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
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