian traders, and pilgrims for Mecca,
found their way in single ships to the Red Sea.
On the setting in of the monsoon, they collected
at Mocha, and made their way back in a single