Changes

In IOLR I.1/17, a collection of letters and papers concerning French activities in the area, there is a note written in 1794....”trade entirely at a standstill for want of protective ships against French privateers operating out of Mauritius”....and in I.1/12, also a collection of papers and intelligence reports, Lt.Col. Robert Brooke wrote to Calcutta from St.Helena in 1794....”It is stated as a certainty that the people of Mauritius are so intoxicated with success in taking prizes that they are mad with fitting and arming vessels against the English and the Dutch trade, with expeditions against those parts of our coasts that are unprotected. Several American ships are hastening home from thence after purchasing the cargoes of various prizes to return again, with additional swarms, to get more bargains and to supply the French islands with naval stores and adventurers, so that if left undisturbed they may get so strong that it would require a very powerful force indeed to subdue them and in the meantime the English and Dutch trade may suffer inconceivably....the French are fitting 18pdrs. aboard the Dutch prize as well as the PRINCESS ROYAL (Indiaman) and hope to make her above 50 guns.” (This vessel and her Packet had been captured in the Straits of Sunda, between Sumatra and Java, by French privateers.)

Bodawpaya had also written to Mauritius which finally produced a positive reply to his request for arms. The Governor, Anne Joseph Hippolyte de Maures, Comte de Malartic, stated that he could not at that time comply with the requirements because of the ongoing war with the English (1793-1815) but promised to supply all that was wished for as soon as circumstances changed. This Governor died in 1800 and the new incumbent, Generale Francois Louis Magallon, Comte de la Morliere, decided to honour his predecessor's intentions and sent to Burma two cargoes of armaments, including cannons, in 1802 together with a letter promising a new load of warlike munitions if the King so desired.