By the time he wrote this Memoire …, Bourdonnais (1699-1753) had spent more than thirty years in the French East India company. He entered as a lieutenant at 19, was made captain at 1724, and two years later fought in the capture of Mahe on the Malabar coast. He spent five years governing Mauritius and Reunion Island and when war broke out with Englad was called back into the navy and made commander of a fleet stationed off India. He made his reputation at this time, defending the Mahe, relieving the governor-general of French East India, Joseph-Francois Dupleix, at Pondicherry, and defeated British forces twice.
Disgraced for his supposed treasonable behaviour after his brilliant capture of Madras in 1746, he wrote this memoir and the attendant pieces while awaiting trial in Bastille on charges of corruption. His fall from grace was precipitated by Dupleix, who, jealous of his position as commander of the French in the East Indies and undermined by Bourdonnais’s plan to ransom fort St. George back to the British, succeeded in having him recalled and imprisoned. After three years incarceration, Bourdonnais cleared his name with the help of this memorial and the supporting documents.
It is said he wrote in Bastille using stiffened handkerchiefs as paper and with a pecil made of soot. According to Barbier, the work was actually written by Pierre de Gennes (1701-1759). It was reissued in 1751 with a supplement.
This copy has his explanatory map of the Madras assault. Laid in is Lettre a M. de*** sur le Memoire du Sieur de la Bourdonnais Small 4to. 16pp.
Barbier III, 144; Querard V, p. 432.
