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THE PIGOTT
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This
has been called "the diamond that died with its owner." It weighed at
most only 85.8 carats, but such an eminent student of diamond values as
Mawe places it as of "the first water," now a rather obsolete term in
the diamond world. It Tanked for a time among the finest diamonds in
Europe, a brilliant of great surface, both in table and girth (although
not in depth), a fragile thing.
That
it was a diamond found in India, the experts of the middle nineteenth
century do not doubt, because of its typical Hindu cutting. Where it
was found, what its early history was, no one today knows. Not even
Tavernier encountered stories about it in India. But it came to Europe
in 1775, and how it came there and what happened is a matter of
conjecture, also.
The
earliest records show it to have been in the possession of Baron George
Pigot (as his name is correctly spelled) of Ireland. He was plain
George Pigot once, but a brilliant career lay before him. Twice he had
been governor of Madras, a province of British India. He had
distinguished himself in the Seven Years' War which, beginning in 1756
and ending in 1763, originally was a struggle between Prussia under
Frederick the Great and Austria under Maria Theresa for the possession
of Silesia. Eventually the war involved almost all the European powers,
ending (among other things) in England's gaining control of the
American colonies and preparing the way for England's Indian Empire.
Out of that came honors. Pigot was not neglected. He was able to buy for himself an Irish barony and so became
(196)
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