388 
VISITS TO MADAGASCAR 
CHAP, XIV. 
officer had reported the same to the queen, and she had then 
sent the force by which the settlement had been destroyed. 
Then appealing to me a second time, he said, “ the queen is 
the sole sovereign of Madagascar, and is it right that the 
people of England, or of France, or any other country, should 
come and take possession of her country without her permis¬ 
sion ? What do you think about that ? What would be done 
to persons who should so act in any other country ? ” 
In answer to his appeal, I said I did not know what might 
be done in other countries, but if any of the Malagasy or 
other persons were to land in England, and were to attempt 
to take possession of any of the land or property there, they 
would soon find themselves in the hands of the police. With 
regard to Madagascar, I observed that I had always under¬ 
stood, from such information as I had gathered from docu¬ 
ments published on the subject, that whatever rights the 
French might have possessed or exercised in Madagascar 
previous to 1810, had been transferred to the English by the 
changes of war, which at that time gave the Islands of Mau¬ 
ritius and Bourbon, with all their dependencies, to the En¬ 
glish, who had soon afterwards taken possession of all French 
establishments in Madagascar; that the English had given 
back the Island of Bourbon to the French in 1815, and had 
subsequently surrendered, by treaty with Radama, all their 
possessions in Madagascar to him; and that whatever Radama 
possessed had descended to the present sovereign. 
M. Laborde then rose, and said that what I had stated was 
true with regard to the rumours of a hostile fleet. They 
were only statements in the newspapers, and were not au¬ 
thorised; also that if any persons were to land in France or 
England they would be treated as I had described, if not 
worse; and that if any English or French came and settled 
in Madagascar without leave, the Malagasy should cut them 
to pieces. 
