HISTORY OF MAURITIUS. 
5^5 
should unite-with the people of the town who had flown to them, and march against 
it. The country people, informed of the events in town, reflected maturely upon 
the re-establishment of good order, not wishing to compromise the fate of the 
colony, upon which their existence depended, by too hasty a movement of ven¬ 
geance. The different districts consulted together, and agreed to march from their 
respective situations, against the town, on the morning of the 6th of November. 
This delay had already caused a great change in the minds of the conspirators, who 
had united to destroy the Colonial Assembly. Many of them who had been induced, 
without reflection, to wish for the dissolution of the Colonial Assembly, to prevent 
the passing of the law which it was preparing, for the reimbursement of the debts 
contracted during the course of depreciation of the paper currency, soon began to 
be alarmed at such an association, and to dread the misfortunes which their conduct 
was about to bring upon the colony. From that moment they refused to concur in 
the means which the Sans-culottes wanted to take, to prevent the country people 
from coming to re-establish order in the town. Terrified at being thus aban¬ 
doned, and perceiving that their number was so small with that collected against 
them, they accordingly did not oppose any resistance, and suffered the different 
detachments from the country to enter quietly into the town, which accordingly 
took possession of all the posts, and formed a kind of camp on the parade. 
Some very grievous enormities had been committed, and it was, perhaps, even 
imprudent not to punish them as they deserved. The colony, however, thought 
proper to be satisfied with the expulsion of the principal criminals, in order to avoid 
the spilling of blood, which had hitherto been avoided, in spite of all the storms of 
the French revolution ; the murder of Macnamara not being imputable to it, since 
it had been committed by the soldiers, from whom it had afterwards delivered itself. 
This resolution of the generality of the inhabitants, who were collected in the 
town, was submitted to the deliberation of the Directory representing the general 
commune of the colony, and of the municipality of the town of Port Louis, assem¬ 
bled together likewise, under the direction of General Malartic. A vessel, named 
the Hyppolite, was provided to carry the disturbers of the tranquillity of the 
colony to France, and on the 15th of November they set sail. 
The Isle of France being thus freed from the principal ringleaders of this con¬ 
spiracy, so fortunately terminated, found itself without a Colonial Assembly, which 
had been formally dissolved, The general opinion was, that it was necessary to 
