516 A. D. 1664, 



lefs immunities, indulgences, premiums, penfions, protcdions, ike. to- 

 foreign a 11 ifts, artificers, manufa(5iurers, &c. from all parts, to fettle with 

 their families and workmen in France. He got his king to appropriate 

 a million of livres annually for the improvement of the woollen ma- 

 nuficlux-e alone: and it is generally believed, that it was owing to Col- 

 bert, that the milchievous pradice of running our Englifli and Irifh 

 v/ool into France, (vulgarly called owling) was firfl fet on ioot ; whereby 

 they gradually brought forward their prefent great woollen manufac- 

 ture, having till this time been chiefly iupplied with woollen goods from 

 England. 



Notwithflanding former fruitlefs attempts, he alfo this year ereded an 

 exclufive French Eaft-India company for 50 years, on the ruins of a 

 China company erecT:ed in 1 660, which came to nothing foon after : 

 their limits being from the Cape of Good Hope eaftward to the fartheft 

 Indies, and from the ftruit^ of Magellan and Le Maire wcftward into all 

 the South feas : which companies immunities, &c. were much aug- 

 mented in the year following. It was to be under 21 directors, 12 

 whereof were for Paris, and nine for the fea-ports. Soon after, they 

 pofl'efled and fortified Pondicherry on the Coromandel coaft, which has 

 fince been their capital fettlement \ their principal trade on that coafh 

 being in muflins and calicoes of many various kinds : yet, partly from 

 the difficulties of fettling trade by any nation before unacquainted with 

 India, and partly by their war with the Dutch in India, they did not 

 profper for a great number of years after this time. 



On the rums of their former Canada and Weft-India companies Col- 

 bert at the fame time erected a new exclufive Weft-India one tor 40 

 years; its Umits being, rft, that part of the continent of South-America 

 lying between the rivei's of Amazons and Oronoko, with the adjacent 

 iilands: 2dly, in North-America, all Canada behind Virginia and Flo- 

 rida : and, 3d!y, all the coaft of Africa from Cape Verd fouthward to 

 the Cape of Good Hope. 



Colbert faw, how much the Dutch had increafed their power and 

 wealth by their extended commerce, though France, which naturally 

 abounded with all things, was in a manner deftitute oi commerce and 

 naval ftrength : he therefor got King Louis to make him protector of 

 both thofe companies, to whom he lent fix millions without intertft. 

 Voltaire, in his Age of Louis XIV, fays, that from the year 1635 to 1665 

 the colonies of Martinica, Canada, &c. had been in a languifiung ftate, 

 and rather chargeable than profitable: but that now (1665) they began 

 to flourifli; and that, in the year 1664, the king fent a frefii colony to 

 Cayenne ifland, firft fettled on by Frimce in 1635, and another colony 

 in that iame year to Madagaicar, which had been fettled on by France 

 in 1650, but afterward deierted : yet, 10 years after Louis reverfed all 

 thefe grants to that company, and laid the trade open to all his fubjeds. 



