HISTORY OF MADAGASCAR. 
35 
domestic condition of the natives, which wholly escaped 
the notice of those whose acquaintance with the island 
was more casual and transient; these appear to be faith¬ 
fully described, though his own feelings under his protracted 
captivity must have cast a sombre shadow over every object 
presented to his view. 
By his own simple and graphic account, he appears to 
have received but a partial education, to have left his 
home in very early life, as many other romantic and way¬ 
ward youths have done, for the purpose of seeking his for¬ 
tune at sea. He feelingly quotes the old adage, that wilful 
persons never want wo , the truth of which he fully verified 
in the commencement of his adventurous career. In the 
fourteenth year of his age he embarked as a passenger on 
board a ship bound for the East Indies. He sailed from 
London in the year 1701. 
It was on his return from Bengal, that the ship De 
Grave received considerable damage by running aground ; 
and though little was thought of the accident at the time, 
the ship became so leaky as to endanger the lives of 
the crew, and to reduce them to the necessity of making 
for the coast of Madagascar, where it became a total wreck. 
A large portion of the crew and passengers escaped from 
the wreck, and reached the shore in the province of Androy, 
near the southern point of the island; but they were 
afterwards dispersed, and little is known of their subsequent 
history. Drury, after suffering almost every kind of privation 
and distress, became a domestic slave, and as such passed 
from the hands of one proprietor to another, sometimes 
experiencing kindness, but more frequently being treated 
in a manner, which, though not regarded as cruel by his 
masters, must often have imbittered the regrets with which he 
remembered his reckless desertion of his own pleasant home. 
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