HISTORY OF MAURITIUS. 
4 ii 
Observations on India, in a relative View to the Isle of France. 
Though the immediate object of this Work is the Isle of France, it is so connected 
with India, as well as the principal points on the various coasts of the Indian Ocean, 
that some account of the Peninsula of Hindostan seems to be necessary, in order to 
elucidate what has been already said, and will hereafter be mentioned. I shah there¬ 
fore add, to the notes of my father, a brief detail of the principal events which have 
passed there, since the Isle of France may be supposed to have had any connection 
with it, from its subjection to the power of France. 
Pondicherry being the principal establishment which the French possessed on the 
coast of Coromandel, and the centre of all those operations, I will first give a short 
account of the origin of that establishment. 
Pondicherry, 
The first project for a French East India Company was formed under Henry IV. by 
Gerard le Roi, a Flemish navigator, who had made some voyages to India in Dutch 
ships. The King, by letters patent in 1604, granted to him and certain associates 
very encouraging privileges, and an exclusive trade for fifteen years: but this scheme 
was not carried into execution. Five years after he formed a new association, 
and obtained other letters patent, dated 2d of March, 1611. Four years however 
passed away without any enterprize being undertaken : some merchants of Rouen, 
therefore, solicited the transfer of these privileges to them, and engaged to fit out a 
certain number of ships for India in the course of the year 1615. The associates 
of Gerard immediately opposed this demand; when the King, to conciliate the in¬ 
terests of these two Companies, united them by letters patent, dated 2d of July, 1615. 
It is not known, with any degree of certainty, that their navigators reached India; 
but it can be ascertained that, in 1616 and 1619, they set sail towards the southern 
coast of Africa; and it is probable that the French then landed for the first time in 
the islands of Madagascar and Mascaregnas, of the latter of which they took posses¬ 
sion some years after. 
In 1642, a new commercial company was formed under the auspices of the 
Cardinal de Richelieu, which took the name of the Company of Madagascar. It 
made some progress in that island, established a colony of an hundred French 
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