Page:History of the French in India.djvu/37

 cakon's voyage. 15 tance in Batavia.* He was refused. Whereupon, Caron, chap listening only to his anger, abruptly resigned his ap- pointment under the Dutch, and tendered his services ig^e. to Colbert. Colbert closed eagerly with the offer, and Caron soon after received letters patent nominating him Director-General of French commerce in India. Associated with Caron was a Persian named Marcara, a native of Ispahan, from whose local knowledge of India many advantages were anticipated. The expedition sailed from France in the beginning 1667. of 1667, and made a fair voyage to Madagascar. But, on arriving there, Caron found the French establish- ments on the coast in a condition so deplorable, and the prospect of being able to effect an amelioration so dis- couraging, that he determined not to waste any of his resources in the attempt, but to proceed at once to India. He directed his course, accordingly, towards Surat, a place which the enterprise of the other mari- time powers of Europe had made familiar to traders to the East. On December 24, he touched at Cochin, where he was well received. Thence he continued his voyage, reached Surat in the beginning of 1668, and established there the first French factory in India. The negotiations into which he entered were at first success- ful. A very valuable cargo was quickly transmitted to Madagascar. And this result was no sooner known in that, when Caron was in charge of the casks up the beach, one of them the Dutch agency at Japan, he made fell in pieces, and a brass gun made an audacious attempt to establish its appearance. This discovered the himself on the coast. Having in- deception. Caron was at once seized, gratiated himself with the King, he sent to Jeddo, and confronted with obtained permission to build a house the King. Bein» unable to offer any close to the Dutch factory. Know- excuse, he was sentenced to have his ing the Japanese to be ignoraut of beard pulled out hair by hair ; to be fortification, he built this house in dressed in a fool's coat and cap ; and the form of a tetragon— made it, in to be exposed in that condition in tact, a regular fortification. He then every street in the city. After this applied to the Governor of Batavia lie was shipped back to Batavia. — to send him along with casks of Recueil de Voyiujes du JYord, vol. iii. spices, casks of the same size con- This story is not credited by later tainiug guus, and filled up with cot- writers, ton or oakum. This was done, but,
 * It is stated by some authorities unfortunately for Caron, in rolling