Bon-Albert BRIOIS, de BEAUMETZ (Arras/Pas-de-Calais 1755 - C - Lot 411

Bon-Albert BRIOIS, de BEAUMETZ (Arras/Pas-de-Calais 1755 - Calcutta/India 1801) Magistrate, First President of the Council of ARTOIS, Deputy of the Nobility to the Estates-General of 1789, by the Province of ARTOIS. President of the Assemblée Constituante in 1790. Becoming a suspect in 1792, he emigrated abroad, to the United States, then to India - 4 Autograph letters signed from CALCUTTA (India), January 9, 1797 to February 12, 1800, to Monsieur OLIVE in NEW-YORK: "The Vaisseau which brings you this leaves the last of the Port of Calcutta. There are no Americans left... Such a general agreement not to send any more to India looks like an embargo... Our goods are cheap... fine sugar is 6 rupees... The bad news from Europe is the only thing that distresses me... India is quiet. Shocks in the rest of the world make money scarce, but we live without fear for the present and the future. 8 months ago, the old Nabab of Lucknow, capital of the Ouch country, died. The Company, his ally, helped his natural son to the throne... I have sent ... the letters for Madras and Pondicherry. The picture you paint of the business situation in America is not encouraging. Here, at least, with the means at our disposal, we can work almost without fail... All goods, especially cloth, are at low prices. Sugars are still holding up well... The banks of the Ganges are perfectly peaceful. The scarcity of sales opportunities and the high price of insurance... experienced by the Company... are the only splashes we are feeling from the war. In spite of the alleged scarcity of money, the voluntary subscriptions of Englishmen in Bengal for the support of the Government and the war amount to £100,000. ... Buonaparte is a great general, Tamerlan was too... I have taken a small plantation 10 miles above Calcutta, on the banks of the river... I shall cultivate and manufacture sugar and indigo... the war in India lasted only a moment. Tippo had very hostile designs... His death put an end to this short dynasty... The Americans and Portuguese abound in Calcutta to the point of debasing the piastres and creating a cloth shortage. Their competitors are also the Arabs and the Nations of India beyond the Ganges, who come in a kind of junk like those of the Chinese, while the Arabs trade in fine vessels built in Bombay..." (excerpts)