HISTORY OF MAURITIUS. 
4'T 
new Company should have the exclusive privilege of trading in all the Indian and 
South Seas, and possess various other subordinate advantages, necessary for encou¬ 
raging its trade and advancing its interests. 
When the Western Company was first instituted, the fund of an hundred millions 
of livres had been created in shares of fifteen hundred livres each, bearing an interest 
of ten per cent. Previous to the publication of the Edict of Union, these funds be¬ 
came so popular, that they rose to an hundred and thirty per cent. These were not 
only preserved in the new project, but the India Company was permitted to increase 
these funds twenty-five millions of livres. Though they were not so advantageous 
as.the others, subscriptions were offered to the amount of fifty millions. 
In 1720, bank-bills succeeded to the funds, and factitious riches multiplied. The 
Company enjoyed a moment of splendour, and dispatched for India three vessels 
laden with very valuable cargoes. The Directors at Pondicherry, who were igno¬ 
rant of what had happened in France, were astonished, when their trade had been 
in such a languishing state, to receive so great an abundance of ammunition and 
merchandize, with a considerable quantity of gold and silver specie. The greatest 
part of these riches were employed to pay the debts that the old Company had 
contracted at Surat, Camboia, Bengal, and other parts of India. The returns, how¬ 
ever, to these cargoes were but moderate. 
The bank-bills, however, disappeared; several thousands of shares were burned; 
the resources and the hopes of the Company vanished together; and in the course 
of 1721 and 1722, it was not in a condition to send a single cargo to the Indies. 
This interruption of its commerce excited the raillery of all Europe. At length, 
in 1723, two ships were fitted out for Pondicherry; and though their cargoes were 
not very valuable, the Directors of the several factories, and the people employed 
under them, were all paid, and the debts of the old Company were finally extinguished. 
Though the French commerce was in an actual state of disgrace, in 1723, Pon¬ 
dicherry was strengthened by new fortifications, and the number of inhabitants was 
considerably increased. The walls, which were now begun on a design to inclose 
the town within them, were to be completed, in part, at the expence of the Company; 
the remainder was to be defrayed by the inhabitants, who submitted, for that pur¬ 
pose, to a poll tax of two sous per month. 
In the course of the following year the India trade recovered itself, and was 
evidently gaining strength under the administration of M. Orry. M. Dumas, who 
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