evidence: In July of 1761, a French ship foundered near the island of Tromelin, east of Madagascar. It carried an illicit cargo of slaves. [...] Unfortunately for them, after the ship resumed its course eastwards, it was caught in a storm and ran aground on the submerged coral reef that breaks the surface as the island of Tromelin. [...] What their fates were after that, the records do not say, although Guérout has searched the in France and Mauritius. He believes that the two groups of known survivors from Tromelin Island must have merged into the community of freed slaves in Mauritius, and their descendants are probably living there to this day.