in cloth. British control The British took over control in 1796, after a period of gradual usurpation of Dutch authority along the coast and elsewhere by the East India Company. They had seized Tuticorin in 1785. Both sides had attempted to influence the Paravars, seeking to have their support to exploit the riches of the fishery waters. The new government continued to recognise the Paravar's hierarchical social structure, as the Dutch and Portuguese had done before them. However, until 1813 the Company did not officially allow Christian missionaries to operate in the areas under its control, bowing only then due to pressure from religious organisations in Britain. The company was suspicious of any potential political undertones spread by the missionaries and was eager to keep trade running smoothly by operating a policy of non-interventionist conservatism in matters religious and cultural. Bayly has examined why it was that some among the low-ranking Paravars were able to rise to work in occupations that were both more prestigious and more financially rewarding than had been the case before the conversion to Christianity, She points out that the Paravars held much the same rank as the Mukkavars, who were also a maritime caste of the area and were converted but did not demonstrate the same subsequent socio-economic mobility. (It has, however, been argued that the Mukkavars were "a sub-class of the Parava[r] community" and formed the largest group of those converted to Christianity during Xavier's time). Robinson has said When the Jesuit missionaries returned in the 1830s, following the revival of their Society, they were shocked at the lapse in formal religious observance and in general Christian morality, as well as the opulent lifestyle being led by the Paravar elite which contrasted with the dilapidated state of the churches. Around that time the elite, along with some other groups such as Nadar traders, were making significant amounts of money from a surge in export demand for processed cotton, using their existing wealth from the pearl fisheries as a means to expand their interests into this booming sector. By 1845 Tuticorin was the location of the main cotton export activities in southern India and by the end of the century it was the fifth largest port in the entire of India. The Jesuits decided in 1841 to attempt to re-assert their authority over the elite by supporting the aspirations of a rising group of lesser