INDIA.] LA BOURDONNAIS AND DUPLEIX.

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and the adjoining islands. But another still more formidable power had already struck root on the Indian soil.— The French under Louis the Fourteenth had established an East India Company, in emulation of our own; like us, they had obtained a settlement on the Hooghly river;

at Chandernagore, above Calcutta; like us, they had built a fort on the coast of the Carnatic, about eighty miles south of Madras, which they called Pondicherry. In Malabar and Candeish they had no settlement to vie with Bombay; but, on the other hand, they had colonised two fertile islands in the Indian Ocean ;-the one formerly a Dutch possession, and called Mauritius, from Prince Maurice of Orange; the second, discovered by the Portuguese, with the appellation of Mascarenhas, from one of their Indian Viceroys.* The first now received the name of Isle de France, and the second of Isle de Bourbon, and both, under the assiduous care of their new masters, rapidly grew in wealth and population. On the whole, the settlements of the French on the Indian coasts and seas were governed by two Presidencies, the one at Isle de France, the other at Pondicherry.

It so chanced, that at the breaking out of the war between France and England in 1744 both the French Presidencies were ruled by men of superior genius. Mahé de La Bourdonnais commanded at Isle de France; a man of Breton blood, full of the generous ardour, of the resolute firmness, which have ever marked that noble race. Since his tenth year he had served in the Navy on various voyages from the Baltic to the Indian seas, and he had acquired consummate skill, not only in the direction and pilotage but in the building and equipment of a fleet. Nor was he less skilled in the cares of civil administration. It is to him that the Mauritius owes the first dawn of its present prosperity. In the words of an eye-witness: "Whatever I have seen in that island most usefully "devised or most ably executed was the work of La

*This was, I conceive, Don Pedro de Mascarenhas, the eighth Viceroy. Camoens has addressed to him some spirited lines (Lusiad, canto x. stanzas 55-57.), which, however, I can only admire through a translation.

"Bourdonnais." ""* Ever zealous for his country's welfare, he was yet incapable of pursuing it by any other means than those of honour and good faith.

Dupleix was the son of a Farmer General, and the heir of a considerable fortune. From early youth he had been employed by the French East India Company, and had gradually risen to the government of Pondicherry and of all the subordinate factories on the continent of Hindostan. During his whole career he had zealously studied the interests of the Company, without neglecting his own, and the abilities which he had displayed were great and various. The calculations of commerce were not more habitual or more easy to him than the armaments of war or the wiles of diplomacy. With the idea of Indian sovereignty ever active in his mind, he had plunged headlong into all the tangled and obscure intrigues of the native Powers. Above all he caballed with the native NABOB or deputed Prince of Arcot, or, as sometimes called, of the Carnatic, (Arcot being the capital, and Carnatic the country,) and with his superior the Soubahdar or Viceroy of the Deccan, more frequently termed the NIZAM. Beguiled by a childish vanity, he was eager to assume for himself, as they did, the pompous titles of NABOB and BAHAUDER, which, as he pretended, had been conferred upon him by the Court of Delhi. It would almost seem, moreover, as if in this intercourse or this imitation he had derived from the neighbouring Princes something of their usual duplicity and falsehood, their jealousy and their revenge. His breach of faith on

several occasions with his enemies is even less to be condemned than his perfidy to some of his own countrymen and colleagues. But fortunate was it perhaps for the supremacy of England in the East, that two such great commanders as Dupleix and La Bourdonnais should by the fault of the first have become estranged from any effective combination, and have turned their separate energies against each other.

On the declaration of war in 1744 an English squadron

Bernardin de St. Pierre (Préambule à Paul et Virginie). He adds, bitterly: "Oh vous qui vous occupez du bonheur des hommes "n'en attendez point de recompense pendant votre vie !"

INDIA.]

THE FRENCH TAKE MADRAS.

295

under Commodore Barnet had been sent to the Indian seas. M. de La Bourdonnais, on his part, exerting his scanty means with indefatigable perseverance, succeeded in fitting out nine ships, but nearly all leaky and unsound, and he embarked upwards of 3,000 men, but of these there were 400 invalids and 700 Caffres or Lascars. On the 6th of July, New Style, 1746, the two fleets engaged near Fort St. David, but the battle began and ended in a distant cannonade. Next morning the English stood out to sea, while the French directed their course to Pondicherry. The object of La Bourdonnais was the capture of Madras, and he made a requisition on Dupleix for some stores and sixty pieces of artillery. But the jealous mind of Dupleix could ill brook contributing to his rival's success. He refused the stores, allowed only thirty cannon of inferior calibre, and sent on board water so bad as to produce a dysentery in the fleet.*

Not disheartened, however, by these unexpected difficulties, La Bourdonnais appeared off Madras in September 1746, and proceeded to disembark his motley force. The city, though at this period rich and populous, was illdefended; one division, called "the Black Town," only covered by a common wall; the other, "the White Town," or Fort St. George, begirt with a rampart and bastions, but these very slight and faulty in construction. There were but 300 Englishmen in the colony, and of them only 200 were soldiers. Under such circumstances no effective resistance could be expected; nevertheless the garrison sustained a bombardment during three days, and obtained at last an honourable capitulation. It was agreed that the English should be prisoners of war upon parole, and that the town should remain in possession of the French until it should be ransomed, La Bourdonnais giving his promise that the ransom required should be fair and

*From the commencement of hostilities in 1746 I find a sure and faithful guide in Mr. Orme. (History of Military Transactions, 2 volumes, ed. 1803.) Mr. Mill's narrative is much less minute, but drawn in some measure from other materials, and with a different point of view. The Life of Clive by Sir John Malcolm (3 vols. ed. 1836), though ill-digested, is fraught with many interesting facts and letters, and the article upon it by Mr. Macaulay, (Edinburgh Review, No. cxlii) is equally accurate and brilliant.

moderate. The sum was fixed some time afterwards between the French Commander and the English Council at 440,000l. On these terms the invaders marched in ; the keys were delivered by the Governor at the gate, and the French colours were displayed from Fort St. George. La Bourdonnais had been the more readily induced to grant this capitulation since his instructions were peremptory against his retaining any English factory which he might succeed in seizing.*-Not a single Frenchman had been killed during the siege, and only four or five English from the explosion of the bombs.

There were two persons, however, even among his own confederates, to whom the success of La Bourdonnais gave no pleasure; the Nabob of Arcot and the Governor of Pondicherry. At the first news of the siege, this Nabob, Anwar-ood-Deen by name, sent a letter to Dupleix, vehemently complaining of the presumption of the French in attacking Madras without his permission as prince of the surrounding district. Dupleix pacified his ally with a promise that the town, if taken, should be given up to him, -a promise which, there is little risk in affirming, Dupleix had never the slightest intention to fulfil. But Dupleix could not restrain his own resentment when he heard the terms of the capitulation. To his views of sovereignty in India it was essential that the English should be expelled the country, and Madras be either retained or razed to the ground. Accordingly, when La Bourdonnais again disembarked at Pondicherry with the spoils of the conquered town, a long and fierce altercation arose between the rival chiefs. La Bourdonnais urged, "Madras is my conquest, and I am bound in "honour to keep the capitulation by which I entered it.” -Dupleix answered, "Madras once taken becomes a "town within my sphere and under my jurisdiction, and can only be disposed of as my judgment may determine." "You know the instructions which I have received "from the King," pursued La Bourdonnais; they pro"hibit me from retaining any conquest." "You do not

*

"Il est expressément defendu au Sieur de la Bourdonnais de "s'emparer d'aucun établissement ou comptoir des ennemis pour le "conserver." Signé ORRY, CONTROLEUR GENERAL. (Mill, vol. iii. p. 61. ed. 1826.)

INDIA.]

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DEATH OF LA BOURDONNAIS.

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"know the instructions which I have received from the Company," retorted Dupleix; "they authorise me to keep Madras."

66

These differences with Dupleix prevented La Bour donnais from pursuing, as he had designed, his expedition against the other British settlements in India. A part of his fleet had been scattered and disabled by the Monsoon; but, on the other hand, he had been joined by a squadron from France, and, on the whole, his force was far superior to any that the English could at this time and in this quarter bring against him. All his proposals, however, for au union of counsels and resources were scornfully rejected by Dupleix, who had now no other object than to rid himself of an aspiring colleague. For this object he stooped at length to deliberate falsehood. He gave a solemn promise to fulfil the capitulation of Madras, on the faith of which La Bourdonnais consented to re-embark, leaving a part of his fleet with Dupleix, and steering with the rest to Acheen, in quest of some English ships. Not succeeding in the search, he returned to the Mauritius, and from thence to France, to answer for his conduct. On his voyage home he was taken by the English, and conveyed to London, but was there received with respect, and dismissed on parole. At Paris, on the contrary, he found himself preceded by the perfidious insinuations of his rival. He was thrown into the Bastille, his fortune plundered, his papers seized, and his will torn open; himself secluded from his wife and children, and even debarred the use of pen and ink for his defence. When, at length, after many months' suspense, he was examined before a Royal Commission, he heard his services denied, his integrity questioned, and the decline of commerce resulting from the war urged as his reproach. "Will you explain," asked of him one of the East India Directors, "how it happened that under your management your own private affairs have thriven so well, and those of the Company so ill?"answered La Bourdonnais, without hesitation,

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66

66

Because," "I ma

* I derive this summary of the discussion or correspondence from the article DUPLEIX in the Biographie Universelle - an article written by the son of Lally, in part from MS. documents.