East India Company

Established in 1664 by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, finance minister of King Louis XIV, the company founded its first trading post at Surat in Bombay in 1675. The following year it set up its principal Indian base at Pondicherry, on the Coromandel Coast. The company prospered and extended its operations to China and Persia. In 1719 the company was reorganized with the American and African French colonial companies as the Compagnie des Indes. This company, headed by the Scottish financier John Law, suffered severely with the collapse of the Mississippi Scheme. In 1730 it lost its slave trade with Africa, in 1731 its general trade with Louisiana, and in 1736 its coffee trade with the Americas. The company prospered in India, however, under the governors Benoît Dumas, from 1735 to 1741, and Joseph François Dupleix, from 1742 to 1754; Dupleix directed the unsuccessful French struggles against the British control of India. The capture of Arcot in 1751 by the British under Robert Clive limited French control to southern India, where it remained supreme until 1761, when the British captured Pondicherry. The operations of the company were finally suspended by royal decree in 1769, and in the following year it turned over its capital of more than 500 million livres to the Crown. In 1785 a new company received commercial privileges, but this company was abolished in 1794 during the time of the French Revolution.