Jean Baptiste Colbert also, the great financial minister of Louis XIV., to whom France owes so much of her greatness, appointed a Governor-general for this new dependency, which it was hoped in the course of time would form a large and successful colony of France in these seas; and went so far as to give to it the “beautiful” name of Eastern France.
The Governor-general carried out with him the grand seal of Eastern France.
This seal represented the King in his royal robes, the crown on his head, the sceptre in one hand, and the scales of justice in the other; around the seal was the following inscription:—
“Ludovici XIV. Franciæ et Navarræ Regis Sigillum ad usum supremi consilii Galliæ Orientalis.”
But the company founded by Colbert, like that set on foot by Richelieu, became bankrupt from mismanagement and the personal animosities of those sent out to Madagascar.
The only period at which France has ever had a shadow of a chance of obtaining the sovereignty of this magnificent island—which from its commanding position is deservedly called the Great Britain of Africa—was when the French settlements were under the command of the mastermind of the Count Benyowski, one of the magnates of the kingdom of Hungary and Poland, who, after escaping from a Russian prison in Kamtschatka, took service in that of the King of France; and being appointed to the government of the French settlements in Madagascar, by his tact, perseverance, and energy, obtained the confidence of the natives. But the French authorities, envious of his great glory, eventually destroyed him.
After the fall of the noble but unfortunate Benyowski, and the abandonment of the different settlements which he had formed, France only held a few ports on the east coast of Madagascar, for the purposes of commerce, which were under the direction of a commercial agent, and protected by a military detachment furnished by the Isle of France, now called Mauritius. These factories were kept up for the purpose of provisioning the isles of France and Bourbon (Réunion), and affording supplies to the French squadrons occupying the Indian Ocean. At last, in 1810, they were confined to two—namely, Tamatave and Foulpointe.
In that year the Isles of France and Bourbon were taken possession of by the English, and the French settlements on the east coast of Madagascar shared the fate of those islands; and on the 18th of February, 1811, they capitulated to Captain Lynn, R.N., commanding his Britannic Majesty’s corvette “L’Eclipsé”—M. Sylvian Roux having signed the capitulation as French Agent-General.
After the capitulation, the fort at Tamatave was occupied by a detachment of British soldiers, under the command of Captain Wilson, of the 22nd Grenadiers, who reported that event in a communication to the government of Mauritius, dated Tamatave, 27th February, 1811. Foulpointe, which was a dependency of the settlement at Tamatave, with a subordinate French agent, also surrendered, and was taken possession of by the English. These portions of the coast were under the government of native princes, to whom M. Sylvian Roux had been accredited by the French government of the isle of France, now Mauritius, as agent or superintendent of trade, and the fort at Tamatave was for the protection of French trade.