country ship, with two other English women and six children.  The misery that the three poor widows must have endured for a month, crowded into a small country boat, without preparation or ordinary comforts, at the hottest time of the year, must have been extreme.  On the 17th May, the fugitives landed at Madras.  The Council there granted them a compassionate allowance, of which Mrs. Gyfford refused to avail herself.  After a time she made her way to Calcutta and joined her father’s family, leaving, with an agent in Madras, the Anjengo factory books, which, after repeated demands, were surrendered to the Madras Council.  From Madras to Calcutta she was pursued by the demands of the Bombay Council.  The books had been restored at Madras, and the Bengal Government extracted Rs.7312 from her; but, in reply to further demands, she would only answer that she was ’an unfortunate widow, struggling with adversity, whose husband had met his death serving our Honourable Masters,’ and that it was shameful to demand money from her, when she herself was owed large sums by the Company.  She could only refer them to her agents at Madras and Anjengo.  Still, she was in a considerable dilemma, as she could not get out of the country without a full settlement of accounts, and, if resistance was carried too far, her father might be made to suffer.

At this juncture an unexpected way of escape presented itself.  Twelve months before this, Commodore Matthews had arrived in Bombay with a squadron of the Royal Navy for the suppression of piracy.  But Matthews was more bent on enriching himself by trade than on harrying pirates; and, as his own trading was inimical to the Company’s interests and certain to set the Company’s servants against him, he had from the first assumed a position of hostility to the Company.  Every opportunity was seized of damaging the Company’s interests and lowering the Company’s authority.  All who were in the Company’s bad books found a patron and protector in Matthews; so, when in September, 1722, the flagship appeared in the Hooghly, Mrs. Gyfford was quick to grasp the opportunity, that presented itself, of bidding defiance to her pursuers.  She at once opened communication with Matthews, and besought his protection.  She was an unfortunate widow who had lost two husbands by violent deaths in the Company’s service, and, now that she was unprotected, the Company was trying to wring from her the little money she had brought away from Anjengo, while she herself had large claims against the Company.  This was quite enough for Matthews.  Here was a young and pretty woman with a good sum of money, shamefully persecuted by the Company, to which he felt nothing but hostility.  At one stroke he could gratify his dislike of the Company and succour a badly treated young woman, whose hard fate should arouse sympathy in every generous mind; so the Bengal Council were told that Mrs. Gyfford was now under the protection of the Crown, and was not to be molested.