A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon / For the Use of Schools and Colleges

by John Lord

The French claimed the French Encroachments. right of erecting a chain of fortresses along the Ohio and the Mississippi, with a view to connect Canada with Louisiana, and thus obtain a monopoly of the fur trade with the Indians, and secure the possession of the finest part of the American continent. But these designs were displeasing to the English colonists, who had already extended their settlements far into the interior. The English ministry was also indignant in view of these movements, by which the colonies were completely surrounded by military posts. England protested; but the French artfully protracted negotiations until the fortifications were completed.

It was to protest against the erection of these fortresses that George Washington, then twenty-three years of age, was sent by the colony of Virginia to the banks of the Ohio. That journey through the trackless wilderness, attended but by one person, in no slight degree marked him out, and prepared him for his subsequently great career.

While the disputes about the forts were carried on between the cabinets of France and England, the French prosecuted their encroachments in America with great boldness, which doubtless hastened the rupture between the two countries. Orders were sent to the colonies to drive the French from their usurpations in Nova Scotia, and from their fortified posts upon the Ohio. Then commenced that great war, which resulted in the loss of the French possessions in America. But this war was also allied with the contests which grew out of the Austrian Succession, and therefore will be presented in a separate chapter on the Pelham administration, during which the Seven Years' War, in the latter years of the reign of George II., commenced.

But the colonial jealousy between England and France existed not merely in view of the North American colonies, but also those in the European Settlements in the East. East Indies; and these must be alluded to in order to form a general idea of European colonization, and of the causes which led to the mercantile importance of Great Britain, as well as to the great wars which desolated the various European nations.

From the difficulties in the American colonies, we turn to those, therefore, which existed in the opposite quarter of the globe. Even to those old countries had European armies penetrated; even there European cupidity and enterprise were exercised.

As late as 1742, the territories of the English in India scarcely extended beyond the precincts of the towns in which were located the East India Company's servants. The first English settlement of importance was on the Island of Java; but, in 1658, a grant of land was obtained on the Coromandel coast, near Madras, where was erected the strong fortress of St. George. In 1668, the Island of Bombay was ceded by the crown of Portugal to Charles II., and appointed the capital of the British settlements in India. In 1698, the English had a settlement on the Hooghly, which afterwards became the metropolis of British power.

But the Dutch, and Portuguese, and French had also French Settlements in India. colonies in India for purposes of trade. Louis XIV. established a company, in imitation of the English, which sought a settlement on the Hooghly. The French company also had built a fort on the coast of the Carnatic, about eighty miles south of Madras, called Pondicherry, and had colonized two fertile islands in the Indian Ocean, which they called the Isle of France and the Isle of Bourbon. The possessions of the French were controlled by two presidencies, one on the Isle of France, and the other at Pondicherry.

When the war broke out between England and France, in 1744, these two French presidencies were ruled by two men of superior La Bourdonnais and Dupleix. genius,—La Bourdonnais and Dupleix,—both of them men of great experience in Indian affairs, and both devoted to the interests of the company, so far as their own personal ambition would permit. When Commodore Burnet, with an English squadron, was sent into the Indian seas, La Bourdonnais succeeded in fitting out an expedition to oppose it, and even contemplated the capture of Madras. No decisive action was fought at sea; but the French governor succeeded in taking Madras. This success displeased the Nabob of the Carnatic, and he sent a letter to Dupleix, and complained of the aggression of his countrymen in attacking a place under his protection. Dupleix, envious of the fame of La Bourdonnais, and not pleased with the terms of capitulation, as being too favorable to the English, claimed the right of annulling the conquest, since Madras, when taken, would fall under his own presidency.

The contentions between these two Frenchmen prevented La Bourdonnais from following up the advantage of his victory, and he failed in his attempts to engage the English fleet, and, in consequence, returned to France, and died from the effects of an unjust imprisonment in the Bastile.

Dupleix, after the departure of La Bourdonnais, brought the principal inhabitants of Madras to Pondicherry. But some of them contrived to escape. Among them was the celebrated Clive, then a clerk in a mercantile house. He entered as an ensign into the company's service, and soon found occasion to distinguish himself.