Sivagi, the founder of the Mahratta Empire, had, in 1662, seized and fortified Yijiyadrug; or, as the English call it, Gheriah, a town at the mouth of the river Kanui, one hundred and seventy miles south of Bombay; and also the island of Suwarndrug, about half way between Gheriah and Bombay.

Here he established a piratical fleet.

Fifty years later, Kanhagi Angria, the commander of the Mahratta fleet, broke off this connection with the successors of Sivagi, and set up as a pirate on his own account.

Kanhagi not only plundered the native vessels, but boldly preyed upon the commerce of the European settlements.

The ships of the East India Company, the French Company, and the Dutch were frequently captured by these pirates.
Tulagi Angria, who succeeded his father, was even bolder and more successful; and when the man-of-war brig, the Restoration, with twenty guns and two hundred men, was fitted out to attack him, he defeated and captured her.