78 
MADAGASCAR. 
free and slavery entirely abolished. A slave 
may now redeem himself or his friends by a 
money payment, and the master is bound to 
accept a reasonable offer from the man himself 
for his own or his wife or child’s redemption. 
Some interesting particulars as to the condi¬ 
tion of slaves in Madagascar in 1702 may be 
gleaned from the life of Eobert Drury, an English 
lad, son of a London tavern-keeper. The boy 
ran away from home, and joined an East India- 
man, which was afterwards wrecked upon the 
south-east coast of that island. Drury was en¬ 
slaved by the natives, who kept him in bondage 
for many years. He at length, however, effected 
his escape, and was taken off the island by a 
friendly vessel; but, as is too often the case, his 
own bitter experience of the miseries of slavery 
did not seem to develop in him any feelings of 
commiseration for the sorrows of others, for we 
find that he afterwards returned to the coast of 
Madagascar as a slave-dealer himself. 
