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The first French Company for Eastern trade had been formed only four
years [Footnote: Charters to French companies had been granted in 1604
and in 1615. The _Compagnie des Indes_ was formed in 1642, and
reconstructed in 1664.] after the English East India Company, but the
first French factory in India--at Surat--was not established until 1668
and the French did not seriously compete with the English and Dutch in
India until the close of the seventeenth century. However, their post
at Chandarnagar (1672), in dangerous proximity to Calcutta, and their
thriving station at Pondicherry (1674), within a hundred miles of
Madras, augured ill for the future harmony of French and English in
India.
[Sidenote: Comparative Resources of France and England]
From the foregoing brief review of the respective colonial possessions
of Great Britain and France in the year 1688, it must now be clear that
although France had entered the colonial competition tardily, she had
succeeded remarkably well in becoming a formidable rival of the
English.


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