602 REVIEWS OF BOOKS October government in dealing with such men. Bolts belonged to that group of private traders which included Hay, Amyatt, and Johnstone, and whose protagonist in resisting the Nabob's control was Ellis, only delivered from infamy by the tragedy of his end in Patna< It is significant of the indecisive character of the Calcutta rule that, despite his well-known audacities, Bolts was appointed alderman of the mayor's court of justice, and was thereby enabled to defy the council's order for his expulsion from India for over a year. His later career is full of an even wider historical interest. He attacked his late employers not only with his pen, but, by ingratiating himself at Vienna, he prevailed upon Maria Theresa to create a company for eastern trade and to dispatch an expedition under him. He reached Surat in the Joseph and Theresa after having ' asserted a right to ' Delagoa on his way out ' by virtue of a grant from the African king to her Imperial Majesty ', and having ' left ten men and some guns to maintain posses- sion '. Once in India he intrigued with the Chevalier de St. Lubin, a very similar adventurer in the French king's service, an ally of the Nana Farnavis, aiming at undermining the position of the British in India while America revolted. In this intrigue much light is thrown on the relation of the English Company to traders of other nationalities, and their attempt to maintain their monopoly against any new comers. Bolts succeeded in securing good cargoes of silks, &c, settled three factories on the Malabar coast, one on the Nicobar Islands, and returned to reconsolidate his position in Europe. But despite the support of the Emperor Joseph and the grand duke of Tuscany, and his enterprise in exploiting new avenues opened up by Captain Cook, he was foiled by the treachery of his partners, the firm of Proli of Antwerp. The Ostend Company which he had thus promoted was weakened by their intrigues and by shipping losses, and his ruin finally consummated by a panic among the shareholders. In 1784 the company collapsed with a loss of ten million florins. To students of the history of the British occupation of India Mr. Hall- ward's book comes as a very useful commentary on the events of the late eighteenth century. There appear to be one or two slight errors in pro- duction which confuse the meaning ; on p. 57, 11. 8 and 10, ' your ' stands perhaps for ' you a ', and ' surprised ' for ' apprised ', while on 1. 24 1 whom ' is a curious error for Bolts to make. In chapter xiii the docu- ments seem to have been confused here and there with the text ; on p. 69, the four last lines seem to be the letter itself of 27 July, while on pp. 71, 73 parts of the document are printed as text. M. E. Monckton Jones. Histoire de France contemporaine depuis la Revolution jusqu'a la Paix de 1919. Publiee sous la direction d'ERNESTLAVissE. Tomeii, La Revolu- tion (1792-1799). Tome iii, Le Consulat et V Empire. Par G. Pariset. Tome iv, La Restauration. Tome v, La Monarchic de Juillet. Par S. Charlety. Tome vi, La Revolution de 1848. Tome vii, Le Second Empire. Par Ch. Seignobos. (Paris: Hachette, 1920-1.) In this history M. Lavisse follows the same arrangement that he adopted for the earlier series on the history of France up to the Revolution. That
