Note 12 — INTRODUCTION.

"M. Dupleix was greatly assisted in all his transactions with the natives of India by his wife, a Creole, born and educated in Bengal, where he had married her, while he was there in the service of the French East India Company. Her knowledge of the Hindostanee language had been the means of introducing her to the family of Chunda Sahib, when they took refuge at Pondicherry, during his confinement at Sattarah with the Mahrattas: and this laid the foundation of the French intrigues with him. In all these, M. Dupleix's lady made herself conspicuous, by corresponding, in the name of her husband, with those who could be brought into action for favouring the French views of interference, and supporting the cause of Chunda Sahib. She then became known all over that country by the name of Jân Begum, which she assumed in the seal to all her letters. Her own Christian name was Jeanne, which gave some colour to her converting it into the Persian word on her seal, as familiar to Mahomedans.

"It must be acknowledged that the French at this time, viz., during M. Dupleix's government, had greatly the advantage of the English, by their superior knowledge of the languages and usages of the nations of India. Their Catholic missionaries, especially the Jesuits, who had travelled inland, had been very instrumental in their acquiring that knowledge; while the English confined themselves to their trade, and remained in total ignorance of any thing else. The French gave certain proofs of the superior information they had acquired, when they produced, at the conference with the English commissioners at Sadras, in 1754, the sunnuds or grants for the lands they had acquired in the Carnatic, which were all procured under the authority of the Mogul Emperor or his viziers; while those of the English were only from inferior agents of that government. It is true, that the sunnuds there produced by the French were objected to by the English as under the forged seals of emperors; yet it shows that they did not rest their claims on grants of inferiors, as the English did. It is, indeed, very remarkable, that the latter never, till a late period, possessed any others but those of the nabob Mahomed Ali in the Carnatic, excepting for the ground of their original factories. It was not till Lord Clive obtained regular grants from the Emperor Shah Aulum, in 1765, when he obtained the dewanee of the provinces of Bengal, that the English could produce any other grants but those obtained from the nabob whom they themselves had set up."—D. H.