THE

MODERN ATHENIANS

THE EDINBURGH REVIEW

IN THE JEFFREY YEARS, 1802-1829

Tag Archives: diplomat

Jacques Necker (1732-1804)

banker, diplomat, and finance minister to Louis XVI.

BORN in Geneva, Necker was sent to Paris to work in a bank until starting his own – Thellusson et Necker – which would become famous, and Necker would amass wealth through grain speculation and loans to the treasury. In 1764, Necker married Suzanne Curchod de Nasse. Their daughter, Anne Louise Germaine, would become the noted author, Madame de Staël.

Necker entered public life as a director of the French East India Company, resigning his share in the bank to take up office at his wife’s urging. In 1776 he was appointed Director-General of Finance, instigating a number of popular reforms. At loggerheads with Louis XVI over the need for tax reform to cover the nation’s ballooning debt, Necker was dismissed after publishing the first account of the royal finances, Compte rendu au roi (1781).

In 1788, the dire state of public finances led to his re-appointment. Ratifying the Dauphiné assembly, Necker hastened the summoning of the Estates General and doubled the size of the Third Estate. His subsequent dismissal sparked public outrage, and helped precipitate the storming of the Bastille (14 July 1789). Bowing to public pressure, and at Jean Joseph Mounier’s insistence, Louis XVI recalled Necker, who was paraded through Paris in triumph. Ill-suited to his role as statesman, however, Necker would not co-operate with Lafayette and Mirabeau and mismanaged crucial economic measures. In 1790 he resigned in disgrace, living in retirement near Geneva until his death in 1804.

If the Edinburgh took issue in its second number with the republican vision for France Necker outlined in Last Views [Dernières Vues de Politique et de Finance (1802)], his ‘pacific and impartial disposition’ was welcomed (ER 1:395).

William Christie, University of Sydney

 

Sir Charles Warre Malet (1753-1815)

East India Company servant and diplomat.

BORN in Somerset, the son of a rector, Malet joined the East India Company at an early age and filled a number of posts, including the charge of an embassy to the Mughal Emperor and residency at Cambray, a post he filled from 1774 until 1785, when he was made Company resident to the court of the Peshwa at Poona. An unrivalled expert on western India, Malet was an expansionist, arguing for an increased EI Company presence – and, therefore, British presence – throughout India. He believed Britain had a duty to spread ‘liberal justice’ through a country he saw as ravaged by conflicts between petty robber-barons. Such ideas influenced the future decisions of figures such as Cornwallis and Wellesley.

Malet was made baronet in 1791 for brokering a difficult triple alliance between the East India Company, the Peshwa at Poona, and the Nizam of Hyderabad – no easy feat, as Malet had to diffuse tension between the Nizam and the Peshwa. This alliance enabled the defeat of Tipu Sultan and cemented Malet’s reputation. After a stint on the council at Bombay and as acting governor for the Presidency, Malet returned to England and married Susanna, daughter of the painter, James Wales, whom he assisted in publishing – particularly Wales’s work on the Ellora caves. Malet’s own description of the caves was published in Asiatic Researches in 1801. He died at Bath in 1815.

Elias Greig and William Christie, University of Sydney