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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
In 1668 Francis Bernier was on his way back to Europe after a residence of eight years at the Court of the Great Mughal. At Surat he met M. Carron, who had been sent by Colbert, the great Finance Minister of Louis XIV, to lay the foundations of trade between France and India on behalf of the French East India Company (la Compagnie des Indes Orientales) which had been founded in 1664. It was at Carron's request that Bernier wrote the Memoir which is here published in an English translation.
page 3 note 1 Louis XIV had, in fact, subscribed one-fifth of the capital.
page 3 note 2 Carron was a Dutchman, recruited into the service of the French East India Company because of his experience in the East.
page 4 note 1 So written in MS., probably an error for Dianetkam, i.e. Dianat Khan.
page 5 note 1 This was the title of the Minister whom Bernier served in India whom he usually calls “my Agah” in his published works. In a letter to Monsieur Chapelain, dated 4th October, 1667, Bernier thus describes his own duties: “explaining to my Agah the recent discoveries of Harveus and Pecquet in anatomy and diacoursing on the philosophy of Gassendi and Descartes which I translated to him in Persian (for this was my principal employment for five or six years).”
page 5 note 2 i.e. Tuhfa = a small present, a curiosity, a trifle.
page 6 note 1 i.e. Karkhanah = workshop.
page 6 note 2 Grand Seigneur was the name by which in the seventeenth century the French designated the Sultan of Turkey (v. Anglice Grand Turk). Kondekar is presumed to be a corruption of Khudāwendigiar or Khunkiar, titles applied to the Ottoman Sultans.
page 9 note 1 i.e. reward.
page 12 note 1 This I am told is “pidgin Portuguese” and probably means “Never a bad word, never a good deed”.
page 14 note 1 Cotgrave, ed. 1660, translates “Quinquaillerie = all kind of (small) iron works as Padlocks, Saussers, Gimmers or Hindges for doores, etc sold by ironmongers”.
page 16 note 1 Muhamad Muazzam, the second son of Aurangzeb, who succeeded him as Bahadur Shah, was appointed Viceroy of the Deccan in 1663, when he was 20 years of age, and remained there with brief visits to Northern India for ten years. Without any justification M. Castonnet des Fosses has here written “le frére du Roy”.
page 18 note 1 Chite = “a sort of Indian cloth printed with wooden blocks, the colours of which are very fast”. (Littré), i.e. pintados, Moreland, v., From Akbar to Aurangzeb, p. 32Google Scholar.
page 18 note 2 The words concluding this sentence “par son esprict et par ses intigres d'un nomme le narsou le couratier” are to me unintelligible.
page 19 note 1 Whether Rs. 40 was the rate per maund or per quintal or per ton Bernier unfortunately omits to say.
page 19 note 2 Text corrupt. From here to the end the Memoir was either hastily composed or carelessly transcribed.
page 20 note 1 The grammatical irregularity is in the French text.
page 21 note 1 As it stands this is nonsense. The best conjecture would mean “beware of the snares of the Mogul”.
page 21 note 2 This ast sentence is incomplete or corrupt “et encore bien fort mediocrement”.
