He was the chief of the Masulipatnam factory when Madras was purchased from Peda Venkata Raya, the last king of the Aravidu dynasty of the Vijayanagara Empire, the capital of which was at Chandragiri.
In 1637, Francis Day, a member of the Masulipatnam Council and Chief of the Armagon Factory, made a voyage of exploration down the Coromandel Coast as far as Pondicherry.
It is widely presumed that Ayyappa Nayak was the one who made overtures to the English to choose the area comprising the modern-day George Town for settlement.
The offer looked good, and Day consulted Cogan, his superior, who investigated the proposed site and examined trading possibilities there.
Soon after the construction of Fort St. George had begun, Day was charged with the offence of trading privately, outside of his parent company, and he left for England in 1641.