Page:History of the French in India.djvu/45

 MARTI X FOUNDS PONDICIIFSRY. 23 The supreme authority now remained with Martin. CHAP - He had with him sixty Europeans, including the crew ^— of the " Vigilante " frigate, which alone remained in the 1675. roads at his disposal. He had likewise all the effects which had been brought from St. Thome, and a con- siderable sum in ready money. His first care was to obtain permission from the native ruler on the spot to erect such buildings as should be necessary to secure his people and their property from desultory attack. He had entered into such relations with this chieftain that this permission was granted without much diffi- culty. The command of the sea by the Dutch had forbidden him to think of opening a trade with Europe, and as Sher Khan Lodi was in want of funds, and he had those funds lying idle, he had thought it good policy to lend them to him at the then moderate inter- est of eighteen per cent. The character of Sher Khan Lodi enabled him to do this without much risk ; and, contrary to the old proverb, the transaction made of the borrower a fast friend.* Under his protection, the slender defences and the houses within them sprang up rapidly ; and by the wise dealings of Martin with the natives, a little village, containing the native population who worked for the factory, soon grew up under its walls. The whole formed a sort of town which was at first called by the natives " Philcheru," but was gradu- ally altered to the designation, which it bears at pre- sent, and by which it has always been known to Euro- peans, of " Pondichery."f The measures adopted by Martin for regulating his commercial transactions were characterised by the same ground on which Pondichery was * Memoires dans les Archives de afterwards built en route to Surat. la Compagnie des Indes. From Surat Baron wrote to the Com- t Browne's Carnatic Chronology, pany that "next to St. Thome, the The native historians of those times site selected by Martin was better and of the times that were to follow fitted for their purposes than any invariably write of the Fnnch other ou the Kororaandel coast." — settlement as "Phuljan," vide Me moire dans les Archives de la Elliott's History of India, vol. viii. Compagnie des hides. page 391.