48 
HISTORY OF MADAGASCAR. 
found on board one of the vessels, who had formerly been 
of the number liberated by the pirates, and who in all pro¬ 
bability had informed of their retreat. These two men 
were publicly executed. 
From some circumstances related in this account, there 
is reason to believe that the pirates of this settlement were 
neither dealers in, nor instigators to, the cruel and infamous 
traffic in slaves carried on afterwards: some natives having 
been brought to them for sale, they refused to purchase any, 
but afterwards employed them as free labourers, giving them, 
and all who came to them as slaves, their liberty; and at 
the same time honourably disclaiming either power or in¬ 
clination to hold them in bondage. 
The destruction of this settlement appears to have arisen 
from a series of calamitous events, chiefly an attack of the 
natives, by whom a considerable number of the settlers 
were massacred. This was the more unexpected, from their 
having dwelt amongst them on the most amicable terms 
for so long a period, that they had ceased to entertain any 
fear of enemies from the interior of the island. 
Depressed by this unlooked-for calamity, and having lost 
many of his men and some of his ships at sea, Captain 
Misson and his companions left the island; but it is pro¬ 
bable that the alliances they had formed, the regulations 
they had established in their colony, the arts they had 
taught, and the general effects of their intercourse with 
the people, would exert an indirect influence over these 
people for a considerable time after the departure of the 
foreigners. 
If such were the men (and unquestionably there were 
such amongst the adventurers of that period) who formed 
these piratical settlements, the strong indications on the 
part of the natives, of respect for the pirates in general, is 
