HISTORY OF MAURITIUS. 
5 2 5 
anxious to free themselves from it; and the distance of the mother-country increased 
their impatience to know the events of the French revolution, which began in 1789. 
The colony was then governed by Lieutenant-general Conway. The Intendant, 
M. Dupuy, formerly counsellor of the Chatelet at Paris, amiable in his manners, 
and possessing a superior capacity, succeeded, by his mild conduct and vigorous 
policy, to conciliate the confidence and friendship of the colony; M. de Macnamara 
commanded the marines. In the last war he had gained, as he well deserved, the 
reputation of a brave and skilful officer, and was decidedly against the revolution. 
A vessel which sailed from Bourdeaux at the end of October, 1789, and arrived 
at the Isle of France at the end of January following, brought the news of the great 
power the National Assembly had usurped to itself. The captain of the vessel, officers, 
and ship’s crew wore the three-coloured cockade. On their landing with this revo¬ 
lutionary signal, and relating the late occurrences that had taken place in France, 
the flames of revolutionary conflagration instantly burst forth in all parts of the 
colony, and the cockade was very generally adopted. Some young men of the 
town, wishing to avail themselves of this moment of effervescence, posted up ad¬ 
vertisements in the streets, inviting all the citizens to form themselves into primary 
assemblies, after the example of those which had taken place in all the communes 
of France, in order to draw up memorials of demands and complaints. 
General Conway, the Governor, perceiving that the principles of the French 
revolution had infected the people, determined to oppose it by his authority. He 
accordingly sent some soldiers to arrest the young men who had posted up the ad¬ 
vertisement, and went to the Intendant’s house, to consult with him on the occasion. 
But the people had been collected in the square, and the young men whom the 
Governor-general had just caused to be arrested, happening to pass at that moment 
to prison, they were set at liberty by the multitude, who went immediately to the 
Intendant’s house, and compelled M. Conway himself to accept of the national 
cockade. 
On the following day the inhabitants of the town united in a primary assembly, 
after the example of France, and established the different constituted authorities, to 
whom they confided the interior government of the colony. 
1790. M. de Macnamara, Commandant of the French marine in the Indian 
seas, arriving at the Isle of France during this state of perturbation, could not 
