Now their operations were extended to European vessels not of their own nationality.

In time this restriction ceased to be observed; they hoisted the red or black flag, with or without the colours of the nationality they affected, and spared no vessel they were strong enough to capture.
The Armenian merchants were loud in their complaints.

An Armenian ship, bound from Goa to Madras, with twenty thousand pagodas on board, was taken by a pirate ship of two hundred tons, carrying twenty-two guns and a crew of sixty men.

Another Armenian ship, with fifty thousand xeraphims, was taken near Bombay, on its voyage from Goa to Surat.

Besides those that beset the Malabar coast, there were pirates in the Persian Gulf, at the mouth of the Red Sea, and in the Mozambique Channel, while five pirate vessels were cruising off Acheen.