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    11ST D I A, IKDIAN PROGRESS.

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    MAHE DE LA BOURDONNAIS . An English governor in an English colony has done an act of historic justice to the one Frenchman -who has ever comprehended true colonial policy . On the SOth August last Mr . Stevenson , Governor of the Mauritius , presided at the inauguration of the statue of Labourdounais , the founder of the colony . It was a great day for the colonists , and w-e ¦ cannot presume to attempt a description of a scene on which the editor of the local journal and " his Worship , the $ Iayor of Port Louis , descanted in language which would have been eloquent if it were not more French than English . " Heaven itself seemed to smile on this great act of

    historic justice . The summits ot the majestic mountains looming in the distance were en wreathed 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 Mauritiana . " Three thousand spectators filled the seats around . The mayor , with true French eianreqsement , exhausted himself in finding seats for the ladies , and in his speech appealed to ' their sympathieshoping , with a comic pathos , that , >'

    , first magistrate of this important town , " he had Struck the right chord in their breast , arid 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 clergy , 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 nad 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 tlxe lower , trunk of the dattier tree , Searing on his breast his insignia and orders . Speeches followed . The Governor in his oration tras evidently so polite as to accommodate himself to the [ French idea of festive rhetoric . The Hon . M .

    jfropier 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 chaunted 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 prooesr sion of young ladies , dressed in white , with wreathed coiffures , strewing flowers of choice beauty round the base of the statue , and " Partant pour la Syrie , " closed the auspicious day . The mayor , it is to be hopetl , 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-Anglicized Frenchmen of the island of Paul and Virginia rejoice in the man whom it delights them to honour may be absurd , but he was— -to the French- —as worthy of honour as Olive or Warren Hustings , among ourselves . In the whole history of French adventure in the East , Labourdonnais was the one man who had not only a definite colonial policy but the ability to carry it out . His career Alls the first half of the last century . Little more than a century ago he died , under the ingratitude and injustice of his country . »« rtt ftt St . Mayo in 1699 , ho spent his early youth at-ftea , and in 1719 sailed for Surat as lieutenant in the service of the Kronen Bast India Company . After

    taking Malie , in 1724 , he conducted several trading expeditions , the success of which recorninended 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 ho 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 Maliebburg , so called after himself . There are , in fact , no improvements in the colony the germs of which may not be traced to his 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 to India as chief of a fleet , ready for war with England , which was then impending , and broke out in 1744 . His 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 , Iby 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 from 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 air his 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 Euglish East India Company , winch , left to itself , founded our Eastern Empire and has ever defended and rewarded its own servants , that of Trance failed from the first , and while it rewarded its worst servants , persecuted its best . Established in 1664 , its first mistake was in forming » settlement in Madagascar . Throughout its history , Colbert , Fleury , and Orry used it as a the

    political engine to carry out the objects of 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 State 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 .

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    LATEST INDIAN INTELLIGENCE . The Calcutta mail which arrived this week , has brought intelligence from that city to the 22 nd October . The latest intelligence is to tlio ofloct that Dwarka has been evacuated after several days ' bombardment . This feat of arms m , ny bo expected to bring the Waghers to a more peaceable frame of mind . The Govornor-General and the Commander-in-Ohief were at Cawnpore on the 15 th of Octobor , and proposed to start together for Lucknow on tho 20 th . The Viceroy ' s camp was to bo pitched in tho Mnrtiniere grounds , and Lord Clyde ' s near tho Dllkoosha Palace , After holding reviews and durbars on a grand scale , their Excellencies were to proceed to Agra in tho early part of tho present month . " Tho Governor-General loft Burdwan , for the North West , on the 12 th October , and tho following escort had been ordered to attend his triumphal progress through Oude : —Royal Horse Artillery , 176 men ti guns and horses t Bengal Artillery , 140 men . 0 suns and horsosi 2 nd Dragoon Guards ,

    108 men and horses ; 1 st European Cavalay 160 mPn and horses ; 1 st Punjab Cavalry , 400 men and horses Roberts ' s Horse , 390 men and horses ; Her Majesty ' s 35 th Regiment , 830 men ; Her Majesty ' s 80 th Retri ment , 750 men ; 1 st Sikh Infantry , 700 men ; Cawn pore Levy , 700 men ; Depot Battalion , 200 W n " Governor-General ' s Body Guard , 100 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 wliich accelerated his movements , and he went on straight to Cawnpore to meet Lord Clyde . It is understood that his lordship returns to Calcutta in December to see Mr . Wilson , and it is rumoured , abolish the Council . The Ia 8 t 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 Avere willing enough to go three months since , 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 Calcutta from Katmandoo . They are not believed . According to the latest accounts , he was levying recruits on our frontier , and threatening to annihilate Lucknow , or blowup 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

    Nepaules ' e 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 OOVEKKOlt-GEKERAL . . .. . . The Calcutta correspondent of Allen ' s Indian Mail has some forcible remarks on Lord Canning ' s peculiar system of government . — "We are vrearied of dinning into your ears the incapacity of the Governor-Geueral , 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 from 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 disand ellworded

    charged "Europeans ; A soothing wgeneral 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 oe excluded . Why , to a man , they were insubordinate . They not only were insubordinate , but thoy mutinied . If there had been any chance of getting the ? men to re-enlist , the wording of the prder would have destroyed it . Among a thousand men to whom the offer was made some forty only accepted it .

    According to the Times , India is to send the men , China isto 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 . CJiina , as she has done before . ; but Lord Canning gives himself no moro thought about China than no does about Thubuctoo or Honolulu . IIo sent one regiment and ordered another to go to the assistance of Mr . Bruce , and this is all he thoug ht ho could spare , considering he requires nn army of four thousand men to escort himself in his triumphant progress through the country . Lord Canning ' s financial measures aro on a par with all his other measures—incomprehensible in their folly . The tax on trades and professions is miserably

    insufficient for the wants of Government , affects only one class of the community , and is most inquisitorial in ita notion , and injurious to the tradesmen , from the publicity it will give to the profits oi tlioir trade . AH this , howevor , makes it a favou rito mw tho Government , and it will bo passod , unless stopped from homo . Petitions to Parliament against it from every Presidency havo gone homo , and . the natives , who aro only now beginning to comprehend its nature , aro much alarmed at wio chance of its becoming law . The Rouxn to OALOuxrA . —A Caloutta letter says : — - " Sir Charles Trovolyan rocontly stated jn a public speech that the railway from Mtidms to Beypore , tho boat harbour there , and tho pior n » Madras , would all bo finished by Decombor , 180 U . Mails and passengers will then reaoh Calcutta from England five days sooner , or , say in twenty-nrw

    11st D I A, Ikdian Progress.

    11 ST D I A , IKDIAN PROGRESS .

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    lm 8 TIE LEADiR . [ No . 506 . Dec . 3 , ISsq

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 3, 1859, page 1318, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2323/page/10/