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131S THE LEAD E B. [No. 506, Pec. 34 1-8...
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IIDIA, AND - .INDIAN' PROGRESS.
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"^* MAHE DE LA BOURDONNAIS. An English g...
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108.men and horses; 1st European Cavalay...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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131s The Lead E B. [No. 506, Pec. 34 1-8...
131 S THE LEAD E B . [ No . 506 , Pec . 34 1-85 Q
Iidia, And - .Indian' Progress.
IIDIA , AND - . INDIAN' PROGRESS .
"^* Mahe De La Bourdonnais. An English G...
" ^* MAHE DE LA BOURDONNAIS . An English governor in an English colony has done an act of historic justice to the one ¦ tfrencnmaa -who has ever comprehended true colonial policy . Qn the 30 th August last Mr . Stevenson , Governor of the Mauritius , presided at the inauguration of the statue of Labourdonnais , the founder of the colony . It was a great day for the colonists , and we cannot presume to attempt a description of a scene on which the editor of the local journal and " his Worship , the Mayor of Port Louis , would have been elo
descanted in language which - quent if it were riot more French than English . " Heaven itself seemed to smile on this great act of historic justice . The summits of the majestic mountains looming in the distance were enwreathed with the white clouds of our intertropical winter , whilst a sharp , steady breeze maintained the multitude of flags of all nations which adorned the scene in graceful and welcoming motion . " The Place d'Armes , in the centre of which the statue is placed , was decked with flags , which were themselves " decorated with every possible variety of the Flora Mauritiaua . " Three thousand spectators filled the seats around . The mayor , with true French
emtaking Mane , in 1724 , he conducted several trading expeditions , the success of which recommended him to the Portuguese . After destroying the Mahratta pirates on the Malabar coast and securing a favourable treaty from the Zamorinof Calicut , he returned to France in 1733 .. The . well-known Orry was minister of finance under Cardinal Fleury , and by them he was appointed Governor-General of the Islands ^ of France and Bourbon . Abandoned by both the Portuguese and the Dutch , the French Company had taken possession of them , and Labourdonnais found on his arrival only a few Europeans who had escaped from the massacre of their countrymen in Madagascar , some of the Company ' s sailors and soldiers with whom mutiny was chronic , and residents from various European countries , who considered
themselves irresponsible lords . He could not weld this heterogeneous mass into a well-ordered community without exciting much enmity against himself , the fruits of which brought him ultimately to the Bastile and the grave . He reformed the so-called courts ; he created a black police , who drove out or exterminated the brigands that infested the island ; he laid the foundation of that commercial policy ¦ which has made the Mauritius so prosperous ; he introduced the cultivation of cotton , indigo , manioc , sugar , and coffee ; he filled the colonists with a mercantile spirit ; though without artizans or architects , he made a canal , built magazines , arsenals , barracks , hospitals , roads , and bridges ; and created the ports of St . Louis and Mahebourg , so culled after himself . There are , in fact , no improvements in the colony the germs of which may not be traced to Ms administration .
But his enemies were active in France , and thither he returned , in 1740 , to meet their calumnies . This he accomplished so successfully that he was sent out tw India as chief of a fleet , ready for war with England , which was then impending , and broke out in 1744 . Hig presenee was hateful to Dupleix ; he stood in the way of his ambitious designs . But his was the honour of bombarding Madras two years after , of forcing it to open its gates to him , and of using his victory with wise moderation . Had not Dupleix interfered he would have secured for France a large ransom ; but Madras was restored , without payment , by treaty . Wearied in . the contest with
Dupleix , Labourdonnais returned to France , to be accused ,, kept in the Bastile for three years , and liberated with an emphatic declaration of his innocence , only to sink into his grave in 1753 . The poor recompense his widow received froni Louis XV . was a pension of 100 'livres . The Colonial Assembly of the Mauritius gave his daughter , Madame la Marquise de Montluzon , a pension of 3 , 000 . Dupleix saw the end of all liis ambitious hopes , and died an insolvent , hardly saved from prison . There is much in the life of Labourdonnais like that of Lally , who perished by the guillotine , a victim to the envy of Dupleix ' s successor , M . Bussy .
Thus France rewarded her great colonisers , and now an English colony renders tardy justice to the greatest among them . Unlike the English East India Company , which , left to itself , founded our Eastern Empire arid has ever defended and rewarded its own servants , that of France failed from the first , and while it rewarded its worst servants , persecuted its best . Established in 1664 , its first mistake was in forming a settlement in Madagascar . Throughout its history , Colbert , Meury , and Orry used it as a
political engine to carry out the objects of the ministry of the day and not of its shareholders . The company retaliated on those of its servants who , like Labourdonnais and Lally , promoted the objects of the Stato while they advanced the interests of the Company . And now the former is honoured on foreign soil , and the latter remembered as the most meritorious and most unhappy of the many soldiers of fortune who have increased the honour of France . —Friend of India .
vressement , exhausted himself in finding seats for the ladies , and in his speech appealed to their sympathies , hoping , with a contic pathos , that , " first magistrate of this important town , " he had struck the right chord in their breast , and that they would not reproach him with not having done more than was physically possible under the circumstances . With the sound of cannon his Excellency the Governor took his place , followed by a long procession of fair young Creoles , with banners and flowers , from the schools of Port Louis . The judges of the Supreme Court , the heads of departments in full costume , officers , naval and military , bishops and cler " gy , Protestant and Catholic , delegates from
Reunion , and the resident consular representatives of foreign nations , all figure in a picture which rejoiced the French editor ' s heart . When the sensation excited by the arrival of Mrs . Stevenson had subsided , amid the strains of the " National Anthem , " the sound of a royal salute , and the deafening applause of the delighted spectators , " the screen which had until then mantled the statue fell from its ligatures , " and Labourdonnais was -seen . In the court dress of the time of Louis XV . he is represented as reposing against the . lower trunk of the dtittier tree , bearing on his breast his insignia and orders . Speeches followed . The Governor in his oration was evidently so polite as to accommodate himself to the French , idea of festive rhetoric . The Hon . M .
JjTopier spoke in French , but , alas ! the reporter has to express his regrets that he cannot at once publish the address , " for two reasons : 1 , on account of its length ; and 2 , in consequence of our having been continually interrupted by the propinquity to the reporter ' s table of a certain wellknown and most eccentric gentleman , who would insist upon our handing up to the chair a sheet of paper , purporting to be a speech prepared by him for the occasion . " Even the enthusiasm of the " eccentric person , " however , fell far short of the mayor ' s , who , in his peroration , expressed his pride
that " as an humble member of colonial society " he had fulfilled his duty , and called upon the orchestra for the " magnificent cantata composed for the occasion , which was ohaunted by the Slite of the dramatic troupe , was listened to throughout with breathless interest , and was saluted at its close with immense and long continued plaudits . " A procession of younff ladies , dressed in white , with wreathed coiffures , strewing flowers of choice beauty round the base of the statue , and Partanfc pour la Syrie , " closed the auspicious day . The mayor , it is to be hoped , slept soundly .
Though the whole reads like a chapter of " Pickwick , " we must not omit to assign , to the act described its true historical value . The fashion in which the Creoles and half-Anglicised Frenchmen of the island of Paul and Virginia rejoice in the man whom it delights them to honour may be absurd , hut he wa«— -to the French—as worthy of honour as Olive or Warren Hastings anuong ourselves . ' In the whole history of French adventure In . the East , Labourdonnala was' the one man vrh . o had pot only a definite colonial policy but the ability to carry it out . Hie career fills the first half of the Hast century . Little more than a century ngo he died , under the ingratitude and injustice of his country . Born at-St . Mayo In 1009 , ho spent his early youtli at nea , and In 1719 sailed for Surat as lieutenant in the service of the French East India Company , After
108.Men And Horses; 1st European Cavalay...
108 . men and horses ; 1 st European Cavalay , 160 men and horses ; 1 st Punjab Cavalry , 400 men and horses Roberta ' s Horse * 390 men arid horses ; HerMajestv ' s 35 th Regiment , 830 men ; Her Majesty ' s 80 th Regiment , 750 men ; 1 st Sikh Infantry , 700 men ; Cawapore Levy , 700 men ; Depot Battalion , 200 men-Governor-General's Body Guard , loo men and horses . That is a larger force than the army with which Sir Charles Napier conquered Scinde . At Sheergotty , however , Lord Canning received orders from England which accelerated his movements , and he went on straight to Cawnpore to meet Lord Cl 3 de . It is understood that his lordship returns to Calcutta in December to sec Mr . Wilson , and it is rumoured , abolish the Council . The last statement must be , at all events , premature , as no Act of Parliament has yet authorised the change .
The Times correspondent says : —• " A force ( 5 , 000 men ) , I hear , will be sent from India to China , but ; there is a hitch of some kind about the Sikhs . They were willing-enough to go three months sinee , and several regiments volunteered , but there is a hitch now , though whether it proceeds from the men or the officers I cannot immediately ascertain . Reports , one of them official , announcing the death of the Nana , have been received in-Calciitta from
Katmandoo . They are not believed . According to the latest accounts , he was levying recruits on our frontier , and threatening to annihilate Lueknow , or blow up St . Paul ' s , or commit some deed of equal absurdity . He has about 6 , 000 ruffians with him , half-armed and more than half-starved , and the Nepaulese troops are at last advancing on his rear . " The report of his death from jungle-fever was , it is suspected , spread by the Nepaulese to avoid the necessity of surrendering him when taken . " THE GOVERNOK-GEJfEUAL . The Calcutta correspondent of Allen ' s Indian Mail has some forcible remarks on Lord Canning ' s peculiar system of government . — " We are wearied of dinning into your ears the incapacity of the Governor-General , and equally wearied of neither being listened to , nor believed by those who do listen . Both Conservatives and Liberals are determined to keep Lord . Canning , in his place , and even approve of the very worst of his acts . We have scarcely yet recovered froni-the surprise with which we read Sir Charles Wood ' s entire approval of the course which- Lord Canning pursued regarding the old Company ' s gallant European army . In India we look upon it as the very worst of his many impolitic acts . A-new opportunity was offered to him by the disaster in China of endeavouring to detain the
discharged Europeans . A soothing and well-worded general order , offering the men a bounty to re-enlist for China , might have been successful ; but Lord Canning left Calcutta without deigning to make the attempt . A telegraphic order from the British ministry reached him at Sheergotty , three hundred miles from Calcutta , and Lord Canning then issued another general order , but took special care so to word it that the re-enlistment of the men was made to appear as a matter of favour , and those who had shown any insubordination were to be excluded . Why , to a man , they were insubordinate . They not only were insubordinate , but they mutinied . If there had been any chance of getting thenjou'to re-enlist , the wording of the order would have destroyed it . Among a thousand men to whom the ofTcr was made some forty only accepted it .
According to the Times , India is to send the men , China is to pay the money , and England is not to have much trouble in the matter . With a Governor-General of common capacity and activity , India , undoubtedly , could send a great expedition to China , as she has done before ; but Lord Canning gives himself no more thought about China than ho does about Timbuctoo or Honolulu . Ho sont one regiment and ordered another to go 'to the assistance of Mr . Bruce , and this is all he thought ho could spare , considering he requires an army oi four thousand men to escort himself i" his triumphant progress through the country . . '¦{ jOr {} Canning ' s financial measures arc on a par with ju » his other measures—* incomprehensible in tlioir tolly . The tax on trades and professions is miserably insufficient for the wants of Government , i \ uects
LATEST INDIAN INTELLIGENCE . The Calcutta mail which arrivod this week , has brought intelligence from that city to the 22 nd October . The latest intelligence is to the effect that Dwarlca has been evacuated after several days ' bombardment . This feat of arms may be expected to bring the Waghors to a more peaceable frame of mind . , » The Governor-General and the Commander-in-Ohief wore at Cawnporo on the 15 th of October , and proposed to start together for Luoknow on the 20 th . Tho Viceroy ' s camp was to bo pitched in the Martinlere grounds , and Lord Clyde ' s near the Dilkoosha Palace . After holding reviews and durbars on a grand scale , their Excellencies wero to proceed to Agra in tho early part of tho pr ' oseat month . i ( Tho Governor-General left Burdwan , for the North West , on tho 12 th October , and the following escort had boon ordered to attend his triumphal progress through Oude »—Royal Horse Artillery , 170 men 0 guns and horses » Bengal Artillery , 140 men . G guns and horses i 2 nd Dragoon Guards ,
only one class of the community , and is most inquisitorial in its action , and injurious to tho tradesmen , from the publicity it will give to tho profits of tnoir trade . All this , however , raakos it ti favourito wita tho Government , and it will be passed , unless stopped from home . Petitions to l ' arliamenc against it from every Presidency havo gone . "orao * and the natives , who arc only now beginning . to comprehend its nature , are much alarmed at tno chanco of its becoming law . Tim Route to Cai . outta . —A Calcutta letter says s— " Sir Charles Trovolyan recently stated in a public spoqoh that tho railway from Madras W Boypo-re , tho boat harbour there , and tho pior «* Madms , would all be finished by December , 1-BOJ * Mails and passengers will then reach Culcu " £ from England five days sooner , or , say in twouty-uvo
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 3, 1859, page 10, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_03121859/page/10/
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