Returning to the subject of the East India Company, the Emperor observed that the question respecting the comparative advantage of the monopoly of a company, or free trade for all, was an important subject of consideration. “A Company,” said he, “places great advantages in the hands of a few individuals, who may attend very well to their own interests, while they neglect those of the mass. Thus every company soon degenerates into an oligarchy: it is always the friend of power, to which it is ready to lend every assistance. In this point of view, companies were exclusively suited to old times and old systems. Free trade, on the contrary, is favourable to the interests of all classes; it excites the imagination and rouses the activity of a people; it is identical with equality, and naturally leads to independence. In this respect, it is most in unison with our modern system. After the treaty of Amiens, by which France regained her Indian possessions, I had this grand question thoroughly discussed before me, and at great length; I heard both statesmen and commercial men; and my final opinion was in favour of free trade, and against companies.”
The Emperor then discussed several points of political economy which are treated by Smith in his Wealth of Nations. He admitted that they were true in principle; but proved them to be false in application. Unfortunately, the scantiness of my notes here prevents me from entering into particulars.
“Formerly,” said he, “only one kind of property was known, that which consisted in landed possessions; afterwards, a second kind arose, that of industry or manufactures, which is now in opposition to the first; then arose a third, that which is derived from the burdens levied on the people, and which, distributed by the neutral and impartial hands of government, might obviate the evils of monopoly on the part of the two others, intervene between them, and prevent them from coming into actual conflict.” This great contest of modern times, he called the war of the fields against the factories, of the castles against the counting-houses.
“It is,” said he, “because men will not acknowledge this great revolution in property, because they persist in closing their eyes on these truths, that so many acts of folly are now committed, and that nations are exposed to so many disorders. The world has sustained a great shock, and it now seeks to return to a settled state. There,” said he, “is in two words, the Key to the universal agitation that at present prevails: the ship’s cargo has been shifted, her ballast has been removed from the stem to the stern; hence are produced those violent oscillations which may occasion her wreck in the first storm, if the crew persist in working the vessel according to the usual method, and without obtaining a new balance.”
This day has been rich in materials for my Journal. Besides the subjects to which I have already alluded, several others were introduced. When speaking of India and the English East India Company, the name of M. de Suffren was mentioned.
The Emperor had had no opportunity of forming a correct idea of the character of this officer: he had heard of his having rendered important services to his country and for that reason alone, he (Napoleon) had been very liberal to his family. The Emperor questioned me respecting Suffren. I had not known him personally, and therefore I could only report what I had heard of him from other persons in the navy. It was admitted that, since the time of Louis XIV., M. de Suffren was the only officer who bore a resemblance to the distinguished men of the brilliant period of our navy.
Suffren possessed genius, invention, ardour, ambition, and inflexible steadiness; he was one of those men whom Nature has fitted for any thing. I have heard very shrewd and sensible persons say that his death, in the year 1789, might have been looked upon as a national calamity; that, had he been admitted to the King’s Council in the critical moment, he might have brought matters to a very different result. Suffren, who was harsh, capricious, egotistical, and a very unpleasant companion, was loved by nobody, though he was valued and admired by all.
He was a man with whom no one could live on good terms. He was impatient of control, fond of condemning every thing, and, while he incessantly declaimed against the utility of tactics, he proved himself to be a perfect tactician. In short, he evinced all the irritability and restlessness of genius and ambition deprived of elbow-room.
On obtaining the command of the Indian squadron, he went to take leave of the King, and one of the officers of the palace could with difficulty open a passage for him through the crowd. “I thank you,” said he to the Usher, grunting and snorting in his usual way; “but when I come out, Sir, you shall see that I know how to clear the way for myself.” And he spoke truly.
On his arrival in India, he opened a new theatre for the arms of France, and performed prodigies, which perhaps have not been duly appreciated in Europe. He set on foot measures and plans of command hitherto unknown; taking every thing upon himself, hazarding all, inventing all, and foreseeing all. He broke and created his officers as he thought proper; fitted out and manned ships that had long since been condemned; and found a wintering station on the spot, when, according to the old routine, the ships would have been obliged to sail to the Isle of France, a distance of twelve or fifteen hundred leagues. Finally, he broke through all rules, approached the coast, took on board troops who had been fighting the old enemy, and, after they had assisted him in opposing the English squadron, he conveyed them back to their camp, to resume the contest by land. Thus the French flag assumed a superiority that disconcerted the enemy. “Oh,” exclaimed the Emperor, “why did not Suffren live till my time, or why did not I light on a man of his stamp? I would have made him our Nelson. I was constantly seeking for a man qualified to raise the character of the French navy; but I could never find one. There is in the navy a peculiarity, a technicality, that impeded all my conceptions. If I proposed a new idea, immediately Ganthaume, and the whole Marine Department, were up in arms against me.—‘Sire, that cannot be.‘—Why not?—‘Sire, the winds do not admit of it:’ then objections were started respecting calms and currents, and I was obliged to stop short. How is it possible to maintain a discussion with those whose language we do not comprehend? How often, in the Council of State, have I reproached naval officers with taking an undue advantage of this circumstance! To hear them talk, one might have been led to suppose that it was necessary to be born in the navy to know any thing about it. Yet I often told them that, had it been in my power to have performed a voyage to India with them, I should, on my return, have been as familiar with their profession as with the field of battle. But they could not credit this. They always repeated that no man could be a good sailor unless he were brought up to it from his cradle; and they at length prevailed on me to adopt a plan, about which I long hesitated, namely, the enrolment of several thousands of children from six to eight years of age.