In those days Englishmen were Englishmen were the great carriers of slaves for America and the Antilles. And the noble deeds of British abolitionists, continued for the last half century, have not sufficed to blot out that stain from the history of a nation which the finger of scorn will ever point out to violated humanity.

"Oh, stretch thy wings, fair Peace, from shore to shore,

Till conquest cease and slavery be no more!"

293

CHAPTER XV.

EXAMINATION OF FRENCH CLAIMS ON
MADAGASCAR.

THE Island of Madagascar has been an object of desire to France ever since the days of Cardinal Richelieu, who, foreseeing the important position which that island must eventually hold in commanding the commerce of the East in the Indian Ocean, both by way of the Cape of Good Hope and also by the Red Sea, granted, about 250 years ago, to a company of merchants the right of trading with Madagascar, evidently with the intention of eventually obtaining possession of that island for the Crown of France.

Jean Baptiste Colbert, also, the great financial minister of Louis XIV., to whom France owes so much of her greatness, appointed a GovernorGeneral for this new dependency, which it was hoped, in the course of time, would form a large and successful colony of France in the Indian Ocean, and went so far as to give to Madagascar the name of France Orientale.

In 1665 M. de Beausse, the Governor-General, carried out with him the grand seal of Eastern France.

This seal represented the King, Louis XIV., in his royal robes, the crown on his head, the sceptre in one hand, and the scales of justice in the other: around the seal was the following inscription :

"Ludovici XIV., Franciæ et Navarræ Regis Sigillum ad, usum supremi consilii Galliæ Orientalis."

But the company founded by Colbert, like that set on foot by Richelieu, became bankrupt from mismanagement and the personal animosities of those sent out to Madagascar.

The only period at which France has ever had a shadow of a chance of obtaining the sovereignty of this magnificent island-which from its commanding position is deservedly called the Great Britain of Africa-was when the French settlements in Madagascar were under the command of the master-mind of the Count Benyowski, one of the magnates of Hungary and Poland, who, after escaping from a Russian prison in Kamschatka, took service under the King of France; and being appointed to the government of the French settlements in Madagascar, by his tact, perseverance, and energy, obtained the confidence of the natives. But the French authorities at the neighbouring islands of France and Bourbon, envious of his glory, eventually destroyed him, a.d. 1786.

After the fall of the noble but unfortunate Benyowski, and the abandonment of the different settlements which he had formed, France only held

a few ports on the East Coast of Madagascar, for the purposes of commerce, which were under the direction of a commercial agent, and protected by a military detachment furnished by the Isle of France, now called Mauritius. These factories were kept up for the purpose of provisioning the Isles of France and Bourbon (Réunion), and affording supplies to the French squadrons occupying the Indian Ocean. At last, in 1810, they were confined to two-Tamatavé and Foulepoint.

In that year the Isles of France and Bourbon were taken possession of by the English, and the French settlements on the East Coast of Madagascar shared the fate of those islands and on the 18th February, 1811, they capitulated to Captain Lynn, R.N., commanding his Britannic Majesty's corvette L'Eclipse "-M. Sylvain Roux having signed the capitulation as French AgentGeneral. After the capitulation, the fort at Tamatavé was occupied by a detachment of British soldiers, under the command of Captain Wilson, of the 22nd Grenadiers, who reported that event in a communication to the Government of Mauritius, dated Tamatavé, 27th February, 1811. Foulepoint, which was a dependency of the settlement at Tamatavé, with a subordinate French agent, also surrendered, and was taken possession of by the English. These portions of the coast were under the government of native princes, to whom M. Sylvain Roux had been accredited by the French

Government of the Isle of France, now Mauritius, as Agent or Superintendent of Trade, and the fort at Tamatavé was for the protection of French trade.

This capture was ratified by the Definitive Treaty, signed at Paris on the 30th of May, 1814, ceding these settlements on the East Coast of Madagascar to Great Britain, as one of the dependencies of the Isle of France, or Mauritius; and again that treaty was confirmed by Article XI. of the Definitive Treaty, signed at Paris on the 20th day of November, 1815.

By these treaties the Island of Bourbon or Réunion, which the British had captured at the same time as the Isle of France, or Mauritius, was restored to France, but no mention was made of the late French possessions on the East Coast of Madagascar in such restoration. The contrary is indicated by an ordinance of the King of France, dated from the Tuileries, December 17, 1817, regulating the terms on which trade with Bourbon shall be open to the English. This ordinance states that all kinds of merchandise brought in English vessels from the English establishments in Mauritius, Seychelles, and the English settlements in Madagascar, shall be admitted, subject to the to the same charges as those paid by French vessels.

The only English settlements in Madagascar at that time were those that had been surrendered by the French. This ordinance is signed by Louis XVIII. and Count Molé.