HISTORY OF MADAGASCAR. 
55 
have thought little of her threats, and to have proceeded 
in his plans for establishing the colony. These plans, 
however, were defeated by the appearance of epidemic dis¬ 
orders, incident to that situation at certain seasons of the 
year; and such was the mortality occasioned by the Mala¬ 
gasy fever, that the directors of the Isle of France were 
obliged to send out fresh troops; and of these it is that 
Rochon remarks, “they were of such a description that 
their loss could excite no kind of regret.” 
If Grosse was deficient in respect to the widow of 
Tamsimalo, he neglected no means of insinuating himself 
into the favour of the daughter; who, being a woman of 
great good-nature and agreeable manners, was a much 
greater favourite than her mother. By her influence over 
the people, she succeeded repeatedly in protecting the 
French from the projects of the revengeful and implacable 
widow; but her zeal was at last suppressed by a heavy accu¬ 
sation being brought against Grosse, from which she dared 
not defend him. It appears, even prior to this period, to 
have been the practice of the Malagasy to bury the wealth 
of their princes with their bodies in the grave; and the 
charge brought forward by the mother against Grosse was 
no less than that of having violated the sacredness of her 
husband’s tomb, for the sake of the riches it was known 
to contain. This accusation excited such violent indig¬ 
nation amongst the natives, that the destruction of the 
French was immediately decreed; and they rushed furiously 
upon the colony, set fire to the buildings, and massacred 
the settlers. The intelligence of this fatal event arrived at 
the Isle of France on Christmas-eve, 1754, when a ship, 
already fitted out for war, received orders to block up the 
entrance of St. Mary’s harbour, and chastise the inhabitants 
in the severest manner. 
