HISTORY OF MAURITIUS. 
447 
prevented, and the attempts of the Madagascar Blacks, which are turned freebooters, 
may be guarded against: these slaves may then be bought without hazard, and all 
agree they can be had cheaper and better, and are more intelligent and laborious, 
and sooner trained to all kind of work than those procured elsewhere. The incon¬ 
venience of too great a quantity of grain, and a scarcity, has been successively 
experienced at the Island of Mauritius: to remedy it, instructions have been sent, 
concerning the manner of preserving corn in Italy and Africa, with the form and di¬ 
mensions of the pits which are there used. The last works of the Sieur Du Hamel, 
relative to stores, ventilators, and the construction of granaries, have also been sent 
out; you must inform yourself whether any of his methods have been tried, and 
endeavour to introduce those best adapted to the nature of the grain necessary to 
be kept.” 
The Company, thinking the good of the service required that an entire jurisdiction 
over the Blacks should be established, wrote to the Council at the islands to employ 
such means as were necessary to engage the inhabitants to make detachments against 
the Blacks; they were promised one hundred and forty livres for every freebooter 
whom they destroyed; but that recompence not provinga sufficient encouragement, 
M. Bouvett determined to offer a slave, at the Companys price, for every freebooter 
killed, which the inhabitants approve and the Company have confirmed. 
LETTER XVII. 
From M. de Mir an to Baron Grant. 
Pondicherry, May 10, 1757. 
Contains an account of the loss of Chandernagore, which surrendered to the 
English by capitulation on the 24th of March, in the same year. 
LETTER XVIII, 
From Baron Grant. 
Isle of France, Feb. 16, 1758. 
He announces his departure, which took place in the same month, on board a 
ship belonging to St. Malo, named the Emerald. 
