Vellar Mouth

The Vellar reaches the Bay of Bengal at Parangipettai, a port on the Coromandel Coast also known to the Portuguese as Porto Novo. Arab merchants, especially Yemenis, traded there, and the town sent silk and printed cloth to Aceh. European companies also sought a foothold: in 1733 the Swedish East India Company established a factory, only for British and French rivals to seize and dismantle it a month later. In 1781 British forces defeated Hyder Ali of Mysore near Porto Novo.