of its factory at Surat and the establishment in its place of a post at Rajapur on the Konkan coast to the South. Nothing came of the idea, and two years later affairs took such a prosperous turn that the factory regained all its old prestige. Meanwhile, the Company on the Coromandel coast had effected at last that permanent acquisition of territory without which all the clearest minds in the Company recognized no lasting progress could be made. In 1639, Francis Day, the chief factor at Armagon, one of the Company's establishments in Southern India, obtained from the last representative of the old Vizayanagar dynasty, whose territory it was, a grant of a site on the East Coast. Upon this ground was subsequently built Fort St. George, the citadel around which ultimately grew the great city of Madras. It was the first land held in full sovereignty by the English East of Suez, the germ from which the mighty British dominion in the East finally developed.
The acquisition of the Coromandel coast territory was a step which events were not slow to justify. For the first time, the Company's officers were able to maintain an attitude of independence in their dealings with the native authorities with whom they came in contact in prosecuting their trade. What had been accomplished in the East again suggested the desirability of securing a permanent foothold on the West Coast. Additional experience confirmed the earlier impression that on the whole extent of the Malabar coast there was no more eligible spot than Bombay to locate a factory. In 1652, a strong recommendation was sent home by the Surat council that negotiations should be opened up for the purchase of the island. As peace had been concluded with the Portuguese in 1634 and the relations between the two nations had become more
