HISTORY OF MADAGASCAR. 
27 
to the Malagasy, who only waited a suitable opportunity to 
retaliate upon their oppressors the injuries and cruelties 
they had sustained. 
Chamargou did not long survive La Case; and to 
him succeeded his son-in-law, La Bretesche, a man neither 
endowed with the talents, nor enjoying the respect, paid 
to his predecessor in command. Finding it impossible to 
maintain his authority amidst the troubles which divided the 
French and the natives, he embarked in a ship for Surat; 
his family, several missionaries, and some of the French fol¬ 
lowing his example. The ship had no sooner left the road, 
than the crew perceived a signal of distress on shore. The 
captain immediately sent off his boats, which succeeded in 
rescuing the few unhappy individuals remaining, after a 
dreadful massacre effected by Dion Romousay and the neigh¬ 
bouring chiefs, who congratulated themselves on being once 
more free from the presence of their invaders. 
The attention of our own countrymen, as well as those of 
other nations, appears to have been directed to Madagascar 
soon after the period of its discovery. It is mentioned by 
Flacourt, that in 1642 the English had a military establish¬ 
ment at St. Augustine’s Bay, consisting of 200 men, of 
whom one-fourth were carried off by the effects of the 
climate in the space of two years. But neither the insalu¬ 
brity of the climate, nor the disasters of the early French 
settlers, appear to have deterred other nations, and among 
them our own, from directing a large measure of their 
attention to Madagascar, with a view to the establishment 
of a colony on its shores. 
In the early part of the reign of Charles the First, not¬ 
withstanding the troubles in which Great Britain was at 
that time involved, the government, and many of the mer¬ 
chants, seem to have been frequently occupied in planning 
