3-071-111 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Rev. George A. Shaw, late missionary at Tamatave, Madagascar, 1883. Engraving from a photograph by Messrs. Elliott and Fry. 'On June 16, five or six days after the French bombardment and capture of Tamatave,...Mr. Shaw was summoned on board the Nièvre, roughly accused of prompting them to resistance, and was kept a close prisoner, under military guard, on board the Flore, Admiral Pierre's flagship, until Aug. 7, when he was released upon the demand of the British Government...It has been announced...that the case of Mr. Shaw has been settled by the offer of the French Government to pay him 60,000f. as compensation for his unjust and illegal imprisonment...Public opinion is not unwilling to accept the excuse that poor Admiral Pierre, who was at the time afflicted with a painful malady of which he has since died, may have been in a state of bodily and mental disturbance that deprived him of the ordinary use of his judgment...as Mr. Shaw has been...a sufferer, undergoing two months' very irksome confinement, to the injury of his health, while great distress find alarm to his wife,...forbidden to see him during his detention, must have been occasioned by these violent proceedings, he is certainly entitled to a liberal pecuniary reward'. From "Illustrated London News", 1883.