152 LA BOURDONNAIS AND DUPLEIX. CHAP. IV. 1746. The first he did not consider advisable, because it was not, in his opinion, for the interests of the Company that they should have on the same coast, and in close vicinity to one another, two rival establishments. He added : " By the first orders received from the Minister, I was forbidden to keep any conquests ;* it is certain
- As this is the only place in the
entire correspondence in which La Bourdonnais alludes to the prohibi- tion on the part of the French Minis- try to keep any town or settlement conquered from the enemy, and as, nevertheless, he uses it in his me- moirs as a principal justification of his conduct; as, moreover, Mr. Orme, Mr. Mill, and other writers of Indian history down to the latest, Mr. Marsh- man, have adopted without examina- tion the asseitions of La Bourdonnais on this point, it becomes necessary to subject those assertions to the test of critical inquiry. It is perfectly true that the French Ministry had sent to La Bourdonnais an orderprohibitinghim "from taking- possession of any settlement or comp- toir of the enemy for the purpose of keeping it; " but even indep ndently of the circumstance that such an order did not render necessary the restoration of the captured place to the enemy, it is a fact that this order bore no reference to the campaign in which La Bourdonnais was engaged in 1746. It is true, that in his me- moirs, he places it among other orders issued in 1745 and 1746, to all of which the date is attached, but he has curiously omitted to assign any date to this one. The fact is, it was issued in 1741, at a time when La Bourdonnais had just been placed at the head of a combined fleet of King's and Company's ships to cruise in the Eastern seas, the moment hostilities should break out. But, even under those circumstances, it was not in- tended to be prohibitory in its action. As Professor H. H. Wilson justly remarks (Wilson's Mill, vol. iii. p. 49, note):— "The letter to the proprietors explains the purport of M. La Bourdonnais' instructions more correctly (than Mr. Mill had stated). He was not to form any new settle- ment, and the only alternatives in his power with regard to Madras were to restore or destroy it. The object of the French East India Com- pany was to improve their existing settlements, at least, before new ones were established." Thus, even when originally issued, the real purport of the order was very different to that which La Bourdonnais assigued to it. But the circumstances of 1746 were far different from those of 1741. In 1746, he was acting on territory, which the moment it became French by conquest, fell at once under the sway of the Governor-General of French India. It was clearly beyond his authority to maintain that be- cause, when conducting an indepen- dent cruise five years before, he had been restrained from making con- quests that were to be permanent, he was, therefore, restricted from carry- ing out then the instructions of one who had supreme authority on all Indian soil that had become or that might become French. The fol- lowing extract from the commission borne by Dupleix shows very clearly that his powers were of that ex- tensive nature. He was nominated " Governor of the Town and Fort of Pondichery, and of the places sub- ordinate 1o it, President of the Su- perior Council, to command there, not only the inhabitants of the said places, the clerks of the Com- pany and other inhabitants esta- blished there, but all Frenchmen and foreigners who may establish them- selves there hereafter, of whatsoever quality they may be; likewise all officers, soldiers, and gens de guerre who may be there or in garrison." Further he was ordered "to do ge- nerally whatever he might consider proper for the preservation of the said comptoirs and commerce, and the glory of our name, and to be entitled for the said charge to the accustomed honours, authority pre-
