Page:History of the French in India.djvu/80

 58 THE PERPETUAL COMPANY OF THE INDIES. CHAP. Meanwhile, as we have seen, the system having col- . ' lapsed, and the notes of the Company having been sup- 1721. pressed, before the close of 1720, it no longer possessed the funds to equip ships for India. None were sent, therefore, in 1721 or the year following. In conse- quence of this, the settlement of Pondichery was re- duced in 1722 and during the greater part of 1723 to the direst straits. The local Government had neither merchandise, nor money, nor resources, and became, on that account, a butt for the ridicule of its rival traders to the Hugli and the Koromandel coast. But this was not the worst result of the collapse. Lenoir had, naturally enough, regarded the advent of the three ships and the specie in 1721 as a type of what was to follow. He had, in fact, been assured by his Directors that a similar supply should be sent him yearly. In anticipation, then, of the arrival of the fleet of 1722, he had made great preparations to open out new markets for the expected cargoes. But when, not to speak of the cargoes, he was unable to welcome even a ship, he felt utterly overwhelmed. His credit had been pledged, and it was upon its credit with the natives that the prosperity of the little settlement at Pon- dichery at this epoch mainly depended. But it is on such occasions that the real character of a Government is most surely tested. In this crisis the French settlers reaped the advantage, not less of the system of good faith adopted by Martin, than of the act of the previous year, by which Lenoir had devoted his sudden accession of wealth to the payment of the debts of the Company. The rich natives with whom he had contracted, know- ing the cause of his failure to fulfil his engagements, were content to wait for better times. It was by their aid and forbearance alone that Lenoir was enabled to save the credit of the colony in this dire necessity. 1723. We have already noticed how in 1723 the restric- tions imposed by the French Government on the Com-