The island of Madagascar has excited the avaricious desires of the Europeans, ever since it had the misfortune to be tolerably known. - A. Rochon #QotD

The island of Madagascar has excited the avaricious desires of the Europeans, ever since it had the misfortune to be tolerably known. Its extent, together with the richness of its soil and productions seemed to offer, to the people who should make a conquest of it, commercial advantages which they would not, certainly, have suffered themselves to neglect. Luckily however, the unwholesomeness of the climate has hitherto saved it from the yoke of those civilized nations, who assume the barbarous and unjust right subjecting to their authority those tribes whom they call savages merely because they are unacquainted with the manners and customs of Europe. (p. 1-2)

From A Voyage to Madagascar and the East Indies by Alexis Rochon, M . Brunel. Published 1792.