Who were the Damarla brothers? For what apparently mysterious reasons did Francis Day urge the East India Company to move the trade point from Armagon to what is now Chennai? How did the other settlements react to the British entry?

This book, written in 1977, when the city was still called Madras, offers a fascinating picture of the antecedents to the building of Fort St. George and what happened after. Drawing freely on historical material and documentary evidence, it is an account rich with incident, private intrigue, and the people who made it history.