At first the Directors appear to have paid little attention to Mrs. Gyfford, perhaps not thinking her worth powder and shot. Their principal anger was directed against Matthews, against whom they obtained a decree in the Court of Chancery for unlawful trading. But Mrs. Gyfford would not keep silence. Perhaps she really believed in the justice of her claims. She bombarded the Directors with petitions, till at last, two years after her arrival in England, they tardily awoke to the fact that they themselves had substantial claims against her. They offered to submit the claims to arbitration, to which Mrs. Gyfford consented; but as she still refrained from coming to close quarters, they filed a suit against her in the Court of Chancery, nearly four years after her arrival in England. Mrs. Gyfford promptly replied with a counter-suit, in which, among other things, she claimed £10,000 for presents taken by Gyfford to the Rani of Attinga on that fatal 11th April, seven years before. Four years later, she was still deep in litigation, having quarrelled with her agent, Peter Lapthorne, among others. It is to be hoped, for her sake, that Chancery suits were cheaper than they are now. Here we may say good-bye to her. For those who are curious in such matters, a search among the Chancery records will probably reveal the result, but it is improbable that the Company reaped any benefit from their action. And so she passes from the scene, a curious example of the vicissitudes to which Englishwomen in India were exposed, two hundred years ago. [1] They were issued at the rate of sixty-five for a rupee; before long, their value was reduced to seventy-two for a rupee, at which price they were much in request, and the Governor reported that he expected to coin sixteen tons of them yearly. [2] In October, 1713, the Bombay Council decided that the Xeraphims, being much debased with copper and other alloy, their recognized value should in future be half a rupee, or two Laris and forty reis. The Xeraphim was a Goa coin, originally worth less than one and sixpence. The name, according to Yule, was a corruption of the Arabic _ashrafi_. [3] The year before, the _Godolphin_ had escaped from an Angrian fleet, after a two days' encounter within sight of Bombay. [4] The records are silent as to the _Defiance_, but it is mentioned by Downing, who says that, instead of doing his duty, the captain made the best of his way to Bombay. The story seems to be borne out by a faded letter from the captain to the Directors, appealing against dismissal from the service. [5] The name is now given to the group of islands to which Bourbon and Mauritius belong. At that time it generally applied to Bourbon, and especially to St. Paul's Bay, which was a favourite place of call for ships to water at.