companies ceased making on each other a ruinous war.
They united their funds in 1702 ; the fusion was completed
seven years after by the establishment of a central single
administration for the direction of affairs. Thus was defi-
nitely accomplished that association of merchants which
equipped fleets, maintained armies, possessed an immense



* Twelve years later its capital was raised to 400,000 pounds, and
voyages were then undertaken on joint stock account. ED.

f The new company General Society trading to the East Indies had
powerful patrons and a capital of 2,000,000 pounds. Evelyn's diary of
March 5, 1698, states : "The old East India Company lost their business
against the new company by ten votes in parliament, so many of their
friends being absent, going to see a tiger baited by dogs." ED.



CHAP. XXVI.] POWER OF ENGLAND. 44*

territory, governed innumerable peoples, and had kings as
tributaries.*

But before reaching such a condition it had many
struggles to sustain. The war of the Spanish succession
was fatal to its commerce: the French privateers continued
against it the system that had so well succeeded during pre-
ceding hostilities. The death of Aurangzeb (1707) came at
a fortunate time ; the anarchy which followed his death, and
the rivalries of the Indian princes, permitted it to extend
and grow rich.

One power then eclipsed England in the Indies, and that
power was France. During the reign of Francis I. mer-
chants of Rouen had hazarded an expedition which went
no farther than the Cape of Good Hope. After the reli-
gious wars an East India company under Henry IV. was
established in Brittany ; Richelieu founded a second, Col-
bert a third in 1664. The latter, more successful, which
means better conducted, than the others, planted a first
factory at Surat in 1675, and then another in 1676 at
Chandernagor, which twelve years after it bought from
Aurangzeb. Pondicherry, the most important point it occu-
pied, was acquired from the King of Beidjapour in 1679.
The Dutch with reluctance saw the French in those regions.
They made themselves masters of the place in 1693 and
fortified it, but for their enemies: the treaty of Ryswick
restored Pondicherry to France. This splendid establish-
ment, which, however, lacked a large harbor, could have
become the center of a vast dominion. Unfortunately the
company was abandoned; its ruin was hastened by the pro-
hibition against importing into France the manufactured
products of India. The war of the Spanish succession
increased its distress ; the peace of Utrecht did not concern
itself with India, where the English and French interests
had not yet reached a development bordering on antagonism.
Then appeared the famous Law with his projects, chimerical
because so gigantic. He united the companies of the West,
of China, of Africa, and of the East Indies in a single body
under the name of Perpetual Company of the Indies (1719).
The Perpetual Company fell two years after with the system,

* In 1709 the company was able to loan the government 3,190,000
pounds at 2/4 per cent. The profits of the early voyages were seldom
less than 100 per cent. ED.



442 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [BOOK VI.

but it revived in 1723 and reached a new prosperity. Pon-
dicherry found in Dumas, sent as governor general in 1725,
a skillful and active man, who obtained from Mohammed
Schad, the Grand Mogul, the right of coining money ; and
for an insignificant sum bought the city and territory of
Karikal (1730) from an Indian pretender to the kingdom
of Tanjaour.

The French company then grew with rapidity; it pos-
sessed factories at Calassor in Orissa, at Chandernagor, at
Dakka in Bengal, at Calicut, at Mahe, and at Surat. The
empire of the Mogul was divided into nine great provinces,
governed by soubabs or viceroys; these provinces in their
turn were subdivided into districts administered by nabobs.
After the death of Aurangzeb all these princes became, or
sought to become, independent. The French company like
the English took advantage of these rivalries to strengthen
its establishments; it intrusted with the care of its interests
in those remote regions two remarkable men, La Bourdon-
nais, governor general of the islands of France and of Bour-
bon, whose resources he developed, and Dupleix. The latter,
appointed in 1742 governor of Pondicherry and director
general of the French factories in India, formed the project,
which the English have since carried out, of making a terri-
torial power of the company, which till then had been only
commercial.

When the war of the Austrian succession broke out, the
hostilities, despite the propositions of the cabinet of Ver-
sailles and after the refusal of the cabinet of St. James, had
the colonies as their theater. La Bourdonnais quitted the
islands of France and Bourbon to operate on the coasts of
the Indian continent in concert with Dupleix. Unhappily
jealousy arose between these two superior men, discord
paralyzed their strength and rendered their exploits fruit-
less. Thus La Bourdonnais, victorious over an English
squadron, besieged Madras, which offered a ransom of
10,000,000 francs. Dupleix arrived, annulled the capitula-
tion, pillaged the city, gave it up to the flames, and even
had his rival removed from his command at the island of
France. La Bourdonnais on return to France found pub-
lic opinion prejudiced by the accusations of Dupleix; he
was confined in the Bastille and remained there several
years without the opportunity of being heard in his defense.
Meanwhile the English returned to Madras and besieged



CHAP. XXVI.] POWER OF ENGLAXD. 443

Pondicherry; Dupleix by an admirable resistance forced
them to retire. Some time after the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle
terminated hostilities (1748).

Delivered from the war with the English, Dupleix resumed
his projects of conquest. He secured the triumph of a pre-
tender as Soubab of the Deccan, and obtained from him
Mazulipatam and increase of territory around Pondicherry
and Karikal. Then he ruled from the river Kristna to Cape
Comorin and governed 30,000,000 men with absolute power.
Opposed by Lawrence and Clive, English officers, who were
supported by good troops as well as by the Mahrattas and
the princes of Tanjaour and Mysore, he could not obtain
the success of his candidate as Nabob of Carnat. These
expeditions cost much ; the merchants, of whom Dupleix
was the agent, did not ask glory and conquests, but divi-
dends; abandoned by the government of Louis XV., which
should have recognized the value of such a man, he was
recalled (1754). Weeping he quitted that land of India
where he had given France a coast line 200 leagues long by
from 25 to 30 broad with a revenue of 14,000,000 francs,
and had established French influence over an empire five or
six times more vast. In 1763 he died at Paris in misery.
The English have said of him that, had he been sustained
by his government, India would have belonged to France.
By practicing his policy they have achieved the conquest of
that wonderful empire; their native army, which a few years
ago brought them into serious peril after having rendered so
signal services, is only a copy of that which Dupleix had
organized; the position to which they have reduced the
Indian princes is the same which he began to impose upon
them.

England did not lose time in taking possession of this fair
heritage to which France put forth no claim of inheritance.
Her flag so far covered only a small number of forts; a
prince of Bengal in 1756 even seized from her Calcutta,
which Clive retook. At that moment broke out in Europe
the Seven Years' War. The two companies, English and
French, agreed upon neutrality; this was violated by the
English, who destroyed Chandernagor (1757) because
Suradja Dowlah, Nabob of Bengal, wished alliance with
the French. By the victory of Plassey (1757) Clive over-
threw that prince and replaced him by another chief, who
ruled in the interest of the English. This one success was



444 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [BOOK VI.

worth seven or eight million francs to Clive and three
times as much to the company.

The Marquis of Bussey, former lieutenant of Dupleix,
still upheld the French influence. He was replaced by
Count Lally, an Irishman in the service of France. He was
an officer of talent and a man of great courage; he had an
Irish hatred for the English; but he was hot-headed and
violent and rendered himself odious to the other agents of
the company, far more, it is true, by his integrity than by
his vices. He had imagined that Arcot was still the land of
wealth, that Pondicherry was provided with everything, and
that he would have a perfect support from the company and
the troops. In all these anticipations he was deceived: no
money in the cash box, few munitions, blacks and sepoys
for the army, private individuals wealthy and the colony
poor, utter absence of subordination. This deception devel-
oped in him ill humor, which is unworthy of a leader and
always injurious to business. However, he speedily seized
Gondelour, but failed before Madras (1750). After having
for a long time defended Pondicherry he was obliged to
capitulate and the city found itself in ruins (1761). Return-
ing to France, Lally was accused of treason and shamefully
put to death; gagged to prevent his speaking to the people,
he was carried to execution in a tumbril (1766). At the
solicitation of his son, Lally-Tollendal, this sentence was in
1778 declared unjust. The French colonies in East India
were lost. By the peace of 1763 Pondicherry, Karikal, and
Chandernagor were restored to France, but stripped of their
territory and fortifications. Lord Clive was almost as
unfortunate as Lally. Sent in 1764 to Hindustan with full
powers, he forced the Grand Mogul to abandon to the
company the collection of the revenues of Bohar, Bengal,
and Orissa, minus an annual tribute of 7,500,000 francs.
But afterward accused in the House of Commons of pecu-
lation, although the report of the commission of inquiry
when speaking of his faults had also spoken of his services,
he was unwilling to survive what he regarded as an injustice,
and so committed suicide (1774).

The English no longer had European rivals in India.
Then they were forced to fight against the famous Haidar
AH, sovereign of Mysore ; they concluded a disadvantageous
treaty with him in 1769, but four years later completed the
conquest of -Bengal. The company was nevertheless near



CHAP. XXVI.] POWER OF ENGLAND. 445

bankruptcy ; the government came to its assistance on con-
dition that it should enjoy the right of exercising a rigorous
inspection of its political affairs. Driven from Bengal,
Haidar AH united the Mahrattas and the Nizam of Deccan
against the English. This coalition, formed at the moment
when war had broken out in America, seemed to put the
English in peril (1778), especially as France had granted
her alliance to the American colonies; but France no
longer had important forces in India, and she speedily lost
Chandernagor, Karikal, and Pondicherry. Two victories
of Haidar Ali were useless (1780); he was forced into retire-
ment (1781) after a great defeat. France then sent to his
assistance the famous Bailli de Suffren, one of her best
admirals, who beat the English as many times as he met
them. But Haidar Ali died the same year (1782). He left
a worthy successor in his son, Tippoo Sahib, who was called
the Frederick II. of the East; he was at least the energetic
representative of Indian nationality and one of the most
remarkable men of modern Asia. Tippoo Sahib continued
the war; but he lost the French alliance when the treaty of
Versailles, reconciling England and France, restored Pon-
dicherry, Karikal, and Chandernagor to the latter poAver,
and to Holland its former possessions with the exception
of Negapatam (1783). He then signed the treaty of Man-
galore (1784).

Tippoo Sahib recommenced the war in 1792 and sus-
tained it seven years with success; he perished while
defending his capital, Seringapatam (1799). Since that
moment the English have been the real rulers of India;
they still possess that vast and opulent country where
they have 150,000,000 subjects, whom their first governors
oppressed with pitiless cruelty. A successor of Lord Clive,
Warren Hastings, the modern Verres, by his exactions
occasioned a famous trial with which England resounded
seven years (1788-95).



CHAPTER XXVII.
FOUNDATION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.



Origin and Constitution of the English Colonies in America. American
War (1775-83).



THE English had not counted upon Hindustan, and Hin-
dustan is to them a mine abounding in wealth.

They had counted upon colonies in truth less opulent, but

less remote. To-day those colonies are free, they have

Origin and grown rich, but for themselves, they constitute

constitution of an important power, and vie with their mother

c o e i o n i es g l f n country for commercial and maritime superi-

America. ority.

In the sixteenth century the English made many voyages
of discovery along the coast of North America, and some
few attempts at colonization, especially under Walter
Raleigh in the province which he named Virginia in honor
of Queen Elizabeth. He expected to find gold and silver
mines on this coast as in Mexico. In 1606 two companies,
the London Company and the Plymouth Company, were
formed to work them. James I. divided between them the
territory situated between 34 and 48 north latitude. The
former had Virginia, where it founded Jamestown ; the lat-
ter, New England. No precious metals were discovered;
but the whale fishery on the coasts of Greenland and the
cod fishery near Newfoundland accustomed English vessels
to frequenting those shores; and colonists were attracted by
the rich lands of Virginia, where tobacco culture rapidly
assumed importance. The intolerance of the home govern-
ment soon forced others to the lands of the northern com-
pany.

In 1620 Puritans, escaping from old England, where they
were persecuted by James I., sought beyond the ocean a
place where in their own way they could worship God; they
established themselves at the foot of Cape Cod, not many

44 6



CHAP. XXVII.] FOUNDATION OF UNITED STATES. 447

miles from the spot where Boston was to rise a few years
later. At the same time the Bermudas and a part of the
Antilles were occupied; in 1629 the colony of Massachu-
setts Bay was organized; then came those of New Hamp-
shire and Maine (1630), united to Massachusetts in 1691, of
Maryland, ceded in 1632 to an Irishman, Lord Baltimore,
who settled there 200 Catholic gentlemen, of Connecticut,
(1635), and of Rhode Island (1636). Under Cromwell the
English captured Jamaica from the Spaniards, and a little
later they took from the Dutch the New Netherlands, of
which they made three provinces, New York, New Jersey,
and Delaware.

Charles II. through policy encouraged the movement of
emigration which his father had provoked by persecutions.
He gave Carolina, which was afterward divided into two
provinces, to eight English lords, and made a like donation
to William Penn, who called the country where he settled
Pennsylvania (1682). By the treaty of Utrecht England
acquired Acadia, or Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and Hud-
son's Bay (1713). Georgia was not occupied before 1733.

All these colonies, founded at the expense of private per-
sons and not held in leading strings by the home govern-
ment as were those of France, developed rapidly. The
English colonists, who numbered only 40,000 in 1630, formed
in 1660 a population of 200,000 souls. Canada, colonized
much earlier, had meanwhile only attained a population of
eleven or twelve thousand. The reason is that the English
colonies were the cradle wherein civil, commercial, and re-
ligious liberty was found, while monopoly and the most strict
dependence arrested all progress in Canada. They were
open to all comers, and there was no conquered party in the
home revolutions which did not find in America an asylum
all ready to receive it : New England, whose code was called
the body of liberties, for the "Roundheads" and repub-
licans; Virginia for the Cavaliers; Maryland for the
Catholics.

There were three kinds of government, charter govern-
ments, royal governments, and proprietary governments.
In the first (Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island)
the colonists by their agents or representatives exercised
legislative, executive, and judicial functions. In the second
(Virginia, New York, the Carolinas, Georgia, New Hamp-
shire, and New Jersey) the governor and all the function-



448 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [BOOK VI.

aries were named by the king, but the legislative assemblies
were elective. In the third (Maryland, Delaware, Pennsyl-
vania) the proprietors had the legislative and executive
power. There also, however, existed legislative assemblies,
named partly by the proprietors, partly by the people.
Hence, developed or limited, the representative system
existed everywhere in the English colonies, while the
French of Canada had been unable to obtain the right to
appoint a syndic or mayor at Quebec, "it not being good,"
wrote Colbert, "that one should speak for all." Printing,
which was introduced into the French colony only in 1764
after France had lost it, existed in 1636 in Massachusetts;
a law of that province required under penalty of fine that
there should be a primary school for each community of 50
hearths and a grammar school in each village of 100. A
college for the higher studies was founded in 1636 in order
that, said they, the learning of their fathers should not be
buried with them in their tombs.*

The colonies had at first full commercial liberty. This
was withdrawn by Cromwell. Still they never conformed
save imperfectly to restrictive laws. Especially was this true
of Massachusetts, the most flourishing of all, which replied
to the representatives of Charles II. : "The king can enlarge
our liberties, but has no authority to diminish them." At
that moment the Stuarts were making most earnest efforts
to build up absolute power; they established it in the colo-
nies. Massachusetts lost her charter; it was restored by
the revolution of 1688.

In 1739 the idea of taxing the colonies was suggested to
Walpole. "I have already against me," he replied, "all old
England; do they wish me to make young England also my
enemy?"

But the Seven Years' War, politically so favorable to
England, had raised its debt to 100,000,000 pounds, on which
there was an annual interest of 2,720,000 pounds. After
the Seven Years' War under the ministry of Lord Grenville,
father-in-law of the younger Pitt, Parliament imposed upon
the American colonies the stamp tax, which compelled them

* Before the revolution eight colleges had been founded, all still
existing, widely known, and influential. These are Harvard, founded
1636 ; William and Mary, 1693 ; Yale, 1701 ; Princeton, 1746 ; King's
(now Columbia), 1754 ; Brown, 1764 ; Queen's (now Rutgers), 1766 ;
Dartmouth, 1769. ED.



CHAP. XXVII.J FOUNDATION OF UNITED STATES. 449

to employ for documents a paper stamped at London and
sold at a high price (1765). The opposition* which this
impost excited compelled its revocation by the ministry the
following year. It was replaced by a tax on glass, paper,
and tea (1767).

The colonists, invoking the grand principle of the Eng-
lish constitution that no citizen is bound to submit to taxes
not voted by his representatives, refused to pay these duties,
and ninety-six towns formed a convention at Boston, whose
members agreed to buy no English merchandise as long as
justice was not done to their complaints. In the one
year 1769 the English exportations to America diminished
more than 600,000 pounds. Lord North, Prime Minister
of England, seeing commerce decrease, proposed the repeal
of the new duties except that on tea. This half concession
satisfied nobody. The inhabitants of Boston threw into the
sea three cargoes of tea which had arrived from England,
and the minister closed the port of Boston by act of Parlia-
ment (1774). A general congress of the colonies met at
Philadelphia. It addressed an ineffectual remonstrance to
the king; and, as William Pitt, who wished both the liberty
of the Americans and the integrity of the British empire,
had foreseen, war broke out.

Upon the American continent war was carried on at three
points: at the northeast in the vicinity of the important
cities of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia;
war c^775-83). an i n the northwest toward Canada, which the
Americans endeavored to draw into their
movement, and whence the English were able to attack in
the rear the colonists, whom they menaced in front from the
ocean; lastly in the south around Charleston in South
Carolina, where the English with their fleet had every
advantage for carrying on the war. Therefore the Americans
were obliged to divide their forces, and their troops had to
march enormous distances. When France took part in the
war it extended over all the seas.

The opening of hostilities was marked by a success which
strengthened the heart of the insurgents: the American
militia at Lexington defeated an English detachment (1775)
and 30,000 Americans besieged General Gage in Boston.

* The first colonial congress, consisting of twenty-eight delegates from
nine States, met October 7, 1765, at New York, and there issued the
famous Declaration of Rights. ED.



45 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [BOOK VI.

It was a multitude, but not an army. To organize it con-
gress appointed as generalissimo George Washington, a rich
Virginian planter, who as a colonial officer had distinguished
himself in the Seven Years' War against the French. While
he introduced discipline and sustained military order, the
western colonists invaded Canada and captured Montreal,
but their leader, Montgomery, was killed at the siege of
Quebec. Carleton repulsed them from that city and drove
them from the province. The capture of Boston by Wash-
ington (March 17, 1776) was inadequate compensation.

However, congress dared to break irrevocably with Great
Britain by declaring the independence of the thirteen colo-
nies (July 4, 1776), who formed themselves into a confeder-
ation, in which, however, each State preserved its religious
and political liberty. In this declaration were to be remarked
the following principles which seemed to issue from the
heart of French philosophy :* "All men are created equal ;
they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable
rights; to secure these rights governments are instituted
among men deriving their just powers from the consent of
the governed; whenever any form of government becomes
destructive of these ends," for which it has been established,
" it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it."

The English ministry had bought of the German princes
17,000 mercenaries. The American volunteers, without
magazines, without resources, could not at first hold their
own against the veteran regiments, well supplied and well
paid, which were directed against them. Howe captured
New York and Rhode Island, and inflicted upon Washing-
ton near the River Brandywine a check which exposed
Philadelphia. Discouragement crept into Washington's

* The immense share of the French in inspiring and achieving the
independence of the colonies is very inadequately set forth in most
American accounts of the Revolutionary War. It is well known that
some of the opening sentences of the Declaration of Independence are
taken almost verbatim from the " Contrat Social " of Jean Jacques Rous-
seau, and that ideas developed by French philosophy were the inspiration
of the writer of that Declaration, Thomas Jefferson. It is indeed too
much to assert, as is often done, that resistance to British oppression was
the achievement pre-eminently of any one section or the result of any
'one school of politics. But the vast debt which Americans owe to the
ideas of French thinkers and to the material assistance of France through
what otherwise might have been a hopeless struggle ought never to be
forgotten by an honorable and grateful people. ED.



CHAP. XXVII.] FOUNDATION OF UNITED STATES. 45 1

army. The royalists, the few partisans whom England
retained, commenced to act and several States wavered in
their new allegiance to America. Congress withdrew to
Baltimore in Maryland, abandoning Philadelphia, which
Howe entered (September n). But the American general
knew even in the midst of the hardest experiences how to
preserve the judicious audacity which such a war demanded.