MOS AMBIQUE. 
79 
attacks a degree of ferocity that can scarcely be exceeded. 
Their enmity is not peculiarly directed against the Portuguese, 
for their maxim is universal warfare. A French ship in 1807 was 
cut off by them, on her passage to the Isle of France, and not a 
single person escaped from their barbarity. A medical man of 
some distinction with his son from Mosambique fell victims on 
this occasion. 
Notwithstanding the success they met with on their expedition 
to the Querimbos, yet they did not quit the coast without suiFering 
for their temerity. The inadequate provision made for their 
voyage, and their want of skill in navigation occasioned the 
death of numbers, and the small-pox which they caught on the 
coast became also a just instrument of retribution, leaving 
scarcely half of them to return to their chief at Madagascar. 
Yet this event, as might have been expected, did not discourage 
them, and they continued to threaten a repetition of their visit ; 
being daring enough to declare that the island of Mosambique 
itself should be the next point of attack. Information of this was 
obtained from four prisoners taken by a Portuguese brig of war, 
after an engagement with six of their canoes, in which the 
Marati fought with such desperation that these four only were 
captured alive. The fort of Mosambique is too strong I conceive 
to fear the assaults of such an undisciplined rabble, but on any 
other part of the coast they might occasion infinite mischief. 
The abolition of the slave trade by the English has been 
another severe blow to the trade of Mosambique. The whole 
supply of the Cape, of the Isles of France and of Batavia was 
formerly derived from these settlements, and many of the Indian 
