Levasseur and the Viceroy of Goa

The celebrated author of “Paul and Virginia,” the very capable engineer, M. Bernardin de St. Pierre, who visited Bourbon on his way back from Mauritius in 1770, relates that the French India Company had also a factory at St. Denis, and a governor who lived with them (the pirates) in great circumspection. The Viceroy of Goa, the Comte d’Ericeira, came (on April 8, 1721) to anchor in the road of St. Denis, and was to dine with the Governor, M. Desforges Boucher. He had scarcely set his foot on shore before a pirate ship of fifty guns anchored alongside his vessel and took her. 

The pirate captain landed forthwith, and demanded to dine at the Governor’s. He seated himself at table between him and the Portuguese Viceroy, to whom he declared that he was his prisoner. 

Wine and good cheer having put the Pirate in good humour, Mons. Desforges Boucher asked him at how much he rated the Viceroy’s ransom.

“I must have a thousand dollars,” said the Pirate. 

“That is far too little,” said the astute M. Boucher to the Pirate, Olivier Levasseur (surnamed La Buse, of Calais), “for a brave freebooter like yourself to accept from a grand lord like the Viceroy Ask something handsome, or ask nothing.”

“Well said,” cried the Corsair, “I shall ask nothing; the Viceroy is free to go.”

“The Viceroy,” says St. Pierre, “re-embarked instantly, and set sail, happy at having escaped on such good terms.”

Unfortunately the records spoil St. Pierre’s good story; for it is related that the crew of the Portuguese ship were landed, as the ransom of two thousand dollars was not forthcoming, and that Capitaine Olivier Levasseur took off his ship, for which act of piracy he was hung subsequently on July 17, 1730, at Bourbon, having failed to get himself included in the amnesty.

Madagascar or Robert Drury's Journal during Fifteen Years Captivity on that Island

written by himself

London , p. 94