Cape of Good Hope, the expeditions of their cruel enemy might, I conceive, be readily put a stop to.
Encouraged by their success against the Johannese, the Marati last year actually ventured across the channel and took possession of one of the islands of Querimbo, destroyed the houses, burnt the cocoa-nut groves and plantations, and killed every inhabitant that fell into their power. Their force is said to have consisted of about one thousand canoes, (which number, however, is probably exaggerated,) each containing about thirty armed men.
Nothing can be more terrible than the character which is attributed to these marauders. They carry cresses like the Malays, from whom possibly they may be descended, and exhibit in their attacks a degree of ferocity that can scarcely be exceeded. Their enmity is not peculiarly directed against the Portuguese, for their maxim is universal warfare. A French ship in 1807 was cut off by them, on her passage to the Isle of France, and not a single person escaped from their barbarity. A medical man of some distinction, with his son, from Mosambique, fell victims on this occasion.
Notwithstanding the success they met with on their expedition to the Querimbos, yet they did not quit the coast without suffering for their temerity. The inadequate provision made for their voyage, and their want of skill in navigation occasioned the death of numbers, and the small-pox which they caught on the coast became also a just instrument of retribution, leaving scarcely half of them to return to their chief at Madagascar. Yet this event, as might have been expected, did not discourage them, and they continued to threaten a repetition of their visit; being daring enough to declare that the island of Mosambique itself should be the next point of attack. Information of this was obtained from four prisoners taken by a Portuguese brig of war, after an engagement with six of their canoes, in which the Marati fought with such desperation that these four only were captured alive. The fort of Mosambique is too strong I conceive to fear the assaults of such an undisciplined rabble, but on any other part of the coast they might occasion infinite mischief.
