A. D. 1786. 117 



The Danifli Eaft-India company, though they minded nothuig but 

 their commerce, were now in fuch diftrefled circumflances, that they 

 requefled the king to accept a furrender of their charter privileges, and 

 ftock, on fuch terms as he fhould be pleafed to prefcribe j with which 

 requeft he comphed. 



Thus was our Eall-India company left almofl without a rival in the 

 trade of Alia. 



Count Benyowfky, a Pohfh nobleman, having offered his fervices to 

 France for eflablifhing a colony on the great ifland of Madagafcar, ar- 

 rived in February 1774 at the Bay of Antongil on the eaft coafl of that 

 ifland. The natives of the country are confiderably advanced in civiliz- 

 ation ; they underftand the cultivation and manufadure of cotton, in- 

 digo, and fugar ; are expert workers in gold, iron, and fleel ; and they 

 are not ignorant of navigation. The count, having purchafed lands 

 from the princes of the country, and having happily conciliated the af- 

 fedions of the natives, eflabliftied his colony, and made great progrefs 

 in planting, which was his principal objed, and in which he was afllfled 

 by the labour of the natives, whom he honeftly paid for their work : for 

 flavery was contrary to the plan of his inflitution. In December 1776 

 the count left his colony in a very flourilhing condition, and failed for 

 France. But there he had the mortification to find, that, notwithftand- 

 ing his fuccefsful exertions in their fervice, the French miniftry, appar- 

 ently influenced by a jealoufy in the government of the Ifle de France, 

 had withdrawn their fupport from him and his colony. Difappointed 

 in Europe, he addreffed himfelf to the ftate of Maryland in America ; 

 and being more favourably received there, he failed from Baltimore to 

 form an American fettlement in Madagafcar, where he arrived in the 

 year 1784. In May 1786 he was attacked by a French military force 

 detached from the Ifle de France, and killed, while bravely defending a 

 redoubt, wherein he had with him only two white men, and thirty of 

 the natives. And thus fell, a facrifice to mean jealoufy and crooked 

 politics, a man, who, if he had lived in the early ages of the world, 

 would have been ranked among the moft eminent founders of nations, 

 and been deified as a benevolent friend and improver of the human 

 race. 



Notwithftanding the inconfiftency of their condud with refpedt to 

 the colony fo happily eflabliflied by Benyowfky, it is certain, that die 

 government of France were at this time actuated by the moft liberal 

 fpiht for encouraging commerce and all the arts and fciences connected 

 with it, and held out invitations to artifts and manufacturers from all 

 countries to fettle in France, where, along with other advantages, they 

 were afTared of entire freedom with refped: to religion, and exemption 

 from the droit d'aubaine *. One confequence of thefe invitations was 



• The droit d'aubaine was entirely abolifhed by property of foreigners dying in Fiance was no 

 an edift, which was regillercd in the parliament of longer liable to be fcized by harpici autliOiiz^J v.) 

 Paris on the ^'' of March 1787, after which ihc abui'c an abuic of roval authority. 



P :: 



