HISTORY OF MAURITIUS. 
416 
per ell for all stuffs embroidered with gold or silver, fifty sous for plain taffetas 
and satins, and thirty sous for stuffs made of the bark of trees. Afterwards the sale 
of this kind of merchandize was entirely prohibited in France, and, for some time, 
muslins even were refused entrance into the kingdom. 
On the other hand, the government permitted several merchants in the maritime 
towns to engage in the trade to India, by means of the Company’s ships, on pay¬ 
ing a moderate freight, &c. &c. In short, the Company received so many severe 
blows, that the symptoms appeared of its approaching downfall: so that in 1708, 
being totally incapable of preparing any armed force, application was made to M. 
Crozat to fit out two ships for India. The Company reserved fifteen per cent, on 
the sale of their merchandize, and two per cent, on the prizes that might be made. 
Four years after it engaged on the same conditions with the merchants of St. Malo, 
to whom it abandoned its trade. At this period it owed, in France and India, up¬ 
wards of ten millions of livres; and its factory at Surat was so involved in debt, 
that no French ship would venture to anchor in the road, from an apprehension of 
being arrested for the debts of the nation. The Company nevertheless solicited, 
in 1714, a renewal of its privilege, which was about to expire, and which it had 
enjoyed during a course of fifty years. It obtained a prorogation for ten years, and 
made no other use of it than to sell commissions and brevets to the best bidder. 
The French commerce to India, therefore, when carried on in this precarious man¬ 
ner, and oppressed as it was by very burthensome conditions, diminished from day 
to day, and could not support any degree of competition with foreign nations. 
Two particular companies had obtained the privilege to carry on a maritime trade, 
the one at China, and the other at Senegal. The China Company had been estab¬ 
lished in 1660, and was renewed in 1698; but it was not more successful than the 
East India Company. The Senegal Company was more modern, and was occupied 
principally in the traffic of Negroes for the West India plantations. 
In 1717 a new association appeared, to which that of Senegal was united, and 
assumed the name of the Western Company; because it proposed to confine 
its trade to the West Indies and America. Two years after, all the commercial 
societies of the kingdom were united, and formed but one Company, which still 
preserved the name of the India Company, as it was described under that title by 
the edict of its establishment. This edict declared, among other articles, that the 
