410 
HISTORY OF MADAGASCAR. 
“ If it ever be in my power to meet your wishes, I shall never 
forget your government and people. 
“ I have the honour to be, with sentiments of the highest 
respect, 
u Your Excellency’s most obedient and faithful servant, 
(Signed,) “ Rataffe.” 
The unhappy fugitives then sought concealment in the 
woods ; there, while sleeping in a small hut, overcome with 
exhaustion and fatigue, it is said the royal blood-hounds 
searched them out. Rataffe was seized, and brought a 
prisoner to the neighbourhood of the capital. In his ab¬ 
sence, a mock trial was instituted, that the sacred name of 
justice might be basely desecrated, to give pretended sanc¬ 
tion to assassination, and a public court of military and 
civil judges declared him guilty of disloyalty. Within four 
hours after this declaration of his guilt, the unhappy prince 
was led forth from the building in which he had been 
confined, to an adjacent field, where his hands were igno- 
miniously tied behind him, and a spear thrust through 
his heart. He was buried on the spot; and the amiable 
princess, his wife, was shortly afterwards banished, and sub¬ 
sequently assassinated by spearing, in a manner that de¬ 
stroyed also the infant, of which, had she lived, it was 
expected she would have become the mother. 
Thus perished, on the 6th of October, 1828, Prince Ra¬ 
taffe, the head of one of the noblest families of Madagascar, 
and thus was sacrificed to jealousy and cruelty his amiable 
wife, Radama’s eldest sister. Their only crime was, that 
they were the immediate descendants of the ancestors of 
Radama, and were favourable to the education and im¬ 
provement of the people. Their bodies were afterwards 
carried to Imamo, and buried among the sepulchres of their 
