HISTORY OF MADAGASCAR. 
49 
easily accounted for; for while the former were wholly 
unacquainted with the desperate means by which the 
wealth that poured into the country was acquired, they 
knew themselves to be partakers in that wealth, and expe¬ 
rienced all the immediate benefits of that selfish policy 
which secured their friendship for men who were enemies 
to all the world besides. 
We need not therefore wonder that the pirates, who re¬ 
turned continually to the island to repair and victual their 
ships, always met with a favourable reception from the 
natives, who compared their conduct with that of other 
Europeans, who had more than once been guilty of vio¬ 
lently seizing their provisions, committing unheard-of atroci¬ 
ties, burning and sacking villages, or firing upon them with 
their artillery, whenever they found the natives hesitate 
in the least degree to supply them with bullocks, poultry, 
and rice. 
The pirates had continued their depredations with suc¬ 
cess until the year 1721. It was at this epoch that several 
nations of Europe, alarmed at the enormous losses sustained 
by their commerce, finally united to clear the Indian Ocean 
from these formidable depredators, who had seized a large 
Portuguese man-of-war, which had on board Count Receira 
and the archbishop of Goa, and on the same day another 
ship carrying thirty guns. 
The pirates, elated with past successes, made a long and 
desperate resistance. Considerable squadrons were re¬ 
quired to oppose them, and they were only to be arrested 
in their career of plunder and murder by the most rigorous 
and exemplary punishments. The Europeans pursued 
them to their places of most retired concealment, and there 
destroyed their vessels by fire. 
The loss of their ships deprived the pirates of the 
it. 
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