Squadron

by John Broich

  Over the course of the next week the sick berth began to clear, the men saved, perhaps, by the aid of a slave labour island’s officials. Over those days, Sulivan and his senior officers happily glimpsed the memorable daughter of the kindly commissary-general. Until, on a windless afternoon, the stokers raised steam to ease out of Mayotta’s harbour and resume hunting.3

  HMS Nymphe, north-west coast of Madagascar, August 1869

  While Daphne was patrolling the west side of the Mozambique Channel in August 1869, Nymphe was patrolling the east. One day, five months after Edward Meara had left the place, the Nymphe sailed into Majunga harbour on Madagascar’s north-west coast. For five months, the fates of just under 200 East Africans hung in the balance. The governor of the province had promised to refer the matter to his capital in the centre of the island and Meara intended to find out how the capital responded. What excuse could the capital offer for holding them? That they were free engagés labourers? The provincial governor could offer no such proof the last time Meara was here.

  Not long after arriving, Captain Meara was informed of visitors, officers from the fort above the harbour. He received them and all was politeness and civility, in contrast to Meara’s departure that spring. They bore an invitation to sit with the governor.

  The next day Edward Meara crossed to the beach where he had summarily burnt the two ships an eyewitness fingered as slavers. Then up to the fort to meet Governor Ramasy, up a path framed by fruit trees among coarse grasses, and to a rough stockade above a deep ditch. Two guns framed the fort’s entrance gate, within which lay the large square where Meara and some lieutenants were entertained in the spring with music and dancing. There was another civil reception and eventually Meara put the question to the governor. Had he received an answer from the Queen’s Court?

  Yes, he had. He was ordered to keep the slaves and await further instructions from the capital.

  Meara then asked how many Africans there were.

  ‘There were one hundred and seventy-four slaves landed, fifteen of whom died very shortly after they were landed. Twenty-six have died since.’ The governor said that the Africans were distributed about the households of Majunga.

  And so, unless he and his men turned the town upside down, Edward Meara still could not release the East Africans. Still, Meara managed – this time – to leave in politeness. Just after nightfall, Meara was presented with a bullock and chickens on board the Nymphe.

  At dawn the ship left the harbour for the south. The Nymphe was due in Zanzibar soon, but Edward Meara intended to search some more bays for the slavers he believed must be landing on this coast. Soon the Nymphe hovered outside a suspicious bay and the boats moved out. Before long word came that two Africans on shore reported having seen slavers recently. Meara and the interpreter Ali rowed to interview them. A dhow, they said, had landed slaves at this place ten days before, while a second had taken 120 slaves to Majunga – to the harbour the Nymphe had just left.

  Connivers, wrote Meara in a letter to Commodore Heath. These Malagasy do trade in slaves. They conspire in silence.4

  HMS Forte, Port Victoria, Mahé, Seychelles, August 1869

  At that moment, Leopold Heath and HMS Forte were to the north-east at Port Victoria, Seychelles. The commodore was investigating the Malagasy claims – sent through the British consul there – that Edward Meara had raided a port and carried off slaves. He found freed men, but only two – Ferejd and Malbrook – who had swum on board Meara’s sloop. Through an interpreter he interviewed them and had them swear over a deposition that they had fled of their own free will. And once on board, the deck of a British man-of-war being British territory, thought Heath, they became ipso-facto free.

  Had Meara really fired a warning shot over the town in order to rattle the local governor into releasing many scores of captives? Unclear, and Heath would not know until he caught up with the Nymphe somewhere in this vast ocean, but he would hardly condemn Meara for it, given that a show of force, as he thought of it, might have been called for in securing the freedom of people undoubtedly brought there in violation of Madagascar’s own treaty with Britain. And, bewildering to Heath, they insisted on holding the Africans hostage until they heard from their capital. Heath sent the depositions to Consul Packenham at Madagascar and hoped he had won some vindication for his squadron.5

  CHAPTER 14

  ‘STAND UPON THE FOAMING SHORE’

  Philip Colomb tries to win the release of hundreds of kidnapped Mozambicans

  AS AUGUST turned to September 1869, Philip Colomb and the Dryad arrived at Madagascar from Ceylon. First he called on the British consul who was headquartered on the eastern side of the island and received a long-sought-after letter bearing the seal of the Queen of Madagascar – one that Colomb would later relish handing the governor at Majunga – then he crossed over to the western side and the port of Majunga where nearly 200 East Africans were still being held.

  HMS Dryad, Majunga, Madagascar, September 1869

  It was Colomb’s first time there and, as he saw the town from the quarterdeck, its low stone buildings on undulating ground, its patches of woods, memories of Irish towns came to mind. And tomorrow’s breakfast came to mind. It had been a long crossing from Ceylon, and now that he was in relatively cooler waters he could think of something other than the heat – like enjoying food. So, sending off a boat to the shore, he imagined what the stewards might forage for in the morning.

  The captain was not the only unhappy man on the Dryad the next morning. Everyone found the worn old sea breakfast dished up. The word was that the breakfast expedition had encountered only closed doors and rejection. The local authorities, it seemed, had ordered that no provisions be sold to the British: Dryad was under breakfast embargo. It was an inauspicious start.

  A little after noon, a boat pulled from shore bearing an official deputation and the group came up the side. Their leaders wore refined white suits and simple but elegant straw hats. One of these, who also carried a walking stick, introduced himself as Rakotovao, the son of the governor.

  ‘How is Queen Victoria?’ asked Rakotovao with such earnestness and concern that it was as if Her Highness might have lain ill in the sick berth below.

  Philip Colomb replied courteously and, trying to muster the same tone of immediate concern, asked, ‘How is the health of Queen Ranavalona?’

  Pleasantries and introductions continued, interpreted. Colomb was struck with the beautiful sound of the Malagasy language. Most words ended in a vowel and sounded like Italian, he thought, with an even better kind of flow and melody. Colomb took a liking to Rakotovao, who was lighter of skin than most around him. Though he couldn’t understand a word the man said, Colomb judged him a civilised person, and intelligent. For the sake of Rakotovao, the captain forgave the town of Majunga for denying him a decent breakfast.

  That afternoon, Philip Colomb and three officers pulled themselves across the water to the beach. First they were served coffee in the fine stone house of a successful Indian merchant, his large entertaining room hung with many mirrors. Then it was up to the fort borne on palanquins and surrounded by drummers and musicians. Soon the body entered the square within the palisade, lined by soldiers, a tall spear planted in front of each, and each shouldering a musket. On a dais at the opposite end of the square stood the governor, who wore a black coat over white trousers and a crimson hat, and carried a very great scimitar. There was some ceremony performed before the governor even looked at the sailors. The details of its elements escaped Colomb, beside the conspicuous flashing of the governor’s scimitar. Colomb, always measuring races against the British model, judged the reception very much overdone and chalked it up to a mere mimicry of the more civilised.

  A barked salute to Queens Victoria and Ranavalona completed, there was a salute to Colomb, and finally the governor took the captain by the hand and led him and his men into a hall. There a long white-clothed table, a bottle of French spirits, water and glasses stood ready. A group
of courtiers or officials joined and they sat.

  ‘I am very glad to see the governor looking so well,’ said Colomb. He told him how honoured he was with the reception. The interpreter translated.

  ‘The Queen and Prime Minister enjoy good health and spirits,’ responded the governor. It seemed the interpreter had kindly corrected Philip Colomb’s misstep and had had asked after the health of the Queen and Prime Minister of Madagascar, per etiquette. ‘How is Queen Victoria? I hope she is pretty well. How is everything in Europe? What is the news?’

  ‘Queen Victoria is very well. The Prime Minister is very well. Everybody in Europe is generally very well. There is no news, but everyone is always glad to hear good news of the Queen of Madagascar.’ The interpreter translated. Colomb added, ‘I am very sorry to disturb the governor on Sunday, but time presses.’

  ‘Very much pleased to see an English captain. Man-of-war. Englishmen generally.’

  Colomb asked whether any slaves had been landed recently. The governor said – contrary to the evidence gathered by Meara just weeks before – they had not. Colomb asked whether the governor had received any messages from the British consul in the capital. The governor said he had not.

  Colomb had a surprise for the governor, the letter bearing the seal of the Queen of Madagascar that he had carried from Consul Packenham at Tamatave. Colomb handed it to him and the governor handed it to a secretary in a blue coat. The man pulled out great brass spectacles with green shades on their sides and read, whispering to the governor. The governor whispered to the interpreter. The interpreter paraphrased. For some reason he, too, whispered to Colomb. It was a royal order to release, finally, the trafficked Mozambicans.

  The governor said that the slaves could not be gathered now and that it was not possible to speak openly, but the Africans would be gathered soon.

  Why did the governor and his interpreter whisper, saying that he could not speak openly? Perhaps it was simply because he would need to surprise the town’s slaveholders if there were any hope of removing the kidnapped East Africans. But it was also true that in carrying out the demands of the British, the governor was acting against powerful interests. Madagascar’s economy was based on slave labour, after all, and central government officials themselves held as many as 3,000 slave labourers. The wealthiest families in Majunga also depended on the persistence of the slave trade. As in Zanzibar, a set of Indian families financed the local market, providing the loans that bought the trade-goods, that bought luxuries and the enslaved on the Mozambique coast. They provided mortgages for slave labour farms, even slave ships. Like Jairam Sewji in Zanzibar, with whom they worked, they ran – even built – the customs house in Majunga. This circulation of money fed, and was fed by, the trafficking of up to 8,000 East Africans to Madagascar each year, with around half those being trafficked again to the French islands.1

  The next day the trustworthy liberty men enjoyed leave on the shore under bright skies and benign warmth. Colomb, too, was able to do some exploring with some of his officers. They walked under mango trees, one titan that appeared to have a hundred-foot canopy. They walked around manioc beds and rice paddies. And they delighted in the apple of the cashew tree, while carefully avoiding the noxious skin of the nut itself that clung to it.

  To the captain and to others of the crew who went ashore it was obvious that the African slaves in the town were hoping that they had come to free them, or at least that they might be able to jump into their boats when they left the shore. The people made furtive signs, pleading looks, and some few even ran for the boats but were seized by Malagasy soldiers. Other times, though it chafed them, the crew had to lift Africans who had managed to reach a landed boat out of it. Against our grain, thought Colomb. But a boat on the beach was in Madagascar, and the British had no treaty right to free slaves in Madagascar. Edward Meara had known it, however much it rankled; Philip Colomb knew it.

  In his patrolling the coast of Arabia, visits to Muscat at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, even at Zanzibar, Philip Colomb believed that he did not see among the enslaved Africans such desperate faces or eyes watching for the opportunity to dash. He chalked this up to the essence of the African; certain Africans had their virtues – he greatly honoured his Kroomen’s bravery and ability, after all – but the love of freedom, so strong in the Englishman, was not most African’s, he thought. But these desperate men and women – these Mozambicans, most of them – frustrated such easy reckoning. Even for Colomb, so self-assured, his racial certainties were now celestial objects that would not stay still in his sextant glass.

  In the early afternoon, Colomb and every officer that could be spared from the Dryad were borne up the hill in much the same way as the day before, received in much the same way at the fort, entered the same hall and gathered around the same table. And here were the same dignitaries as yesterday. The governor’s secretary, he of the great brass spectacles, was there, carrying a great scimitar slung from three belts and wearing impressive Hessian boots. The governor’s son Rakotovao joined. Bottles of ruby Medoc already arrayed along the table, all sat and toasts to the Queens of the two islands commenced.

  Toasts completed, the food flowed: curries, kabobs, rice, roast beef, sausage, a kind of crêpe, duck. Rakotovao carved, as if the men were friends or brothers. Near the end of this copious feast, one of the Dryad’s officers drew the attention of the others to Midshipman Gerard Brooke, nineteen. Somehow, after all this food, the boy was in the act of devouring half a goose by himself. Colomb and the others laughed.

  Of course, Colomb knew that he must return the courtesy and at the end of the night issued an invitation to the governor and his entourage to join him in his great cabin soon. With polite sounds, the men took their leave and were borne back down the hill.

  Finally, late the next afternoon, the illegally landed East Africans were assembled on the beach and ferried to the Dryad, her boats plying to and from the shore with 140 men, women and children. Philip Colomb’s mission was accomplished, and Edward Meara’s cause.

  Not long after this the governor and his entourage came aboard for a late supper. They had adopted more military dress for the occasion. One man in a red frock coat and epaulettes communicated with Colomb an interest in having a missionary sent to the town. The captain tried to communicate something concurring and managed to find a Bible on hand to offer him.

  Just before the meal commenced, late by naval standards, a message came for the captain: a dhow had been seen leaving the shore at dusk. The gig was dispatched per routine to check her papers. The crew of the ship, Colomb heard, had drawn its weapons when the unarmed inspection party approached, then the ship had run. It was not only highly suspicious, but a violation of the treaty between Britain and Madagascar granting the Royal Navy the right to search, and Colomb then issued orders to arm and dispatch one of the cutters in chase.

  The meal now being served, the captain apprised his guests of goings-on in the bay. Later, another message came describing the state of the chase as monitored through a telescope, and Colomb relayed the news to his guests as they ate. With the same breath with which he poured courtesies, he reported on his efforts to catch his guests in conspiring to deceive him. Written on the face of the governor was a burning desire to be off the Dryad.

  Finally came the report that the dhow had run ashore when it was obvious it could not escape. This was proof enough for the captain that it had been smuggling slaves out of Majunga. The dinner ground to an end and the governor and his entourage parted under the echoes of a deafening five-gun salute from the Dryad.

  The next day as the crew cleaned, cared for their new passengers, shifted sails, and prepared for departure to Mauritius, several Africans were helped up the side of the ship: runaways who had somehow evaded capture on the beach and canoed or swum across the small harbour. A repeat of Meara’s experience, it was Colomb’s first though he had anticipated it. A council of the captain and his senior officers had already determined that, while they cou
ld not be so rash as to take escapees off the beach, it was a different matter if they made it to the teak deck of the Dryad. The ship, they agreed, was British territory, and successful runaways would not be sent back. And so, when the inevitable embassy of Malagasy officers arrived to recover the runaways, Philip Colomb was prepared. According to treaty, they argued, the British must not remove Malagasy subjects without a passport.

  ‘No slave is a subject,’ replied Colomb. He summoned the men to appear before the officials. Did they argue that these men were not slaves?

  No, they did not but, with diplomacy, they asked to take them ashore.

  Philip Colomb, with diplomacy, declined.

  The next day, the day of departure, was Sunday, and Colomb and several officers had accepted an invitation to attend church in the town before sailing. The escort arrived on shore and they all ascended to the fort where they entered a narrow long hall within its walls lined with windows, white mats on the walls, and at one end a raised platform where a large Bible translated into the native language sat open on a small table. As the crew entered, the congregation was singing a hymn in four parts, sung with precision though it was unplaceable to Colomb, though faintly familiar. Different individuals took turns at reading from the Malagasy Bible, leading prayers. While among them Colomb noted some who had pled the day before to take away in chains several men now safe on the Dryad.

  Throughout this, Philip Colomb, prince of an isolated kingdom populated only by men, felt the magnetic current centred on the young Malagasy women in the congregation, with their pure white wraps, their elegantly braided hair.

  By noon, Colomb and his senior officers were back on the ship. Up steam in one boiler, hands to the capstan, up anchor, engage the screw, and the Dryad departed the harbour, bearing over 140 people formerly enslaved. And as he had before back on the P&O steamer, he thought about the functions of the market in slaves. They had, Colomb hoped, struck a blow against that market: a slave was a bad investment if an erratic British man-of-war’s captain could bear him and hundreds of others away at a single stroke.2