Re: Freda Bedi Cont'd (#3)
Posted: Fri Oct 23, 2020 6:12 am
Part 1 of 5
Voltaire Fragments on India
Translated by Freda Bedi, B.A. Hons. (Oxon.)
Contemporary India Publication, Model Town, Lahore, India
February, 1937
NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT
Printed at the Ripon Printing Press, Bull Road, Lahore by Mirza Muhammad Sadiq and Published by Freda Bedi, for Contemporary India Publications, Model Town, Lahore (India)
FOREWORD
It was in 1934 that my husband, studying for his thesis brought home from the Oriental Section of the State Library in Berlin, a small, yellowed, calf-bound volume called Fragments sur l'Inde. It had been printed before the end of the eighteenth century, and was full of discrepancies of text and printing errors. The only indication of its authorship was a pencilled word ‘Voltaire' written on the back fly leaf. Investigation proved that it was a work of Voltaire, but one which had been so much neglected that no bibliography on India could be found containing a reference to it. In French, the book is not easily available in its separate form, and, since few have the energy to search the volumes of a writer’s collected works, it is not generally known. The only scholar I met during the year who knew anything about it was a charming Jesuit Father who had been teaching in Bombay, and he was naturally not enthusiastic since the book, being Voltaire’s, contained some acid references to saints and established religion.
In translating it, I have been animated not so much by a scholarly desire to add to the knowledge of the world, as by a wish to share the book with others who may find it as fascinating as I did. Had I lived in Paris or in London, rather than in the heart of the Land of the Five Rivers, I might perhaps have made a book of more academic value, and had a greater personal satisfaction in so doing. But a hard political and journalistic life does not allow me such luxuries. Instead, I have presented the book in the way I hope it will be read — as an intensely personal and acute summary of Indian affairs in the eighteenth century from the pen of a brilliant Frenchman and a brilliant satirist.
The book is, I believe, not valuable so much because it is new evidence on contemporary history, since Voltaire has used many second-hand sources, and acknowledged them, but because it is an interpretation of Indian events by one of the most acute thinkers and social rebels of his time. He was not a man to be deceived by the usual Imperialist humbug and clap-trap, which was not so very different then from what it is now; to a clear head he added a shrewd knowledge of human psychology and a sort of rebellious common-sense.
His remarks on the economic basis of Imperialism have an almost modern flavour, if we discount the touches of local colour:
Voltaire’s treatment of his characters has a vitality often lacking in a purely historical narrative. His Lalli is a tragic, rather pitiable, figure and he seems to have a literary interest in making us understand the human side of his character. There has been a conscious dramatization of his personality and final death, as though he were the central character of a novel rather than a sober General indicted for his sins. It is this which makes the book what it is — a somewhat inaccurate but fascinating account of the early days of European Imperialism in India. We can forgive his inaccuracies for the sake of his wit!
FREDA BEDI.
MODEL TOWN
LAHORE
February 1937.
CONTENTS:
• FOREWORD
• CHAPTER I. HISTORICAL PICTURE OP INDIAN TRADE.
• CHAPTER II. THE BEGINNING OP THE FIRST TROUBLES OF INDIA AND THE ENMITIES BETWEEN THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH COMPANIES.
• CHAPTER III. SUMMARY OF THE ACTIONS OF LA BOURDONNAYE AND DUPLEIX.
• CHAPTER IV. THE SENDING OF COUNT LALLI TO INDIA. WHO WAS THIS GENERAL? WHAT WERE HIS SERVICES BEFORE THIS EXPEDITION?
• CHAPTER V. THE STATE OF INDIA WHEN GENERAL LALLI WAS SENT THERE.
• CHAPTER VI. THE HINDUS AND THEIR MOST REMARKABLE CUSTOMS .
• CHAPTER VII. THE BRAHMANS.
• CHAPTER VIII. THE WARRIORS OF INDIA AND THE RECENT REVOLUTIONS
• CHAPTER IX. REVOLUTIONS (continued)
• CHAPTER X. DESCRIPTION OP THE COASTS OF THE PENINSULA, WHERE THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH TRADED AND MADE WAR.
• CHAPTER XI. SURVEY OF THE COAST (continued).
• CHAPTER XII. WHAT HAPPENED IN INDIA BEFORE GENERAL LALLI ARRIVED. THE HISTORY OF ANGRIA; THE ENGLISH DESTROYED IN BENGAL.
• CHAPTER XIII. THE ARRIVAL OF COUNT LALLI; HIS SUCCESSES AND FAILURES. THE ACTIONS OF A JESUIT CALLED LAVOUR.
• CHAPTER XIV. COUNT LALLI BESIEGES MADRAS. HIS MISFORTUNES BEGIN.
• CHAPTER XV. NEW MISFORTUNES OF THE INDIA COMPANY.
• CHAPTER XVI. AN EXTRAORDINARY HAPPENING IN SURAT. THE ENGLISH GAIN A VICTORY.
• CHAPTER XVII. THE CAPTURE AND DESTRUCTION OF PONDICHERRY.
• CHAPTER XVIII. LALLI AND THE OTHER PRISONERS ARE CONDUCTED TO ENGLAND AND RELEASED ON PAROLE. CRIMINAL SUIT AGAINST LALLI.
• CHAPTER XIX. THE END OF THE SUIT AGAINST LALLI. HIS DEATH.
• CHAPTER XX. THE DESTRUCTION OF THE FRENCH COMPANY IN INDIA.
CHAPTER I: HISTORICAL PICTURE OF INDIAN TRADE
As soon as India became a little known to the barbarians of the West and the North, she became the object of their cupidity. This was all the more so when these barbarians, becoming civilized and industrious, created new needs for themselves.
It is well known that the seas surrounding the Equator and the East of Africa were hardly passed than there was fighting against the twenty peoples of India, of whose existence there had before been no knowledge. The Portuguese and their successors were only able to provide pepper and cloth to Europe by means of slaughter.
The peoples of Europe only discovered America in order to lay it waste and sprinkle it with blood, in return for which they obtained cocoa, indigo, and sugar, the canes of which were transported from Europe into the hot climate of this new world. They brought back some other commodities — above all quinine — but they contracted there a disease which is as terrible as it is shameful and universal, and which this bark of a tree in Peru did not cure. [There is a legend that the first explorers brought back venereal disease from South America. (Trans.)]
As for the gold and silver in Peru and Mexico, the people did not gain anything therefrom, because it is just the same whether one procures for oneself the same necessities with a hundred marks, or with one mark. It would even be very advantageous to the human race if it had very little metal which could serve as medium of exchange, because then trade is much easier. This truth is demonstrated with great force. The first possessors of the mines are, truly speaking, richer in the beginning than the others, having more of the medium of exchange in their hands, but the other peoples soon sell them goods at a proportionate price: in a very short time equality is established, and in the end the most industrious people actually become the richest.
Everybody knows what a huge and happy empire the Kings of Spain acquired at the two ends of the earth, without going out of their palaces; how Spain brought gold and silver and precious merchandise into Europe without becoming any richer thereby; and to what point she extended her dominion at the cost of depopulation.
The history of the great Dutch establishments in India is known, as is also that of the English colonies which stretch to-day from Jamaica to Hudson’s Bay — that is to say, from the neighbourhood of the tropics to that of the Pole.
The French who came in late at the partition of the two worlds lost, in the war of 1756 and the peace, all their territorial acquisitions in North America, where they possessed an area fifteen hundred leagues in length and seven to eight hundred leagues in breadth. This huge and poor country was a great burden on the State, and its loss was even more disastrous.
Almost all these vast domains, these extravagant establishments, all these wars undertaken to maintain them, were the result of the love of ease in the towns and the greed of the merchants, even more than of the ambition of rulers.
It is in order to provide the tables of the citizens of Paris, of London and of other big towns with more spices than used to be consumed at one time at Princes’ tables; it is in order to load simple citizens’ wives with more diamonds than queens used to wear at their coronation; it is in order to infect their nostrils with a disgusting powder [I.e., Snuff. (Trans.)] to drink deep, because the fancy took them, of certain useless liquors unknown to our fathers, that a huge trade was carried on, always disadvantageous to three-quarters of Europe; and it is in order to keep up this trade that the Powers made a war on each other, in which the first canon shots fired in our climes sets fire to all the batteries in America and in the heart of Asia. We always complain of taxes, and often very rightly, but we have never considered how the greatest and the harshest tax is that which we impose on ourselves by our new delicacies of taste which have become needs, and which are in reality a ruinous luxury, although they have not been given the name of luxury.
It is very true that, since Vasco de Gama who rounded for the first time the Cape of the land of the Hottentots, it is the merchants who have changed the face of the world.
The Japanese, who have experienced the turbulent and greedy restlessness of some of our European nations, were fortunate and powerful enough to close to them all their ports, and only admit each year one ship of a minor nation, whom they treat with such harshness and scorn [It is absolutely true that at the beginning of the 1738 revolution the Dutch, like others, were compelled to walk on the crucifix. (V.)] that only this small nation is able to bear it, although it is very powerful in Eastern India. The inhabitants of the vast Indian peninsula have not had this powder, nor have they had the good fortune of keeping themselves, like the Japanese, safe from foreign invasions. Their maritime provinces have been, for more than two hundred years, the theatre of our wars.
The successors of the Brahmans, of these inventors of so many arts, of these lovers and arbiters of peace, have become our agents, our paid negotiators. We have laid waste their country, we have manured it with our blood. We have shown how much we surpass them in courage and in wickedness, and how inferior we are to them in wisdom. Our European nations have killed themselves in this very land where we went only to get rich, and where the early Greeks only travelled for knowledge.
The Dutch India Company was already making rapid progress, and that of England was being formed, when in 1604 Henry the Great gave, in spite of the advice of the Duc de Sulli, the exclusive right of trading in India to a company of merchants more selfishly interested than rich and incapable of supporting themselves by their own efforts. They were only given Letters Patent, and they remained inactive.
Cardinal Richelieu created in 1642 a sort of India Company, but it was ruined in a few years. These attempts seemed to show that the French character was not as fitted for these enterprises as the alert and economical character of the Dutch, or the daring, enterprising and persevering character of the English.
Louis XIV, who sought the glory and the gain of his country by all methods, founded in 1664, at the instance of the immortal Colbert, a powerful India Company, to which he granted the most useful privileges, and which he aided with four millions from his exchequer, which would be equivalent to eight millions to-day. But, from year to year, the capital and the credit of the Company declined. The death of Colbert destroyed practically everything. The town of Pondicheri, on the Coromandel coast, was taken by the Dutch in 1693. A colony established in Madagascar was completely ruined.
The principal cause, it was believed, of the complete destruction of trade before the loss of Pondicheri was the greed of some of the administrators in India, their continual jealousies, the selfish interests which are always in conflict with the common weal, and the vanity which prefers, as it used to be said, "the appearance to the reality” — a fault often held against our nation.
We have seen with our own eyes in 1719 with what amazing prestige a new Company was born again from the ashes of the old. The fantastic system of Lass, which ruined everybody, and which brought the greatest misfortunes to France, did however revive the spirit of trade. The edifice of the India Company was re-built with the debris of this system. It seemed at first to be as flourishing as the Batavia Company; but it was only actually so in big preparations, in magazines, in fortifications, in expensive apparatus, either in Pondicheri or in the town and the port of the East in Brittany, which was conceded to it by the French Ministry, and which corresponded to its capital in India. It had an imposing appearance, but as for real profit, made by trade, it never made any. It did not give back in sixty years a single dividend in return for its goods. It did not pay any of its employees or any of its debts in France except the nine millions that the King gave yearly for the farming of tobacco: so that it was really the King who paid for it.
There were a few military officers in this Company, a few industrious agents who acquired riches in India: but the Company was ruining itself spectacularly while individuals were amassing treasure. It is not human nature to exile oneself, to travel to a people whose customs are quite the contrary to our own, whose language is difficult to learn and impossible to speak well, to expose one’s health to a climate to which one is not born; in short to work for the fortune of the merchants in the capital, without having the strong desire to make one’s own. This has been the reason of many disasters.
CHAPTER II. THE BEGINNING OF THE FIRST TROUBLES OF INDIA AND THE ENMITIES BETWEEN THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH COMPANIES
Trade, this first link between men, having become an object of warfare and a reason for devastation, the first mandatories of the English and French Companies, paid by their employers under the name of Governors, soon became Army Generals of a kind, — they would have been taken in India for Princes, for they made war as much on each other as with the Sovereigns of these provinces.
GOVERNMENT OF THE MOGHUL.
Everyone who is quite well-informed knows that the Moghul government was, since Ghenghiz Khan and possibly a long time before that, a feudal government — almost the same as that in Germany, the same as remained for long with the Lombards, with the Spanish, as it was in England as well as France, and in practically all the States of Europe: it is the ancient administration of all the conquering Scythians and Tartars who have poured forth their invading hordes into the world. One cannot understand how the author of “The Spirit of Laws” [Montesquieu. (Trans.)] could say that feudalism is an event which happened once on this earth and which will perhaps never happen again.” Feudalism is not an event; it is a very ancient form of government, which exists in three-quarters of our hemisphere with different administrations. The Grand Moghul is like the German Emperor. The Soubaidars are the Princes of the Empire become sovereigns each in their separate provinces. The Nawabs are the possessors of big under-fiefs. These Soubaidars and Nawabs are of Tartar origin and Muslim religion. The Rajas, who also enjoy big fiefs, are for the most part of Indian origin, and of the ancient religion of the Brahmans. These Rajas possess provinces less important in character and have far less power than the Nawabs and the Soubaidars. All stories from India confirm this fact.
These Princes were seeking to destroy each other, and everything was in turmoil in these lands since the year 1739 of our era, that memorable year in which Nadir Shah, having first of all protected the Emperor of Persia, his master, and then having afterwards pulled out his eyes, came to ravage the North of India and seize the very person of the Grand Moghul. We shall speak in its place of this big revolution. Then it was a question as to who would pounce upon the provinces of this vast Empire, which were falling into dissolution themselves. All these Viceroys, Soubaidars, and Nawabs were quarrelling over the ruins; and these Princes, who had before disdained in their pride to admit French negotiators into their presence, now had recourse to them. The French and English India Companies, or rather their agents, were turn by turn the allies and the enemies of these Princes. The French had at first striking success under Governor Dupleix, but soon after the English had a more lasting one. The French could not consolidate their prosperity, and in the end the English abused theirs. This is a summary of what happened.
CHAPTER III. SUMMARY OF THE ACTIONS OF LA BOURDONNAYE AND DUPLEIX.
In the War of the Austrian Succession of 1741, rather like the War of the Spanish Succession in 1701, the English soon took the side of Maria Theresa, the Queen of Hungary, later Empress. As soon as the rupture broke out between France and England, they had to fight with each other, as was always the case, in America and in India.
Paris and London are rivals in Europe; Madras and Pondicheri are even more so in Asia, because these two trading towns are nearer one another, both situated in the same province, called Arcot, eighty thousand paces one from the other, both carrying on the same commerce, but divided by religion, by jealousy by interests, and by a natural antipathy. This poison, brought from Europe, grows more widespread and stronger on the shores of India.
Those Europeans who go naturally to destroy themselves in climates such as these, always do it with only the smallest means. Their armies are rarely as much as fifteen hundred effectives, come from France or England— the remainder is composed of Indians who are called Sepoys, and of blacks, former inhabitants of the Islands, transplanted since time immemorial on the Continent, or bought a little while ago in Africa. Paucity of resources often acts as a spur to genius. Enterprising men, who would have died unknown in their fatherland, find places and positions for themselves in these far countries, where industry is rare and necessary. One of these daring geniuses was Mahe de la Bourdonnaye, a native of Saint Malo, the Duguetrouin of his time, superior to Duguetrouin in intelligence and his equal in courage. He had been useful to the India Company on more than one journey, and even more to himself. One of the Directors asked him how he had carried on his own business better than that of the Company. “It is,” he said, ‘‘because I have followed your instructions in the things concerning you, and when my own interests were involved, I only followed my own.” Having been nominated by the King Governor of the Ile de Bourbon, with full powers, although in the name of the Company, he armed ships at his own cost, made sailors, raised soldiers, disciplined them, traded successfully at the point of the sword — in a word, he created the Ile de Bourbon. He did more. He dispersed an English squadron in the Indian Ocean, a thing which only he has been able to do, and which has not been repeated since.
LA BOURDONNAYE TAKES MADRAS IN SEPT. 1746.
In the end, he laid siege to Madras, and forced this important town to capitulate. The definite instructions of the French Ministry were not to keep any conquest in actual land. He obeyed. He allowed the conquered to buy back their town for about nine million francs, and so served the King his master, and the Company. In these parts, nothing was ever more useful or more full of glory. One may add that, for the honour of La Bourdonnaye, during this expedition he treated the vanquished with a politeness, a gentleness, and a magnanimity which the English praised. They respected and loved their conqueror. We are only repeating what the English said who came back from Madras, and they had no interest in disguising the truth. When foreigners respect an enemy, it seems that they tell their compatriots to render him justice.
The Governor of Pondicheri, Dupleix, condemned this restoration; he dared to nullify it by a resolution of the Council of Pondicheri and kept Madras, in spite of the integrity of treaties and the laws of every nation. He accused La Bourdonnaye of treachery: he painted him to the French Court and the Directors of the Company as a prevaricator who had demanded too small a ransom and received presents which were too big. Directors and shareholders joined their complaints to these accusations. Men in general are like dogs who bark when they hear other dogs barking in the distance.
IMPRISONED IN THE BASTILLE AS A REWARD
At last, the Ministry of Versailles, having been stirred to action by the cries of Pondicheri, the conqueror of Madras, the only man who had upheld the honour of the French flag, was imprisoned in the Bastille by lettre de cachet. He languished in this prison for three years and a half, without being able to enjoy the consolation of seeing his family. At the end of this time, the Commissioners of the Council who were given to him as judges were forced by evidence of the truth, and out of respect for his great deeds, to declare him innocent. M. Bertin, one of his judges, who has since become Minister of State, was the man whose fairness was the principal cause of his life being saved. A few enemies, still provoked by his fortune, his deeds and his ability, wanted his death. They were soon satisfied: he died on leaving the prison of a cruel disease that the prison had caused. This was the reward of memorable service rendered to his country.
Governor Dupleix excused himself in his memoirs as having received secret orders from the Ministry. But he could not have received six thousand leagues away orders concerning a victory just won, and which the French Ministry could never have foreseen. If these disastrous orders were given prophetically, they were contradictory in form to those which La Bourdonnaye had brought. The Ministry would have had to reproach itself not only with the loss of nine millions, of which France was deprived when the restoration of the town was revoked, but also with the cruel treatment with which it rewarded the genius, the courage and the magnanimity of La Bourdonnaye.
DUPLEIX SAVES PONDICHERI IN 1748.
M. Dupleix made amends for his terrible mistake and this public misfortune by defending Pondicheri for forty-two days in open trenches against two English Admirals assisted by a local Nawab. He acted as general, engineer, artillery man, and munition manager; his care, his activity and his industry coupled with the intelligence and bravery of M. de Bussy, a distinguished officer, saved the town on this occasion. M. de Bussy was serving at that time in the forces of the Company, as a member of the India Battalion. He had come from Paris to find glory and a fortune on the Coromandel coast. He found them both. The French Court rewarded Dupleix by decorating him with the Grand Cordon Rouge and the title of Marquis.
The French and English faction, the former having kept its trading capital, the latter having lost it, became more and more intimate with these Nawabs and these Soubaidars of whom we have spoken. We have said that the Empire had become chaotic. These Princes, being always at war against one another, divided themselves between the French and the English. There was a succession of civil wars in the Peninsula.
We shall not enter here into the details of their enterprises; enough has been written of their quarrels, the treacheries of Nasir Jung’s followers, and those of Muzaffar Jung, [Or, as Voltaire writes, "Nazerzingues, Mouzaferzing.”] their intrigues, their battles, and their assassinations.
UNIQUE ACTION OF AN OFFICER CALLED LA TOUCHE
We have the diaries of the sieges of twenty places unknown in Europe, badly fortified, badly attacked and badly defended: that is not our object. But we cannot pass over in silence the action of a French officer named de la Touche, who with only three hundred soldiers, penetrated at night into the camp of one of the biggest princes in these parts, killed twelve hundred of his men without losing more than three soldiers, and by this unheard-of success dispersed an army of nearly sixty thousand Indians, reinforced by some English troops. Such a happening shows us that the inhabitants of India are not any more difficult to conquer than were those of Mexico and Peru. It shows us how easy it was to conquer this country for the Tartars and those who had subjugated it before that time.
1748
Old manners and customs have been preserved in these parts as has also clothing: everything is different from us, there nature and art are not the same. Among us, after a big battle, the conquering soldiers do not have a penny increase in their pay. In India, after a short battle, the Nawabs gave millions to the European troops who had taken their side. Chanda Sahib, [According to Voltaire, "Chandazaeb.”] one of the princes under the protection of M. Dupleix, made a present to the troops of about two hundred thousand francs, and land bringing in nine to ten thousand pounds in income to their Commander, the Comte d’Auteuil. The Soubaidar Muzaffar Jung on another occasion had twelve hundred and fifty thousand pounds distributed to the little French army, and gave the same amount to the Company. M. Dupleix had also a pension of a hundred thousand rupees (two hundred and forty thousand French pounds) which he did not enjoy for long. A workman earns three sous per day in India: a noble has enough to scatter profusely.
DUPLEIX, VICEROY IN INDIA IN 1749.
After this, the assistant-manager of a trading Company received from the Grand Moghul the little of Nawab. The English maintained that this title was fictitious, and that it was a false pandering to vanity in order to over-awe European nations in India. If the French Governor had played such a trick, he would have done it in common with more than one Nawab and Soubaidar. False diplomas were bought at the Court in Delhi, and were received afterwards in ceremony from a man put there as a so-called Commissioner of the Emperor. But whether the Soubaidar Muzaffar Jung and the Nawab Chanda Sahib had really obtained this Imperial title for the Governor of Pondicheri, or whether it was fictitious, he made use of it openly. An agent of a trading society had become a sovereign, with sovereigns under his command! We know that Indians often treated him as King and his wife as Queen. M. de Bussy, who had distinguished himself in the defence of Pondicheri, had a dignity which cannot be better expressed than by the title of General of the Cavalry of the Grand Moghul. He made war and peace with the Maharattas, [Voltaire says Marates.] a warlike people of whom we shall write more, who sold their services, sometimes to the English, sometimes to the French. He made secure the thrones of the Princes created by M. Dupleix.
Recognition was proportionate to service rendered. Riches as well as honours were the reward. The greatest sovereigns in Europe have neither as much power nor as much splendour: but this fortune and this brilliance soon passed away. The English and their allies beat the French on more than one occasion. The immense sums of money given to the soldiers by the Soubaidars and the Nawabs were partly dissipated in debauchery and partly lost in the fights, and the exchequer, the munitions and the provisions of Pondicheri were exhausted.
HIS MISFORTUNE
The small army remaining in French hands was commanded by Major Lass, nephew of the famous Lass who had done so much ill to the country, but to whom the India Company owed its being. This young Scot fought bravely against the English, but, deprived of help and food, his courage was unavailing. He took the Nawab Chanda Sahib away to an island formed by rivers, called Sri Rangam, belonging to the Brahmins. It is perhaps useful to note here that the Brahmins were the rulers of this island. We have many similar examples in Europe. One could even assert that there are examples the world over. The old Brahmins [Voltaire makes a distinction between the Bracmanes (translated "Old Brahmins”) and Brames (translated "Brahmins") which seems to be unintelligible.] used to be, in former times, so they say, the first rulers of India. The Brahmins, [Voltaire makes a distinction between the Bracmanes (translated "Old Brahmins”) and Brames (translated "Brahmins") which seems to be unintelligible.] their successors, have only kept very little of their old power. Whatever the case may be, the little French army, led by a Scot, and billetted in an Indian monastery, had neither food, nor money to buy it with. M. Lass has kept for us the letter in which M. Dupleix ordered him to take everything that it was proper to take. Only two ornaments remained, reputed to be sacred, — they were two sculptured horses, covered in silver leaf. They were taken and sold, and the Brahmins did not complain or make any protest. But the proceeds of this sale did not prevent the French troops from giving themselves up as prisoners of war to the English. They captured the Nawab Chanda Sahib for whom Major Lass was fighting, and the English Nawab, the rival of Chanda Sahib, had his head cut off. M. Dupleix accused of this barbarism the English Colonel, Lawrence, who defended himself as if it was a crying slander.
1752
As for Major Lass, released on parole and back in Pondicheri, the Governor put him in prison, because he had been as unfortunate as he had been brave. He even dared to bring a criminal suit against him, which he dared not follow up.
Pondicheri remained in want, dejection and fear, while gold medals struck in honour and in the name of the Governor were being sent to Paris. He was called back in 1753, left in 1754, and came to Paris in despair. He lodged a case against the Company. He demanded from it millions, which were contested and which it would not have been able to pay if it had owed them. We have a memoir of his in which he breathed spite against his successor, Godeheu, one of the directors of the Company. Godeheu replied to him bitterly. The memoirs of these two titled agents are more voluminous than the history of Alexander. These tedious details of human weakness are scanned over for a few days by those who are interested, and are forgotten in a short time for new quarrels, which are in their turn blotted out by others. At last Dupleix died of chagrin, caused by his greatness, his fall from power, and above all, the sad necessity of soliciting judges after having ruled. Thus the two big rivals, who had gained renown in India, La Bourdonnaye and Dupleix, both died in Paris a sad and premature death.
Those who were, by their knowledge, fitted to judge their worth, said that La Bourdonnaye had the qualities of a sailor and a warrior; and Dupleix those of an enterprising and politic prince. An English author who had written the wars of the two companies until 1755, speaks of them in this way.
It was above all necessary to raise the spirits of the Indians, exasperated by the cruelties meted out to some of their compatriots, who were dependents of the Company. A man from Malabar, called Naina, the Banker of La Bourdonnaye, had been thrown into a dungeon because he had not given evidence against him. Another man complained that money had been exacted from him. The children of another Indian, called Mondamia, ruler of a neighbouring district, ceaselessly demanded justice for the death of their father who had been tortured to death in order to extort money from him. A thousand complaints of this nature were making the name of France hated. The new Governor treated the Indians with humanity, and negotiated a compromise with the English. He and Mr. Saunders, then Governor of Madras, established a truce in 1755, and made a conditional peace.
Voltaire Fragments on India
Translated by Freda Bedi, B.A. Hons. (Oxon.)
Contemporary India Publication, Model Town, Lahore, India
February, 1937
NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT
YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.
The work, first published in 1773, sees Voltaire returning to the subject of Indian history, which had interested him since the first drafts of the Essay on Morals in the 1740s. Inspired by the prospect of rehabilitating the memory of the executed General Lally, the Fragments sur Inde are in two parts: the first explores recent colonial enterprises in India and the disastrous Pondicherry campaign, which was to cost Lally his life; while the second is a more general meditation on Indian history, religion and customs.
-- Fragments on India, by Voltaire Foundation
-- Orientalism, by Edward W. Said
-- Essays on the Religion and Philosophy of the Hindus, by Henry Thomas Colebrooke, Esq. (1858)
-- The History of British India, vol. I, by James Mill
-- The History of British India, vol. II, by James Mill
-- The History of British India, vol. III, by James Mill
-- The Black Hole -- The Question of Holwell's Veracity, by J. H. Little, Bengal, Past & Present, Journal of the Calcutta Historical Society, Vol. XI, Part 1, July-Sept., 1915
-- Full Proceedings of the Black Hole Debate, Bengal, Past & Present, Journal of the Calcutta Historical Society, Vol. XII. Jan – June, 1916
-- A Genuine Narrative of the deplorable Deaths of the English Gentlemen, and Others, who were suffocated in the Black Hole in Fort-William, at Calcutta, in the Kingdom of Bengal; in the Night succeeding the 20th Day of June 1756., In a Letter to a Friend, from India Tracts, by Mr. J.Z. Holwell, and Friends.
-- Important Facts regarding the East India Company's Affairs in Bengal, from the Year 1752 to 1760. This Treatise Contains an Exact State of the Company's Revenues in that Settlement; With Copies of several very interesting Letters Showing Particularly, The Real Causes Which Drew on the Presidency of Bengal the Dreadful Catastrophe of the Year 1767; and Vindicating the Character of Mr. Holwell From Many Scandalous Aspersions Unjustly Thrown Out Against Him, in an Anonymous Pamphlet, Published March 6th, 1764, Entitled, "Reflections on the Present State of Our East-India Affairs.", from India Tracts, by Mr. J.Z. Holwell, and Friends.
-- India Tracts, by Mr. J. Z. Holwell, and Friends.
-- Interesting Historical Events, Relative to the Provinces of Bengal, and the Empire of Indostan. With a Seasonable Hint and Persuasive to the Honourable The Court of Directors of the East India Company. As Also The Mythology and Cosmogony, Facts and Festivals of the Gentoo's, followers of the Shastah. And a Dissertation on the Metempsychosis, commonly, though erroneously, called the Pythagorean Doctrine. Part II. By J.Z. Holwell, Esq.
-- Forging Indian Religion: East India Company Servants and the Construction of ‘Gentoo’/‘Hindoo’ Scripture in the 1760s, by Jessica Patterson
-- French Jesuits in India and the Lettres Edifiantes, by Jyoti Mohan
-- Claiming India: French Scholars and the Preoccupation with India During the Nineteenth Century, by Jyoti Mohan
-- Natural Theology and Natural Religion, by Andrew Chignell & Derk Pereboom
-- The Enlightenment and Orientalist Discourse on the Aryan, Excerpt from Aryans, Jews, Brahmins: Theorizing Authority through Myths of Identity, by Dorothy M. Figueira
-- Ezourvedam: A French Veda of the Eighteenth Century, Edited with an Introduction by Ludo Rocher
-- Holwell's Religion of Paradise, Excerpt from The Birth of Orientalism, by Urs App
-- Anquetil-Duperron's Search for the True Vedas, Excerpt from The Birth of Orientalism, by Urs App
-- The Birth of Orientalism, by Urs App
-- Fort William-India House Correspondence and Other Contemporary Papers Relating Thereto, Vol. I: 1748-1756, Edited by K. K. Datta, M.A., Ph.D., Professor of History, Patna University, Patna
-- History of Hindostan; From the Earliest Account of Time, To the Death of Akbar; Translated From the Persian of Mahummud Casim Ferishta of Delhi: Together With a Dissertation Concerning the Religion and Philosophy of the Brahmins; With an Appendix, Containing the History of the Mogul Empire, From Its Decline in the Reign of Mahummud Shaw, to the Present Times, by Alexander Dow.
-- Voltaire Fragments on India, Translated by Freda Bedi, B.A. Hons. (Oxon.)
Printed at the Ripon Printing Press, Bull Road, Lahore by Mirza Muhammad Sadiq and Published by Freda Bedi, for Contemporary India Publications, Model Town, Lahore (India)
FOREWORD
It was in 1934 that my husband, studying for his thesis brought home from the Oriental Section of the State Library in Berlin, a small, yellowed, calf-bound volume called Fragments sur l'Inde. It had been printed before the end of the eighteenth century, and was full of discrepancies of text and printing errors. The only indication of its authorship was a pencilled word ‘Voltaire' written on the back fly leaf. Investigation proved that it was a work of Voltaire, but one which had been so much neglected that no bibliography on India could be found containing a reference to it. In French, the book is not easily available in its separate form, and, since few have the energy to search the volumes of a writer’s collected works, it is not generally known. The only scholar I met during the year who knew anything about it was a charming Jesuit Father who had been teaching in Bombay, and he was naturally not enthusiastic since the book, being Voltaire’s, contained some acid references to saints and established religion.
In translating it, I have been animated not so much by a scholarly desire to add to the knowledge of the world, as by a wish to share the book with others who may find it as fascinating as I did. Had I lived in Paris or in London, rather than in the heart of the Land of the Five Rivers, I might perhaps have made a book of more academic value, and had a greater personal satisfaction in so doing. But a hard political and journalistic life does not allow me such luxuries. Instead, I have presented the book in the way I hope it will be read — as an intensely personal and acute summary of Indian affairs in the eighteenth century from the pen of a brilliant Frenchman and a brilliant satirist.
The book is, I believe, not valuable so much because it is new evidence on contemporary history, since Voltaire has used many second-hand sources, and acknowledged them, but because it is an interpretation of Indian events by one of the most acute thinkers and social rebels of his time. He was not a man to be deceived by the usual Imperialist humbug and clap-trap, which was not so very different then from what it is now; to a clear head he added a shrewd knowledge of human psychology and a sort of rebellious common-sense.
One can almost forgive Voltaire his subjective portrayal of India, given the quality of the information culled from travel accounts, missionary letters, “scholarly” works, and “translations.” Although he sought out European accounts that he felt were exempt from sectarian prejudice, he was inexorably drawn to texts glaringly slanted by Protestant anti-Catholic rhetoric, as in the case of La Croze and Niecamp. He studied those Europeans who purported to know Sanskrit, yet knew none. He studied authors who, although they had spent sufficient time in India, were nevertheless woefully ignorant of the culture. Having literally read everything available concerning India, edited and unedited, Voltaire realized only too well the necessity of basing any future discussion of India upon an authentic Sanskrit text. He, therefore, set out to discover one. After having depended so long on secondary sources, he tended to ascribe authenticity to any Sanskrit text that fell into his hands. Time and again, he was deceived by his sources.
-- The Enlightenment and Orientalist Discourse on the Aryan, Excerpt from Aryans, Jews, Brahmins: Theorizing Authority through Myths of Identity, by Dorothy M. Figueira
His remarks on the economic basis of Imperialism have an almost modern flavour, if we discount the touches of local colour:
“It is in order to provide the tables of the citizens of Paris, of London, and of other big towns with more spices than used to be consumed at one time at Princes' tables; it is in order to load simple citizens' wives with more diamonds than queens used to wear at their coronation; it is in order to infect their nostrils with a disgusting powder, to drink deep, because the fancy took them, of certain useless liquors unknown to our fathers, that a huge trade was carried on, always disadvantageous to three-quarters of Europe; and it is in order to keep up this trade that the Powers made a war on each other, in which the first cannon shots fired in our climes set fire to all the batteries in America and in the heart of Asia."
Voltaire’s treatment of his characters has a vitality often lacking in a purely historical narrative. His Lalli is a tragic, rather pitiable, figure and he seems to have a literary interest in making us understand the human side of his character. There has been a conscious dramatization of his personality and final death, as though he were the central character of a novel rather than a sober General indicted for his sins. It is this which makes the book what it is — a somewhat inaccurate but fascinating account of the early days of European Imperialism in India. We can forgive his inaccuracies for the sake of his wit!
FREDA BEDI.
MODEL TOWN
LAHORE
February 1937.
CONTENTS:
• FOREWORD
• CHAPTER I. HISTORICAL PICTURE OP INDIAN TRADE.
• CHAPTER II. THE BEGINNING OP THE FIRST TROUBLES OF INDIA AND THE ENMITIES BETWEEN THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH COMPANIES.
• CHAPTER III. SUMMARY OF THE ACTIONS OF LA BOURDONNAYE AND DUPLEIX.
• CHAPTER IV. THE SENDING OF COUNT LALLI TO INDIA. WHO WAS THIS GENERAL? WHAT WERE HIS SERVICES BEFORE THIS EXPEDITION?
• CHAPTER V. THE STATE OF INDIA WHEN GENERAL LALLI WAS SENT THERE.
• CHAPTER VI. THE HINDUS AND THEIR MOST REMARKABLE CUSTOMS .
• CHAPTER VII. THE BRAHMANS.
• CHAPTER VIII. THE WARRIORS OF INDIA AND THE RECENT REVOLUTIONS
• CHAPTER IX. REVOLUTIONS (continued)
• CHAPTER X. DESCRIPTION OP THE COASTS OF THE PENINSULA, WHERE THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH TRADED AND MADE WAR.
• CHAPTER XI. SURVEY OF THE COAST (continued).
• CHAPTER XII. WHAT HAPPENED IN INDIA BEFORE GENERAL LALLI ARRIVED. THE HISTORY OF ANGRIA; THE ENGLISH DESTROYED IN BENGAL.
• CHAPTER XIII. THE ARRIVAL OF COUNT LALLI; HIS SUCCESSES AND FAILURES. THE ACTIONS OF A JESUIT CALLED LAVOUR.
• CHAPTER XIV. COUNT LALLI BESIEGES MADRAS. HIS MISFORTUNES BEGIN.
• CHAPTER XV. NEW MISFORTUNES OF THE INDIA COMPANY.
• CHAPTER XVI. AN EXTRAORDINARY HAPPENING IN SURAT. THE ENGLISH GAIN A VICTORY.
• CHAPTER XVII. THE CAPTURE AND DESTRUCTION OF PONDICHERRY.
• CHAPTER XVIII. LALLI AND THE OTHER PRISONERS ARE CONDUCTED TO ENGLAND AND RELEASED ON PAROLE. CRIMINAL SUIT AGAINST LALLI.
• CHAPTER XIX. THE END OF THE SUIT AGAINST LALLI. HIS DEATH.
• CHAPTER XX. THE DESTRUCTION OF THE FRENCH COMPANY IN INDIA.
CHAPTER I: HISTORICAL PICTURE OF INDIAN TRADE
Impiger extremos curris, mercator ad Indos,
Per mare, pauperiem fugiens, per faxa, per ignes.
— Hor. Epist. Lib. I. [This passage from Horace's Epistles may be translated thus: “You hasten, as a merchant, to India’s furthest bounds, fleeing from poverty over seas, over rocks, through burning heat." (Trans.)]
As soon as India became a little known to the barbarians of the West and the North, she became the object of their cupidity. This was all the more so when these barbarians, becoming civilized and industrious, created new needs for themselves.
It is well known that the seas surrounding the Equator and the East of Africa were hardly passed than there was fighting against the twenty peoples of India, of whose existence there had before been no knowledge. The Portuguese and their successors were only able to provide pepper and cloth to Europe by means of slaughter.
The peoples of Europe only discovered America in order to lay it waste and sprinkle it with blood, in return for which they obtained cocoa, indigo, and sugar, the canes of which were transported from Europe into the hot climate of this new world. They brought back some other commodities — above all quinine — but they contracted there a disease which is as terrible as it is shameful and universal, and which this bark of a tree in Peru did not cure. [There is a legend that the first explorers brought back venereal disease from South America. (Trans.)]
As for the gold and silver in Peru and Mexico, the people did not gain anything therefrom, because it is just the same whether one procures for oneself the same necessities with a hundred marks, or with one mark. It would even be very advantageous to the human race if it had very little metal which could serve as medium of exchange, because then trade is much easier. This truth is demonstrated with great force. The first possessors of the mines are, truly speaking, richer in the beginning than the others, having more of the medium of exchange in their hands, but the other peoples soon sell them goods at a proportionate price: in a very short time equality is established, and in the end the most industrious people actually become the richest.
Everybody knows what a huge and happy empire the Kings of Spain acquired at the two ends of the earth, without going out of their palaces; how Spain brought gold and silver and precious merchandise into Europe without becoming any richer thereby; and to what point she extended her dominion at the cost of depopulation.
The history of the great Dutch establishments in India is known, as is also that of the English colonies which stretch to-day from Jamaica to Hudson’s Bay — that is to say, from the neighbourhood of the tropics to that of the Pole.
The French who came in late at the partition of the two worlds lost, in the war of 1756 and the peace, all their territorial acquisitions in North America, where they possessed an area fifteen hundred leagues in length and seven to eight hundred leagues in breadth. This huge and poor country was a great burden on the State, and its loss was even more disastrous.
Almost all these vast domains, these extravagant establishments, all these wars undertaken to maintain them, were the result of the love of ease in the towns and the greed of the merchants, even more than of the ambition of rulers.
It is in order to provide the tables of the citizens of Paris, of London and of other big towns with more spices than used to be consumed at one time at Princes’ tables; it is in order to load simple citizens’ wives with more diamonds than queens used to wear at their coronation; it is in order to infect their nostrils with a disgusting powder [I.e., Snuff. (Trans.)] to drink deep, because the fancy took them, of certain useless liquors unknown to our fathers, that a huge trade was carried on, always disadvantageous to three-quarters of Europe; and it is in order to keep up this trade that the Powers made a war on each other, in which the first canon shots fired in our climes sets fire to all the batteries in America and in the heart of Asia. We always complain of taxes, and often very rightly, but we have never considered how the greatest and the harshest tax is that which we impose on ourselves by our new delicacies of taste which have become needs, and which are in reality a ruinous luxury, although they have not been given the name of luxury.
It is very true that, since Vasco de Gama who rounded for the first time the Cape of the land of the Hottentots, it is the merchants who have changed the face of the world.
The Japanese, who have experienced the turbulent and greedy restlessness of some of our European nations, were fortunate and powerful enough to close to them all their ports, and only admit each year one ship of a minor nation, whom they treat with such harshness and scorn [It is absolutely true that at the beginning of the 1738 revolution the Dutch, like others, were compelled to walk on the crucifix. (V.)] that only this small nation is able to bear it, although it is very powerful in Eastern India. The inhabitants of the vast Indian peninsula have not had this powder, nor have they had the good fortune of keeping themselves, like the Japanese, safe from foreign invasions. Their maritime provinces have been, for more than two hundred years, the theatre of our wars.
The successors of the Brahmans, of these inventors of so many arts, of these lovers and arbiters of peace, have become our agents, our paid negotiators. We have laid waste their country, we have manured it with our blood. We have shown how much we surpass them in courage and in wickedness, and how inferior we are to them in wisdom. Our European nations have killed themselves in this very land where we went only to get rich, and where the early Greeks only travelled for knowledge.
The Dutch India Company was already making rapid progress, and that of England was being formed, when in 1604 Henry the Great gave, in spite of the advice of the Duc de Sulli, the exclusive right of trading in India to a company of merchants more selfishly interested than rich and incapable of supporting themselves by their own efforts. They were only given Letters Patent, and they remained inactive.
Cardinal Richelieu created in 1642 a sort of India Company, but it was ruined in a few years. These attempts seemed to show that the French character was not as fitted for these enterprises as the alert and economical character of the Dutch, or the daring, enterprising and persevering character of the English.
Louis XIV, who sought the glory and the gain of his country by all methods, founded in 1664, at the instance of the immortal Colbert, a powerful India Company, to which he granted the most useful privileges, and which he aided with four millions from his exchequer, which would be equivalent to eight millions to-day. But, from year to year, the capital and the credit of the Company declined. The death of Colbert destroyed practically everything. The town of Pondicheri, on the Coromandel coast, was taken by the Dutch in 1693. A colony established in Madagascar was completely ruined.
The principal cause, it was believed, of the complete destruction of trade before the loss of Pondicheri was the greed of some of the administrators in India, their continual jealousies, the selfish interests which are always in conflict with the common weal, and the vanity which prefers, as it used to be said, "the appearance to the reality” — a fault often held against our nation.
We have seen with our own eyes in 1719 with what amazing prestige a new Company was born again from the ashes of the old. The fantastic system of Lass, which ruined everybody, and which brought the greatest misfortunes to France, did however revive the spirit of trade. The edifice of the India Company was re-built with the debris of this system. It seemed at first to be as flourishing as the Batavia Company; but it was only actually so in big preparations, in magazines, in fortifications, in expensive apparatus, either in Pondicheri or in the town and the port of the East in Brittany, which was conceded to it by the French Ministry, and which corresponded to its capital in India. It had an imposing appearance, but as for real profit, made by trade, it never made any. It did not give back in sixty years a single dividend in return for its goods. It did not pay any of its employees or any of its debts in France except the nine millions that the King gave yearly for the farming of tobacco: so that it was really the King who paid for it.
There were a few military officers in this Company, a few industrious agents who acquired riches in India: but the Company was ruining itself spectacularly while individuals were amassing treasure. It is not human nature to exile oneself, to travel to a people whose customs are quite the contrary to our own, whose language is difficult to learn and impossible to speak well, to expose one’s health to a climate to which one is not born; in short to work for the fortune of the merchants in the capital, without having the strong desire to make one’s own. This has been the reason of many disasters.
CHAPTER II. THE BEGINNING OF THE FIRST TROUBLES OF INDIA AND THE ENMITIES BETWEEN THE FRENCH AND ENGLISH COMPANIES
Trade, this first link between men, having become an object of warfare and a reason for devastation, the first mandatories of the English and French Companies, paid by their employers under the name of Governors, soon became Army Generals of a kind, — they would have been taken in India for Princes, for they made war as much on each other as with the Sovereigns of these provinces.
GOVERNMENT OF THE MOGHUL.
Everyone who is quite well-informed knows that the Moghul government was, since Ghenghiz Khan and possibly a long time before that, a feudal government — almost the same as that in Germany, the same as remained for long with the Lombards, with the Spanish, as it was in England as well as France, and in practically all the States of Europe: it is the ancient administration of all the conquering Scythians and Tartars who have poured forth their invading hordes into the world. One cannot understand how the author of “The Spirit of Laws” [Montesquieu. (Trans.)] could say that feudalism is an event which happened once on this earth and which will perhaps never happen again.” Feudalism is not an event; it is a very ancient form of government, which exists in three-quarters of our hemisphere with different administrations. The Grand Moghul is like the German Emperor. The Soubaidars are the Princes of the Empire become sovereigns each in their separate provinces. The Nawabs are the possessors of big under-fiefs. These Soubaidars and Nawabs are of Tartar origin and Muslim religion. The Rajas, who also enjoy big fiefs, are for the most part of Indian origin, and of the ancient religion of the Brahmans. These Rajas possess provinces less important in character and have far less power than the Nawabs and the Soubaidars. All stories from India confirm this fact.
These Princes were seeking to destroy each other, and everything was in turmoil in these lands since the year 1739 of our era, that memorable year in which Nadir Shah, having first of all protected the Emperor of Persia, his master, and then having afterwards pulled out his eyes, came to ravage the North of India and seize the very person of the Grand Moghul. We shall speak in its place of this big revolution. Then it was a question as to who would pounce upon the provinces of this vast Empire, which were falling into dissolution themselves. All these Viceroys, Soubaidars, and Nawabs were quarrelling over the ruins; and these Princes, who had before disdained in their pride to admit French negotiators into their presence, now had recourse to them. The French and English India Companies, or rather their agents, were turn by turn the allies and the enemies of these Princes. The French had at first striking success under Governor Dupleix, but soon after the English had a more lasting one. The French could not consolidate their prosperity, and in the end the English abused theirs. This is a summary of what happened.
CHAPTER III. SUMMARY OF THE ACTIONS OF LA BOURDONNAYE AND DUPLEIX.
In the War of the Austrian Succession of 1741, rather like the War of the Spanish Succession in 1701, the English soon took the side of Maria Theresa, the Queen of Hungary, later Empress. As soon as the rupture broke out between France and England, they had to fight with each other, as was always the case, in America and in India.
Paris and London are rivals in Europe; Madras and Pondicheri are even more so in Asia, because these two trading towns are nearer one another, both situated in the same province, called Arcot, eighty thousand paces one from the other, both carrying on the same commerce, but divided by religion, by jealousy by interests, and by a natural antipathy. This poison, brought from Europe, grows more widespread and stronger on the shores of India.
Those Europeans who go naturally to destroy themselves in climates such as these, always do it with only the smallest means. Their armies are rarely as much as fifteen hundred effectives, come from France or England— the remainder is composed of Indians who are called Sepoys, and of blacks, former inhabitants of the Islands, transplanted since time immemorial on the Continent, or bought a little while ago in Africa. Paucity of resources often acts as a spur to genius. Enterprising men, who would have died unknown in their fatherland, find places and positions for themselves in these far countries, where industry is rare and necessary. One of these daring geniuses was Mahe de la Bourdonnaye, a native of Saint Malo, the Duguetrouin of his time, superior to Duguetrouin in intelligence and his equal in courage. He had been useful to the India Company on more than one journey, and even more to himself. One of the Directors asked him how he had carried on his own business better than that of the Company. “It is,” he said, ‘‘because I have followed your instructions in the things concerning you, and when my own interests were involved, I only followed my own.” Having been nominated by the King Governor of the Ile de Bourbon, with full powers, although in the name of the Company, he armed ships at his own cost, made sailors, raised soldiers, disciplined them, traded successfully at the point of the sword — in a word, he created the Ile de Bourbon. He did more. He dispersed an English squadron in the Indian Ocean, a thing which only he has been able to do, and which has not been repeated since.
LA BOURDONNAYE TAKES MADRAS IN SEPT. 1746.
In the end, he laid siege to Madras, and forced this important town to capitulate. The definite instructions of the French Ministry were not to keep any conquest in actual land. He obeyed. He allowed the conquered to buy back their town for about nine million francs, and so served the King his master, and the Company. In these parts, nothing was ever more useful or more full of glory. One may add that, for the honour of La Bourdonnaye, during this expedition he treated the vanquished with a politeness, a gentleness, and a magnanimity which the English praised. They respected and loved their conqueror. We are only repeating what the English said who came back from Madras, and they had no interest in disguising the truth. When foreigners respect an enemy, it seems that they tell their compatriots to render him justice.
The Governor of Pondicheri, Dupleix, condemned this restoration; he dared to nullify it by a resolution of the Council of Pondicheri and kept Madras, in spite of the integrity of treaties and the laws of every nation. He accused La Bourdonnaye of treachery: he painted him to the French Court and the Directors of the Company as a prevaricator who had demanded too small a ransom and received presents which were too big. Directors and shareholders joined their complaints to these accusations. Men in general are like dogs who bark when they hear other dogs barking in the distance.
IMPRISONED IN THE BASTILLE AS A REWARD
At last, the Ministry of Versailles, having been stirred to action by the cries of Pondicheri, the conqueror of Madras, the only man who had upheld the honour of the French flag, was imprisoned in the Bastille by lettre de cachet. He languished in this prison for three years and a half, without being able to enjoy the consolation of seeing his family. At the end of this time, the Commissioners of the Council who were given to him as judges were forced by evidence of the truth, and out of respect for his great deeds, to declare him innocent. M. Bertin, one of his judges, who has since become Minister of State, was the man whose fairness was the principal cause of his life being saved. A few enemies, still provoked by his fortune, his deeds and his ability, wanted his death. They were soon satisfied: he died on leaving the prison of a cruel disease that the prison had caused. This was the reward of memorable service rendered to his country.
Governor Dupleix excused himself in his memoirs as having received secret orders from the Ministry. But he could not have received six thousand leagues away orders concerning a victory just won, and which the French Ministry could never have foreseen. If these disastrous orders were given prophetically, they were contradictory in form to those which La Bourdonnaye had brought. The Ministry would have had to reproach itself not only with the loss of nine millions, of which France was deprived when the restoration of the town was revoked, but also with the cruel treatment with which it rewarded the genius, the courage and the magnanimity of La Bourdonnaye.
DUPLEIX SAVES PONDICHERI IN 1748.
M. Dupleix made amends for his terrible mistake and this public misfortune by defending Pondicheri for forty-two days in open trenches against two English Admirals assisted by a local Nawab. He acted as general, engineer, artillery man, and munition manager; his care, his activity and his industry coupled with the intelligence and bravery of M. de Bussy, a distinguished officer, saved the town on this occasion. M. de Bussy was serving at that time in the forces of the Company, as a member of the India Battalion. He had come from Paris to find glory and a fortune on the Coromandel coast. He found them both. The French Court rewarded Dupleix by decorating him with the Grand Cordon Rouge and the title of Marquis.
The French and English faction, the former having kept its trading capital, the latter having lost it, became more and more intimate with these Nawabs and these Soubaidars of whom we have spoken. We have said that the Empire had become chaotic. These Princes, being always at war against one another, divided themselves between the French and the English. There was a succession of civil wars in the Peninsula.
We shall not enter here into the details of their enterprises; enough has been written of their quarrels, the treacheries of Nasir Jung’s followers, and those of Muzaffar Jung, [Or, as Voltaire writes, "Nazerzingues, Mouzaferzing.”] their intrigues, their battles, and their assassinations.
UNIQUE ACTION OF AN OFFICER CALLED LA TOUCHE
We have the diaries of the sieges of twenty places unknown in Europe, badly fortified, badly attacked and badly defended: that is not our object. But we cannot pass over in silence the action of a French officer named de la Touche, who with only three hundred soldiers, penetrated at night into the camp of one of the biggest princes in these parts, killed twelve hundred of his men without losing more than three soldiers, and by this unheard-of success dispersed an army of nearly sixty thousand Indians, reinforced by some English troops. Such a happening shows us that the inhabitants of India are not any more difficult to conquer than were those of Mexico and Peru. It shows us how easy it was to conquer this country for the Tartars and those who had subjugated it before that time.
1748
Old manners and customs have been preserved in these parts as has also clothing: everything is different from us, there nature and art are not the same. Among us, after a big battle, the conquering soldiers do not have a penny increase in their pay. In India, after a short battle, the Nawabs gave millions to the European troops who had taken their side. Chanda Sahib, [According to Voltaire, "Chandazaeb.”] one of the princes under the protection of M. Dupleix, made a present to the troops of about two hundred thousand francs, and land bringing in nine to ten thousand pounds in income to their Commander, the Comte d’Auteuil. The Soubaidar Muzaffar Jung on another occasion had twelve hundred and fifty thousand pounds distributed to the little French army, and gave the same amount to the Company. M. Dupleix had also a pension of a hundred thousand rupees (two hundred and forty thousand French pounds) which he did not enjoy for long. A workman earns three sous per day in India: a noble has enough to scatter profusely.
DUPLEIX, VICEROY IN INDIA IN 1749.
After this, the assistant-manager of a trading Company received from the Grand Moghul the little of Nawab. The English maintained that this title was fictitious, and that it was a false pandering to vanity in order to over-awe European nations in India. If the French Governor had played such a trick, he would have done it in common with more than one Nawab and Soubaidar. False diplomas were bought at the Court in Delhi, and were received afterwards in ceremony from a man put there as a so-called Commissioner of the Emperor. But whether the Soubaidar Muzaffar Jung and the Nawab Chanda Sahib had really obtained this Imperial title for the Governor of Pondicheri, or whether it was fictitious, he made use of it openly. An agent of a trading society had become a sovereign, with sovereigns under his command! We know that Indians often treated him as King and his wife as Queen. M. de Bussy, who had distinguished himself in the defence of Pondicheri, had a dignity which cannot be better expressed than by the title of General of the Cavalry of the Grand Moghul. He made war and peace with the Maharattas, [Voltaire says Marates.] a warlike people of whom we shall write more, who sold their services, sometimes to the English, sometimes to the French. He made secure the thrones of the Princes created by M. Dupleix.
Recognition was proportionate to service rendered. Riches as well as honours were the reward. The greatest sovereigns in Europe have neither as much power nor as much splendour: but this fortune and this brilliance soon passed away. The English and their allies beat the French on more than one occasion. The immense sums of money given to the soldiers by the Soubaidars and the Nawabs were partly dissipated in debauchery and partly lost in the fights, and the exchequer, the munitions and the provisions of Pondicheri were exhausted.
HIS MISFORTUNE
The small army remaining in French hands was commanded by Major Lass, nephew of the famous Lass who had done so much ill to the country, but to whom the India Company owed its being. This young Scot fought bravely against the English, but, deprived of help and food, his courage was unavailing. He took the Nawab Chanda Sahib away to an island formed by rivers, called Sri Rangam, belonging to the Brahmins. It is perhaps useful to note here that the Brahmins were the rulers of this island. We have many similar examples in Europe. One could even assert that there are examples the world over. The old Brahmins [Voltaire makes a distinction between the Bracmanes (translated "Old Brahmins”) and Brames (translated "Brahmins") which seems to be unintelligible.] used to be, in former times, so they say, the first rulers of India. The Brahmins, [Voltaire makes a distinction between the Bracmanes (translated "Old Brahmins”) and Brames (translated "Brahmins") which seems to be unintelligible.] their successors, have only kept very little of their old power. Whatever the case may be, the little French army, led by a Scot, and billetted in an Indian monastery, had neither food, nor money to buy it with. M. Lass has kept for us the letter in which M. Dupleix ordered him to take everything that it was proper to take. Only two ornaments remained, reputed to be sacred, — they were two sculptured horses, covered in silver leaf. They were taken and sold, and the Brahmins did not complain or make any protest. But the proceeds of this sale did not prevent the French troops from giving themselves up as prisoners of war to the English. They captured the Nawab Chanda Sahib for whom Major Lass was fighting, and the English Nawab, the rival of Chanda Sahib, had his head cut off. M. Dupleix accused of this barbarism the English Colonel, Lawrence, who defended himself as if it was a crying slander.
1752
As for Major Lass, released on parole and back in Pondicheri, the Governor put him in prison, because he had been as unfortunate as he had been brave. He even dared to bring a criminal suit against him, which he dared not follow up.
Pondicheri remained in want, dejection and fear, while gold medals struck in honour and in the name of the Governor were being sent to Paris. He was called back in 1753, left in 1754, and came to Paris in despair. He lodged a case against the Company. He demanded from it millions, which were contested and which it would not have been able to pay if it had owed them. We have a memoir of his in which he breathed spite against his successor, Godeheu, one of the directors of the Company. Godeheu replied to him bitterly. The memoirs of these two titled agents are more voluminous than the history of Alexander. These tedious details of human weakness are scanned over for a few days by those who are interested, and are forgotten in a short time for new quarrels, which are in their turn blotted out by others. At last Dupleix died of chagrin, caused by his greatness, his fall from power, and above all, the sad necessity of soliciting judges after having ruled. Thus the two big rivals, who had gained renown in India, La Bourdonnaye and Dupleix, both died in Paris a sad and premature death.
Those who were, by their knowledge, fitted to judge their worth, said that La Bourdonnaye had the qualities of a sailor and a warrior; and Dupleix those of an enterprising and politic prince. An English author who had written the wars of the two companies until 1755, speaks of them in this way.
M. Godeheu was as wise and peaceful a negotiator, as his predecessor had been daring in his projects and brilliant in his administration. The former Governor had only thought of gaining fame in war. The second had orders to maintain himself by peaceful means -- and to come back and render an account of his deeds when a third Governor was established in Pondicheri.
It was above all necessary to raise the spirits of the Indians, exasperated by the cruelties meted out to some of their compatriots, who were dependents of the Company. A man from Malabar, called Naina, the Banker of La Bourdonnaye, had been thrown into a dungeon because he had not given evidence against him. Another man complained that money had been exacted from him. The children of another Indian, called Mondamia, ruler of a neighbouring district, ceaselessly demanded justice for the death of their father who had been tortured to death in order to extort money from him. A thousand complaints of this nature were making the name of France hated. The new Governor treated the Indians with humanity, and negotiated a compromise with the English. He and Mr. Saunders, then Governor of Madras, established a truce in 1755, and made a conditional peace.