Robert Drury (sailor)

Modern scholars have proven though that many details in the book are authentic and that the story itself is one of the oldest written historical accounts of life in southern Madagascar during the 18th century.

Robert was born at Crutched Friars in the Tower Hamlets area of London and later moved to the Old Jewry near Cheapside, where his father ran an Inn called The King's Head.

On the return voyage it ran aground near Mauritius, and the crew was forced to abandon ship in Madagascar on the southernmost tip of the island, having not reached the Cape of Good Hope.

The now captive sailors attempted to escape Andriankririndra to the east where Abraham Samuel, a black native of Martinique, reigned over the Antanosy tribes near what is now Fort-Dauphin.

An emissary from the Sakalava king of Fiherenana (part of the Menabe kingdom) broke the civil war by proposing a joint attack against the Mahafaly.

He then fled from this master as well and, travelling north through Bara country, he found the Onilahy river and followed it to St Augustine's bay, now the city of Toliara in south-west Madagascar, and the capital of the Fiherenana.

But suspicion began to rise concerning its authenticity due to its paraphrasing of many parts of the book on the History of Madagascar by Etienne de Flacourt in 1658.

[1] Benbow escaped to Fort Dauphin and sailed home aboard a Dutch ship; a few other Degrave survivors were picked up by pirate John Halsey.