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APRID, 1924)
NOTES ON PIRACY IN EASTERN WATERS
French. 271. In 1635 the French under M. de Flacourt established themselves in Madagascar (Journal d'un voyage au Indes Orientales, I, 7). This was, no doubt, a bona fide attempt at colonisation, but other French seamen were frankly engaged in seeking what the English called
Purchase. The Court Minutes of the English East India Company, for the 28th April 1637, state that it was reported that the St. Louis of Dieppe, 250 tons and 67 men, had lately Arrived at Dieppe from the East Indies, where she had been fifteen or sixteen months, during which time she had taken and robbed three junks of Cambay, and had brought home gold, silver and goods worth £30,000.
272. During the years 1638 and 1639 French ships from Dieppe continued to trouble the Eastern Seas and formed a small settlement in Madagascar (Foster, Eng. Factories, 1637-41, p. xxviü).
278. In 1642 the French Government granted the sole right of colonisation in Madagascar to Captain Ricaud (Rigault) and his Company. A Settlement and Fort were established at Fort Dauphin on the south-east coast of the island, but proper relations with the natives were not oultivated, and we find one of the Governors, & Monsieur Jaoques Pronis, treacherously seizing a number of natives who were visiting the Fort and selling them as slaves to the Dutch Governor of Mauritius (Flacourt, Relation, p. 193). The treachery of Pronis caused & revolt of the natives in which the Fort was burnt (Bernardin de St. Pierre, Voyage, pp. 60, 162 n.). This disaster occurred in 1655. The Fort was rebuilt in 1663 and abandoned about 1671 (Abbé Roohon in Pinkerton, XVI, 751, 758). According to Father Brown (Lettres Edifiantes, XIII, p. 303) the French who escaped the massacre at Fort Dauphin in 1655 fled to Don Mascarenhas with their native wives. Their number was augmented by the crew of a pirate vessel which was wrecked on the island as well as by the slaves of both sexes who were on board. M. de Flacourt, appointed Governor of Madagascar in 1648, settled in Mascarenhas in 1657, and renamed the island Bourbon (Grant, p. 27). The first European to discover Mauritius was Ruy Pereira in 1505. He named it St. Laurentio. Next came Don Mascarenhas in the same year and named it Cerné. The Dutch Admiral James Cornelius Van Neok landed there in 1598, found it uninhabited and named it Mauritius. In 1638 the Dutoh settled in the island, but evacuated it in 1712. In 1716 M. du Fresne renamed it 'Isle de France, but the French did not actually occupy it until 1721. (Bernardin de St. Pierre, p. 162 n.; Grant, pp. 18, 20, 26, 28, 29.)
English. 274. On the 27th February 1635 Charles I granted a commission to Captain William Cobb." to range the seas all over . . . . and to make prize of all such treasures, merchan. diens i... which he shall be able to take of infidels or of any other Prince, Potentate or State not in league or amity with us beyond the Line Equinoctial [1.e., the Equator) (Ind. Off, 0.0. 1565). In the treaty of Vervins between France and Spain, 2nd May 1598, ita provisions were made effective only north of the Tropio of Cancer and East of the Azores, beyond which "tout serait à la force ", but Cobb's commission is an early justification of the saying which soon became common amongst English sailors that there was no peace beyond the Line.
275. Cobb, in the Samaritan, and Captain Ayres, in the Roebuck, were sent to India by certain merchants who, a little later, oombined themselves into the Courteen Company and obtained from King Charlos a Charter which seriously encroached upon the rights of the East India Company. The Samaritan was wrecked on the Comoro Islands and Ayres finished
