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The Politics of Commercial Treaties in the Eighteenth Century pp 267–293Cite as

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Securing Asian Trade: Treaty Negotiations between the French and English East India Companies, 1753–1755

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Abstract

In the mid-1750s the French Compagnie des Indes and the English East India Company negotiated to end the military conflicts between them associated with the bellicose French Governor General, Joseph-François Dupleix. The companies deliberated over proposals to neutralize their trade in case of future wars in Europe, and to establish a security cartel to free them from the pressures of Indian politics. Though no permanent accord was reached before the outbreak of the Seven Years War, the negotiations illuminate rich traditions of political and geopolitical thought inside both companies, as directors, shareholders, and like-minded public officials worked to create a pacified space in which global trade could flourish, while safeguarding the peace of Europe from conflicts over Asian commerce.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Thanks to Antonella Alimento and Koen Stapelbroek for their advice; thanks also to Elizabeth Cross, Felicia Gottmann, and Pernille Røge for helpful criticism.

  2. 2.

    Archives du Ministère des Affaires Étrangères, La Courneuve [AAE], Correspondance Politique [CP] Angleterre [Ang] 435, fol. 350, Gaston-Pierre de Lévis, duc de Mirepoix to François-Dominique de Barberie, marquis de Saint-Contest, 10 February 1753.

  3. 3.

    Philippe Haudrère, La Compagnie française des Indes au XVIIIe siècle, 2nd edn., 2 vols. (Paris: Les Indes savantes, 2005), II: 743.

  4. 4.

    On the theme of “l’Inde perdue,” see Kate Marsh, “Territorial Loss and the Construction of French Colonial Identities, 1763–1962,” in: France’s Lost Empires. Fragmentation, Nostalgia, and La Fracture Coloniale, ed. Kate Marsh and Nicola Frith (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2011), 1–14.

  5. 5.

    Philip J. Stern, The Company-State. Corporate Sovereignty and the Early Modern Foundations of the British Empire in India (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 14.

  6. 6.

    See, notably, Istvan Hont, Jealousy of Trade. International Competition and the Nation-State in Historical Perspective (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2005); Paul Cheney, Revolutionary Commerce. Globalization and the French Monarchy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2010); and Sophus A. Reinert, Translating Empire. Emulation and the Origins of Political Economy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011).

  7. 7.

    Bibliothèque Nationale de France [BNF] Nouvelle Acquisitions Françaises [NAF] 9335, fos. 343–347; AAE Mémoires et Documents [MD] Asie 4, fos. 44–62.

  8. 8.

    Haudrère, Compagnie française des Indes, II: 730–737.

  9. 9.

    Catherine Manning, Fortunes à Faire. The French in Asian Trade, 1718–48 (Aldershot: Variorum, 1996), 197–214.

  10. 10.

    P. J. Marshall, “The British in Asia: Trade to Dominion, 1700–1765,” in: The Oxford History of the British Empire, vol. II: The Eighteenth Century, ed. P. J. Marshall (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 487–507.

  11. 11.

    Alfred Martineau, Dupleix et l’Inde française, 5 vols. (Paris: E. Champion, 1920), III: 26.

  12. 12.

    British Library [BL] Egerton [Eg] MS 3487, fos. 185–186, Secret Committee of the East India Company to Robert Darcy, Earl of Holdernesse, 21 December 1756.

  13. 13.

    John Castaing, Course of the Exchange, reproduced in European State Finance Database, http://esfdb.websites.bta.com/Database.aspx.

  14. 14.

    BL Add MS 35906, fos. 180–181.

  15. 15.

    [William Monson], A Letter to a Proprietor of the East-India Company (London: T. Osborne, 1750).

  16. 16.

    Lettre écrite à un actionnaire de la Compagnie des Indes Orientales d’Angleterre (London: T. Osborne, 1750).

  17. 17.

    AAE MD Asie 12, fol. 228, “Sur le Projet d’un Traitté de Neut.é perp.lle entre les Comp.ies des Indes de France et d’Ang.re,” October 1750.

  18. 18.

    Archives Nationales, Paris [AN] Colonies [Col] C2 44, fos. 48–60.

  19. 19.

    Essex Record Office, Chelmsford, Mildmay Papers, D/DM/O1/27, unidentified to William Mildmay, 17 July 1753.

  20. 20.

    BNF NAF 9150, fos. 22–23, Gabriel Michel to Joseph-François Dupleix, 21 January 1754.

  21. 21.

    Haudrère, Compagnie française des Indes, I: 126–127.

  22. 22.

    “Mémoire sur les inconvénients pour les trois Compagnies françoise, angloise et hollandoise de leur mésintelligence dans l’Inde, sur les avantages communs à ces trois Comp.es qui resulteroient de leur Union,” 30 July 1752, AN Col C2 38, fos. 74–81.

  23. 23.

    Charles Irénée Castel de Saint-Pierre, Projet pour rendre la paix perpétuelle en Europe, 3 vols. (Utrecht: A. Schouten, 1713–1717), I: ix; II: 264–269.

  24. 24.

    Koen Stapelbroek, “‘The Long Peace’: Commercial Treaties and the Principles of Global Trade at the Peace of Utrecht,” in: The 1713 Peace of Utrecht and Its Enduring Effects, ed. A. H. A. Soons (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming).

  25. 25.

    Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal MS 6193, “Mémoire sur le commerce de l’Amérique, par M. Malet,” February 1732.

  26. 26.

    [Pierre Saintard], Roman politique sur l’état présent des affaires d’Amérique, ou Lettres de M*** à M*** sur les moyens d’établir une paix solide & durable dans les colonies, & la liberté générale du commerce extérieur (Amsterdam: Duchesne, 1756).

  27. 27.

    Hont, Jealousy of Trade, 28–30.

  28. 28.

    Bibliothèque Méjanes, Aix-en-Provence, MS 614 (355), John Law to M. de Rosemberg, 15 May 1722.

  29. 29.

    John Law, “Réponse aux deux lettres, sur le Nouveau Système des Finances,” in: Œuvres complètes, ed. Paul Harsin, 3 vols. (Paris: Librairie du Recueil Sirey, 1934), III: 115.

  30. 30.

    BNF MS français 21750, fos. 4–5, Law to Philippe d’Orléans, undated.

  31. 31.

    See John Shovlin, “Jealousy of Credit: John Law’s ‘System’ and the Geopolitics of Financial Revolution,” Journal of Modern History 88 (2016), 275–305.

  32. 32.

    Istvan Hont, “The ‘Rich Country–Poor Country’ Debate Revisited: The Irish Origins and French Reception of the Hume Paradox,” in: David Hume’s Political Economy, ed. Margaret Schabas and Carl Wennerlind (London: Routledge, 2008), 243–322; 263.

  33. 33.

    Nicolas Dutot, Réflexions politiques sur les finances, et le commerce, 2 vols. (The Hague: Frères Vaillant & N. Prevost, 1738), II: 403–404. Dutot had been a cashier of the company under the System. See François Velde, “The Life and Times of Nicolas Dutot,” Journal of the History of Economic Thought 34 (2012), 67–107.

  34. 34.

    AAE CP Ang 405, fos. 394–399, Étienne de Silhouette to André-Hercule, Cardinal Fleury, 31 December 1739.

  35. 35.

    AAE MD Ang 46, fos. 45–88, “Observations sur les finances, la navigation & le commerce de l’Angleterre.”

  36. 36.

    BNF NAF 9150, fos. 266–267, Silhouette to Dupleix, 13 September 1752.

  37. 37.

    François Véron de Forbonnais, Élémens du commerce, 2 vols. (Leiden: Briasson, 1754), I: 355. See also [Louis-Joseph Plumard de Dangeul], Remarques sur les avantages et les désavantages de la France et de la Grande Bretagne, par rapport au commerce, & aux autres sources de la puissance des États, 3rd edn. (Paris: Frères Éstienne, 1754), 237.

  38. 38.

    AAE CP Ang 436, fol. 7, Machault to Saint-Contest, 1 March 1753.

  39. 39.

    John B. Owen, The Rise of the Pelhams (London: Methuen, 1957).

  40. 40.

    Newcastle (Clumber) Collection [Ne(C)], University of Nottingham, 389/1–2 Henry Pelham to William Stanhope, Earl of Harrington, 12 July 1745; Ne(C) 1290 Pelham to Thomas Pelham-Holles, Duke of Newcastle, 12 May 1752; Ne(C) 1291 Pelham to Newcastle, 25 May 1752.

  41. 41.

    William Coxe, Memoirs of the Administration of the Right Honourable Henry Pelham, 2 vols. (London: Longman, 1829), I: 32, 39.

  42. 42.

    Philip J. Stern, “Companies: Monopoly, Sovereignty, and the East Indies,” in: Mercantilism Reimagined. Political Economy in Early Modern Britain and its Empire, ed. Philip J. Stern and Carl Wennerlind (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 177–195.

  43. 43.

    [Sir Matthew Decker], An Essay on the Causes of the Decline of the Foreign Trade (London: John Brotherton, 1744).

  44. 44.

    AAE CP Ang 421, fos. 57–60, Jean-Baptiste Fournier to Jean-Ignace de La Ville, 7/18 June 1745.

  45. 45.

    BL Add MS 32861, fos. 118–119, Thomas Walpole to Horatio Walpole, 28 November 1755; BL Add MS 32862, fol. 279, unidentified to Newcastle, 29 January 1756.

  46. 46.

    John Russell, Duke of Bedford to Willem Anne van Keppel, Earl of Albemarle, 3 August 1749, in: Correspondence of John, Fourth Duke of Bedford, ed. Lord John Russell, 3 vols. (London: Longman, 1844–1846), II: 40–44; AAE MD Ang 69, fol. 17, François-Marie Durand to Louis-Philogène Brulart, marquis de Puysieulx, 17 July 1749. As Antonella Alimento has shown, Forbonnais underlined the dangers of unequal trade treaties in this context: “Beyond the Treaty of Utrecht: Véron de Forbonnais’ French Translation of the British Merchant (1753),” History of European Ideas 40 (2014), 1044–1066.

  47. 47.

    AAE MD Ang 69, fos. 151–152, Philibert Trudaine de Montigny to Puysieulx, 27 May 1751.

  48. 48.

    AAE MD Ang 69, fos. 4–162.

  49. 49.

    BL Add MS 35396, fos. 35–36, Thomas Birch to Philip Yorke, 27 October 1741.

  50. 50.

    BL Add MS 35918, fos. 1, 4–12, 15–19, 23–33, 75, Pinto to Charles Yorke; fol. 82, Joseph Yorke to Pinto; BL Eg MS 1749, fos. 317–318, Pinto to William Bentinck, 20 July 1765.

  51. 51.

    BL Add MS 4319, fol. 260, Josiah Tucker to Birch, 30 November 1756.

  52. 52.

    [Josiah Tucker], The Case of the Importation of Bar-Iron, from Our Own Colonies of North America (London: Thomas Trye, 1756), 15.

  53. 53.

    BL Eg 3456, fol. 203, Mildmay to Holdernesse, 22 April/3 May 1752.

  54. 54.

    BL Eg 3456, fos. 254–255, Mildmay to Holdernesse, 19/30 June 1752.

  55. 55.

    William Mildmay, The Laws and Policy of England, Relating to Trade, Examined by the Maxims and Principles of Trade in General (London: T. Harrison, 1765). Mildmay was a longtime student of political economy. See Essex Record Office, Mildmay Papers, D/DM/O1/19, 27–28, 42.

  56. 56.

    William Clements Library, University of Michigan, Mildmay Papers, vol. 3, Mildmay to William Mildmay, Earl Fitzwalter, 13 February 1754.

  57. 57.

    BL Add MS 73965, fos. 27–28, John Drummond to Horatio Walpole, 12 August 1737.

  58. 58.

    BL Eg MS 3484, fos. 45–50.

  59. 59.

    BL Add. MS 33055, fos. 265–268, “Memorandum relating to Mr. H[ume],” 10 December 1760.

  60. 60.

    BL Eg MS 3484, fol. 17, cabinet minute, 30 May 1753.

  61. 61.

    The distinction is between neutrality and neutralization. See Éric Schnakenbourg, Entre la guerre et la paix: neutralité et relations internationales XVII e –XVIII e siècles (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2013), 10–11.

  62. 62.

    BL Eg MS 3484, fos. 34–35, Newcastle to Joseph Yorke, 26 June 1753; fos. 43–45, Secret Committee to Newcastle, 18 July 1753; fos. 74–75, Newcastle to Joseph Yorke, 14 September 1753.

  63. 63.

    AAE CP Ang 436, fos. 193–196, Mirepoix to Machault, 8 June 1753.

  64. 64.

    BL Eg MS 3484, fos. 27–29, copy of a letter to Duvelaer, 16 June 1753.

  65. 65.

    BL Eg MS 3484, fol. 59, “Extrait des articles d’un projet de neutralité envoyé par M. Duvelaer, le 23 May 1753 avec des observations par le Comité Secret de la Compagnie des Indes de France.”

  66. 66.

    BL Eg MS 3484, fos. 122–123, “Heads of Articles,” 26 October 1753.

  67. 67.

    AN Col C2 41, fos. 114–115, Duvelaer to the Secret Committee of the Compagnie des Indes, 2 May 1754.

  68. 68.

    BL IOR/I/1/4, “Narrative of what formerly passed towards effecting an Accommodation between the English and French Companies.”

  69. 69.

    BL Eg MS 3484, fos. 122–123, “Heads of Articles,” 26 October 1753.

  70. 70.

    AN Col C2 39, fol. 97, Silhouette, “Mémoire sur les affaires de l’Inde.”

  71. 71.

    BL Eg MS 3484, fos. 280–284, Machault to Mirepoix, 11 March 1754.

  72. 72.

    BL Eg 3486, fos. 119–120, draft proposal for revised 5th article. See also fol. 121, Alexander Hume to Holdernesse, 30 October 1754.

  73. 73.

    BL Eg MS 3484, fos. 70–72, Court of Directors to Holdernesse, 14 September 1753; BL Eg MS 3484, fol. 98, cabinet minute, 27 September 1753; AAE CP Ang 437, fos. 25–26, Mirepoix to Saint Contest, 17 January 1754; BL Eg MS 3484, fol. 136, council minute, 17 January 1754.

  74. 74.

    BL Eg 3486, fol. 193, Hume to Holdernesse, 1 December 1754; fos. 210–213, “Plan humbly offered for the Support of the British Possessions Trade & Privilidges [sic] in the East Indies.”

  75. 75.

    BL Eg MS 3487, fol. 72, Hume to Holdernesse, 8 June 1755; fos. 76–77, Hume to Holdernesse, 26 June 1755.

  76. 76.

    BL Eg MS 3487, fos. 112–113, Holdernesse to Hume, 11 July 1755.

  77. 77.

    BL Eg MS 3487, fol. 83, Secret Committee to Holdernesse, 27 June 1755; BL Add MS 32856, fol. 113, Roger Drake to Newcastle, 22 June 1755; BL Eg MS 3487, fos. 134–135, Secret Committee to Henry Fox, 18 August 1756.

  78. 78.

    BL Eg MS 3487, fos. 116–117, Secret Committee to Sir Thomas Robinson, 30 July 1755.

  79. 79.

    Robert Clive to William Pitt, 7 January 1759, cited in Fifth Report from the Select Committee of the House of Commons on the Affairs of the East India Company (New York: A. M. Kelley, 1969 [1812]), clvi; BL IOR/H/808, fol. 186, Laurence Sulivan to Pitt, 27 July 1761.

  80. 80.

    H. V. Bowen, Revenue & Reform. The Indian Problem in British Politics 1757–1773 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991); H. V. Bowen, The Business of Empire. The East India Company and Imperial Britain, 1756–1833 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).

  81. 81.

    Kenneth Margerison, “Commercial Liberty, French National Power, and the Indies Trade after the Seven Years’ War,” Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques 35 (2009), 52–73; Kenneth Margerison, “The Shareholders’ Revolt at the Compagnie des Indes: Commerce and Political Culture in Old Regime France,” French History 22 (2006), 25–51; Anoush Fraser Terjanian, Commerce and Its Discontents in Eighteenth-Century French Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 137–181.

  82. 82.

    Holden Furber, John Company at Work: A Study of European Expansion in India in the Late Eighteenth Century (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1948), 32–35.

  83. 83.

    Pernille Røge, “A Natural Order of Empire: The Physiocratic Vision of Colonial France after the Seven Years’ War,” in: The Political Economy of Empire in the Early Modern World, ed. Sophus Reinert and Pernille Røge (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 32–52.

  84. 84.

    Emma Rothschild, “Global Commerce and the Question of Sovereignty in the Eighteenth-Century Provinces,” Modern Intellectual History 1/1 (2004), 3–25.

  85. 85.

    Jacques-Claude Vincent de Gournay, “Observations sur le rapport fait à M. le Contrôleur-Général, par M. de S.*** le 26 juin 1755, sur l’état de la Compagnie des Indes,” in: André Morellet, Mémoire sur la situation actuelle de la Compagnie des Indes (n.p., 1769), x–xxiv.

  86. 86.

    AN Col C2 43, fos. 174–225, “Mémoire sur le commerce de l’Inde,” 31 October 1756.

  87. 87.

    AN Col C2 47, fos. 53–60, “Discours de M. Necker, banquier” (1764).

  88. 88.

    Morellet, Mémoire sur la situation actuelle.

  89. 89.

    André Morellet, Examen de la réponse de M. N.** au mémoire de M. l’abbé Morellet, sur la Compagnie des Indes (Paris: Desaint, 1769); Pierre-Joseph-André Roubaud, Le politique indien, ou considérations sur les colonies des Indes orientales (Paris: Lacombe, 1768).

  90. 90.

    Pierre-Samuel Dupont, Du commerce et de la Compagnie des Indes (Paris: Delalain, 1769).

  91. 91.

    François-Joseph Ruggiu, “India and the Reshaping of the French Colonial Policy (1759–1789),” Itinerario 35/2 (2011), 25–43. Also, Sudipta Das, Myths and Realities of French Imperialism in India, 1763–1783 (New York: Peter Lang, 1993). For a contrasting view, see Kenneth Margerison, “French Visions of Empire: Contesting British Power in India after the Seven Years War,” English Historical Review 130/544 (2015), 583–612.

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    John Shovlin

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  1. Dipartimento di Civilta' e Forme del Sapere, Università di Pisa, Pisa, Italy

    Antonella Alimento

  2. Department of Philosophy, History, Culture & Art Studies, Department of Public Administration, University of Helsinki & Erasmus University Rotterdam, Helsinki, Finland & Rotterdam, The Netherlands

    Koen Stapelbroek

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Shovlin, J. (2017). Securing Asian Trade: Treaty Negotiations between the French and English East India Companies, 1753–1755. In: Alimento, A., Stapelbroek, K. (eds) The Politics of Commercial Treaties in the Eighteenth Century. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53574-6_10

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