Although the East India Company began operations at Surat on the west coast of India in the early seventeenth century, on the eastern side they began their trade at Machhlipatnam, sharing space with the more successful Dutch Company. Dutch and Portuguese rivalry, along with their inability to secure the local rulers’ support, soon forced the British to scout for a new place. Francis Day, one of their constituents, chose Madraspatnam further south. Madras was not a good harbour. However, the local Nayak rulers offered a good deal with favourable trade and customs’ duties, and permission to start a mint; all for a rent of two thousand Pagodas per annum. Francis Day had another reason to choose Madras. His mistress lived nearby at St Thome.
Soon, the British built Fort St George, which became the chief place of settlement for the Company in the south. The Dutch and the Portuguese were already there and the competition for trade sometimes became too intense. It was as late as in 1665 that the French formed their trading Company and the first French ships arrived in India.
In those years of European rivalry, Louis XIV of France ‘lured’ King Charles II of England to a treaty against the Dutch by sending him an ‘artful beauty’ named Louise Keroualle, and she succeeded in getting the English king to ‘sell’ himself to the French sovereign. Louise from all accounts was a formidable lady. She worked her way to become the English king’s chief mistress and also acted as a French spy, besides genuinely caring for Charles II. The Anglo-French alliance against the Dutch, a fellow Protestant state, was resented by the English people at the time.
In 1672, French ships reached Indian shores and they captured the town of St Thome near Madras from the Qutubshah of Golconda, where they began their trade. The Dutch were still at war with the French, and after two years, succeeded in evicting them from the place. Not long after, the French under François Martin outbid the Dutch and established their colony at Pondicherry in 1675. It was in 1677 that Maratha ruler Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj came to the Carnatic, and the Marathas occupied the region for the next two decades, until the fort of Jinji was surrendered to Mughal forces in 1698.
François Martin built Pondicherry, and although it was lost to the Dutch for a brief period, it became the principal French settlement in India. In 1688, Chandernagore was established on the river Hooghly in Bengal by obtaining a Firman from Aurangzeb. From 1713 onwards, the French and the British lived in peace in India, both earning handsome sums from their business activities. The key was to obtain cotton cloth to export to Europe and sell European broadcloth and woollens to India. The demand for woollens in a place like Madras can be easily imagined. Dedicated weavers who would supply goods to the traders were the key to massive profits. If the traders abandoned the place due to war, the colony also suffered.
This disturbance of trade and profit was the key to the conflicts with Indian powers as well as among the Europeans, and to the trading companies progressively building their own local militia with a few imported guns. Soon the French Navy and the Royal Navy began to participate in Indian wars. The companies were not on their own; while the British Company was supported by Parliament for the profit they brought Britain, the French Company was under the control of the King and his ministers. In a way, therefore, the British Company had greater latitude and independence before they were ‘controlled’ by Parliament.
The distance and time for a message to be replied from home countries took several months, and in the meanwhile, the situation in India often changed. The local Governor, therefore, had to take decisions on the spot. It was this autonomy that made the European Governors such powerful decision makers. Even then, without the support of the nation’s Navy, they could not achieve much.
During this time, the Nawabs of the Carnatic also depended on the French Governor Benoit Dumas for the security of their families and treasures. The friendly relations that existed between Arcot’s Nevayat Nawabs and the French colony, however, did not last. On the departure of Dumas, Dupleix took over as the Governor of Pondicherry in 1742, and as we shall see, Nawab Anwaruddin began to move away from the French.
To be continued…
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