Governor General of the Ile de France, which he immediately renamed Mauritius since the capture of this island by the English on December 4, 1810, Sir Robert Towsend Farquhar has in his government all that is part of the French Establishments beyond Cape Town of Good Hope. He hoped that “these possessions, torn from France by the chance of battles, would remain British”.
An imaginative mind, experienced in the problems of the Indian Ocean, he understood from the outset the interest that Great Britain might derive from the possession of the Mascarenes and that of Madagascar which, according to him, should play an important role in the political English in this part of the world (Jean Valette). According to the archivist-paleographer, Farquhar’s interest was revealed long before he took command since, from July 10, 1810, he discussed the Lord Liverpool question in terms which show that he had studied it extensively. .
Once Sylvain Roux leaves Madagascar, on February 18, 1811, Robert Farquhar takes the time to re-examine the problems in all their aspects, and anchor himself more and more in the idea of the importance of Madagascar. On July 28, 1812, he sent a long report to Lord Liverpool in which he analyzed the general situation in the Indian Ocean. He analyzes the way he sees the future and the place he gives to Madagascar in his concerns. In fact, it paints a comprehensive picture of English policy in the Indian Ocean commensurate with British greatness and excluding any interference from other powers. “He wants to make the Indian Ocean a British sea”, even if he has to eliminate the resistance of Portugal, which is an ally of Great Britain.
Robert Farquhar wants the eastern African coast to fall under English rule. He insists on its commercial importance, on the possibilities of opening, from this coast, a land route through Africa, from Mozambique to the Atlantic Ocean. The Portuguese, established at a certain number of points on the eastern African coast, do not have enough strength to defend them. Under these conditions, “the English would have little difficulty in supplanting them. »
The Seychelles archipelago, conquered from France, is part of the government of Robert Farquhar. It is “worthy of interest from a military, maritime and commercial point of view” and its port owes to its location – “ten days from Mauritius, Ceylon, Goa, Bombay, the Persian coast, the Red Sea and Madagascar” – to be the most useful that can be and an indisputable observatory allowing to be able to know everything regarding the Indian Ocean.
However, it is Madagascar which seems to occupy the center of the concerns of the governor of Mauritius, because he extends at length on the Big Island, praises its merits, explains why it is not highlighted until then, and presents what, for him, would be necessary to make it “the most important colony east of the Cape of Good Hope”.
According to him, the Big Island is a “real Eldorado”, a land of the future where all cultures are possible. And if nothing has yet been achieved, “we must look for the cause in the failure of the French attempts which carried within them the causes of their failure”. The main one is the slave trade, the desire to obtain men at all costs to export them. England, having abolished the slave trade, should no longer be afraid on this level. “All hopes are therefore allowed, it is advisable to take advantage of it. »
For Robert Farquhar, the establishments that will be created there should not be made up of soldiers, but of civilians – farmers and craftsmen – who will enhance the country and serve as examples to the Malagasy. And if that is not enough, we can also appeal to immigration by introducing a few hundred Chinese.
Finally, and the idea is dear to him, it is possible to make Madagascar “a penal colony”. “As he fears that the previous experience of New Holland will be opposed to him, he takes the initiative, exposes and fights the objections that might be made to him, naturally in triumph. He thus paints a somewhat idyllic picture of the relationship between Malagasy and convicts. He sees emerging “in one generation, a new indigenous race of the type of the colonies of Spanish America” and thus hopes “to liberate the Motherland from the depraved branches of its population by making their work and their talents useful to the public good”. .
