Who would dare challenge a giant corporation like the East India Company that ruled over the greater part of India in the eighteenth century? Nobody seemed ever to have done it. Yet the French Governor of Isle de France, Vicomte Francois de Souillac (1779-1787), displayed much audacity by adopting a defiant posture. He warned the British of the repercussions if they insisted holding on to the occupation of Diego Garcia. In the end, the East India Company gave way. The annexation of Diego Garcia to Britain as was intended was foiled. The name of Souillac should not be obliterated from the history of Mauritius because he must be reckoned as the man who was instrumental in flushing the British out of Diego Garcia in 1786.
His determination was so strong that at one moment he was tempted by the idea of deploying a military intervention to save Diego Garcia. True, France was behind him to give support but it was still a risky business to engage a country in a war. “Je ne perdrai pas un instant”, he wrote, “et j’enverrai à Diégo Garcia un détachement de troupes suffisant pour recouvrir cette isle…” (Antoine Chelin)
But on second thought, the Governor of Isle de France opted for a more civilized approach. He chose to communicate directly with Rawson Hart Boddam, Governor of the Bombay Presidency and Director of the East India Company and wait for his reaction. He drew Boddam’s attention that Diego Garcia was a French possession –“notre propriété – and urged him to vacate the island at once. In case of British obstinacy, he said he would only have to despatch a number of “Sipahis pour se rendre maître de l’isle de Diégo Garcia….” (A.Chelin)
In fact, a British expedition organized in “great secrecy” by the East India Company suddenly appeared in the lagoon of Diego Garcia in April 1786. The slave labourers, almost a dozen, collecting coconuts and the concession holder of Diego Garcia, Jean Marie Le Norman who operated without a signed contract, were caught by surprise. The impressive display of the British party led by Richard Price disembarked from a fleet of six vessels. The team made up of some skilled workers, carpenters, surveyors and engineers began offloading stores and topsoil as well as a number of domestic animals. That was the first attempt at establishing a permanent British settlement on Diego Garcia.
The claim for Diego Garcia by both France and Britain was irrelevant, if one may say so. Neither of these countries had previously formally taken possession of the island in the name of the Crown.
But Diego Garcia provoked a controversy and is still provocative more than two centuries down. It could have triggered a gun-fire confrontation between France and England. It would have set the stage rolling as never before for the Indian Ocean to be turned into, according to Governor Souillac, “le théâtre de la première guerre maritime….”
The apprehension of a war flaring up at a time when peace was deemed paramount for the two nations found expression in a report dated 31 October 1786 sent to the French Minister of Marine, Maréchal de Castries, by Governor Souillac.
Souillac’s reaction, on the basis of the report, seemed sharp. On being made aware of the events that had happened at Diego Garcia in April 1786, he acted quickly enough.
He decided to despatch a French warship to Diego Garcia to deal with the intruders, but no warship was around at that time. “Je n’avais ni frégate ni autre bâtiment du Roi à expédier….”, wrote Souillac who then realised that it would be “plus conforme aux dispositions amiables de recourir d’abord à la voie de la réclamation”(A.Chelin).
He thus hurriedly wrote a letter of protest to Rawson Hart Boddam. Captain Dayot of the vessel, Minerve which was just about to sail to Bombay carried the letter. Dayot was instructed to ensure the letter was delivered to Boddam in person.
Diego Garcia, said to have been discovered in 1544 by the Spanish navigator Diego Garcia de Moguer, was placed on the navigational chart thirty three years after the discovery of Mauritius “most probably about 1511”, by the Portuguese Domingos Fernandez, pilot of the Santa Maria da Serra. In his meticulous and passionate study of Portuguese navigational charts relating to the Mascareignes, Georges de Visdelou-Guimbeau (1948) pointed out that Mauritius was originally called Domingos Fernandez, the name of its discoverer, until the Dutch came on the scene in 1598 and renamed it Sirne that would become later Cirne.
In his report, however, Souillac while dwelling on the argument that Diego Garcia belonged to France deplored the high-handedness of the British, which, according to him, was but “une atteinte portée aux droits des nations”.
The British encroachment was therefore viewed by the Governor of Isle de France, as a breach – “une infraction à la paix qui règne entre la France et l’Angleterre”, the consequences of which would be terrible, warned Souillac.
What provoked the “seesawing struggle”, as Geoffrey Robertson described it between France and Britain in the 1780s was the envious position Diego Garcia occupied in the Indian Ocean. Its strategic importance was evaluated in the likely outbreak of a war. Souillac’s own assessment was based on the island being a focal point from where the rapid handling of military manoeuvres could be undertaken: “un point central où les escadres et flottes peuvent se transporter très promptement à Ceylan, à la côte Coromandel dans les détroits, enfin à l’isle de France…”.
British interest in Diego Garcia was stimulated by a report from Captain Thomas Neale after a visit to the island in 1772. But it was not until 1785 that the setting up of a base at Diego Garcia was decided. The base was to operate as a communications centre as well as to “spy on French activities in Mauritius” (W. A Spray 1970).
In a letter dated 2 February 1787 from Bombay, Boddam replied that he was renouncing the British claim to Diego Garcia. He said Diego Garcia did not fit in their strategic plan. Richard Price who had assumed the title of “British Resident of Diego Garcia” in May 1786 (D. Taylor) had been sending various adverse reports on the island. Hence, their decision to abandon the island. Boddam, nonetheless, ended his letter not without reminding the Governor of Isle de France that the British were in Diego Garcia in 1712 long before the French had set foot on it!
But another factor that could most probably have weighed heavily in Boddam’s decision to backpedal on Diego Garcia was the high amount of criticism levelled by the influential Governor-General of West Bengal. Besides, Directors of the East India Company in London, too, came hard on the “unnecessary expense” incurred for the Diego Garcia expedition.
The Governor of West Bengal ordered the immediate withdrawal of the British contingent from Diego Garcia. Hardly seven months after their landing, the British began dismantling the structures built on the island and moved everything lock, stock and barrel back to Bombay.
On the return journey to Isle de France from Bombay, the French corvette Minerve called at Diego Garcia which, it was reported, looked deserted. The ship’s Captain only then placed a stone of possession in the name of the king of France.
By the Treaty of Paris in 1814, the Chagos islands including Diego Garcia, were ceded to Britain. However, for “administrative convenience”, these territories together with the Seychelles were controlled by the British authorities from Mauritius.