| Notes |
- LESAGE, Bibye (1780 - 1843)
Soldier, merchant and politician. Born in London in 1780, son of Augustine Lesage and of Diana Stockton. He arrived in Mauritius with the British expedition and at the taking of the island was a lieutenant in the 22nd Foot. In 1812 he went over to Seychelles to replace Bartholomew Sullivan as civil commandant and agent. He came back to Mauritius on 7 February 1815, was soon promoted
captain and appointed the same year A.D.C. to governor Farquhar. When the news of the Port Lucquez disaster reached Mauritius (3 March 1816) he was despatched to Madagascar to obtain redress for the murder of the British agents Blenman, Burch, Butler and O’Brien. He left on 23 April and returned on 16 September, after having succeeded in causing one of the murderers to be hanged and in obtaining for the English an offer of 800 oxen as compensation for material damage suffered
by them. In November 1816 he went on a second mission to Madagascar with Farquhar’s instructions to show towards the natives great mildness and perfect toleration in religion, to encourage marriages between English soldiers and free women and to found a school at Aucerre. He was above all to prevail on King Radama to stop the slave trade with Mauritius, as there was a law against importing in new slaves, and this task was continued after him by James Hastie (q.v.). Having fulfilled his mission he returned on 13 April 1817 and shortly afterwards was sent again as government agent to Seychelles which he administered until 1819. On 27 July 1819 he left Mahé for Mauritius on the
schooner Six Sœurs (captain Hodoul), but five days later fire broke out on board the vessel which had to be abandoned. On this occasion he showed outstanding bravery and the passengers, among whom were six-year-old Félicien Mallefille (q.v.) and his mother, owed the safety of their lives to his courage. In 1820 Lesage was a land-owner residing at Moka and owned, with Charles Telfair (q.v.)
and others, the Bel Ombre sugar estate besides other lands at Moka, Flacq and Black River. He afterwards settled in Port Louis where he took to commerce and soon rose to a high position among the leading traders of the colony. On 9 October 1827 he was elected member of the Chamber of Commerce created by Sir Lowry Cole on 27 September of the same year. He also became an affiliated
member for Port Louis of the Comité Colonial which held its first general meeting on 25 January 1827. On 1 May 1828 he was among the mob which hooted at Sir Hudson Lowe (q.v.). After accusation levelled at Farquhar in Parliament and at Telfair in the Anti-Slavery Monthly Reporter No. 44, he wrote to Telfair on 10 September 1829 : "… little did I think it was possible to hear Sir R.
Farquhar, yourself, and all who had the honour to serve under his government, aspersed in Parliament and before the British public as guilty of crimes … The charges of slave-dealing having been satisfactorily disproved by the papers produces to the House of Commons, the equally groundless charge of cruelty and wholesale butchery of the slaves of Mauritius, now imputed to the inhabitants of
the colony, and to yourself most prominently by the A.S.M.R. will be more easily refuted … The chains, hooks and collars described by the A.S.M.R. are matters of pure invention … all that he says about yourself and Bel Ombre is a rhapsody of disgusting folly, a tissue of barefaced falsehoods". On
15 October 1832 Sir Charles Colville (q.v.) appointed him Inspector of Guildives and Assistant to John Finniss (q.v.), Chief Commissary of Police. On 19 October 1840, while attending to a fire which broke out at Plaine Verte, he was victim of an accident from which he never completely recovered. He died in Port Louis on June 27, 1843, aged 64. Le Cernéen of 4 July 1843 paid him this tribute :
"...On the rare occasions in which national prejudice and intestine quarrels have, now and then, divided our population, he was ever conspicuous for his impartiality and the perseverance with which he supported the good cause, at his own risk, and without distinction as to the origin of his opponents
and partisans...". He had married firstly Ann Ruth Mason who died in England in 1812. He afterwards married at Moka, on 6 April 1815, Rosalie Nicolaide Olivier, born 4 March 1792, who survived him until 29 June 1849. His son Napoleon became Receiver of Registration Dues and died in Curepipe on
28 April 1899, aged 76.
Harold ADOLPHE
Bibl. :
Bonnefoy : Table Générale … (Port-Louis, 1853), p. 282.
Pitot : Esquisses historiques (1811-1828).
Government Gazette (years 1816 and 1817).
Mauritius Blue Books.
Le Cernéen of 4 July 1843.
Civil Status.
Mauritius Archives : HB 7.
C. Telfair : Some Account of the State of Slavery at Mauritius (Port Louis, 1830), Appendix No. 64, pp. 223-227.
- Photo - Suzanne Coutanceau
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1779 - 1843 (64 years)
