MADAGASCAR, 
 
 PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 CONSIDERATIONS AS TO THE POLITICAL AND COMMERCIAL 
 INTERESTS OF GREAT BRITAIN AND FRANCE : 
 
 AND AS TO 
 
 THE PROGRESS OF CHRISTIAN CIVILISATION. 
 
 A RESIDENT. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET, 
 ^ttbUsl)tr in <©rtiinarB to T^tx J^ajeste. 
 
 M.DCCC.XLVII. 
 
LONDON : 
 
 PRINTED BY GEORGE BARCLAY, CASTLE STREET, 
 
 LEICESTER SQUARE. 
 
 lOAN STAOK 
 
DTH9 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Introduction Page 1 
 
 4 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Prevalence of Idolatry and Superstition — Infanticide — 
 Trial by Ordeal — Divination and Astrology — The 
 Giant's Tomb — Theory in Relation to the World*s 
 Form and Nature — The Slave Trade — Efforts for its 
 Abolition — Elevation of Radamato Sovereign Power 
 — Introduction of Missionaries . . . .24 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Death of Radama — Usurpation of the Crown by one of 
 his Wives — Queen Ranavalona established on the 
 Throne — Her Cruelties — Murder of Prince RatafFe 
 
 355 
 
IV CONTENTS. 
 
 — Ignominious Dismissal of the Agent of the British 
 Government, Mr. Lyall — Progress of Christianity 
 checked — Restoration of Idol- worship — Persecution 
 of the Christians — Vassalage of the People — Starvation 
 — Prevalence of Theft — Decree to prevent the Prac- 
 tice of the Arts out of the Government Premises — 
 Permission granted to learn Reading and Writing — 
 Consequences of not obtaining this Permission — 
 Seizure on the Property of Europeans — Atrocities 
 committed by the Queen . . . Page 43 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 « 
 Letters from Queen Ranavalona to the British and French 
 Governments — Failure of the Project of obtaining 
 Protection for the Natives of Madagascar — Remiss- 
 ness of the British Government — Monetary Fluctu- 
 ation — Depressed Condition of Commerce — Value 
 of the Cut Dollars arbitrarily fixed — Oppression 
 and Wretchedness of the People — Their Cunning — 
 Military Authority — The Produce of Labour mono- 
 polised as the Feudal Property of the Queen — Cause 
 of Depopulation — Bribery and Corruption — A Capi- 
 tation Tax — Means adopted to prejudice the English 
 in the eyes of the Natives 66 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Enactments prejudicial to Commerce with Europeans — 
 Outrage on British Subjects — Contempt of the British 
 Flag — Captain Heppick offered for Sale in the Public 
 Market of Tamatave — Memorial to his Excellency 
 Sir William Gomm — The Case investigated — The 
 Charge denied — Letter from the Queen of Mada- 
 gascar — Duplicity of the Queen . . Page 81 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Insult to European Traders in Madagascar — Their Ba- 
 nishment Decreed — Account of the Tangena Ordeal 
 — Arrival of the Conway and the Zelee in the Roads 
 of Tamatave — Conference with the Hovas — Unsuc- 
 cessful close of the Discussion — Hostile Conduct of 
 the Hova Officers — Their Insolence to the French — 
 Protest of the English and French Commanders — 
 Refusal of the Hovas to receive the Protest — Hostili- 
 ties commenced — Storming of the Fortress — Barbarity 
 of the Hovas — Tamatave reduced to Ashes — Good 
 Feeling between the English and French — Departure 
 of the European Residents . . . . JIO 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Excitement at Port Louis — Consequences of Passive 
 Conduct of the Home Governments of England and 
 France — Victory claimed by the Hovas — Indignities 
 offered to the native Wives and Children of the ba- 
 nished Traders — Hostile Demonstrations of the 
 Hovas Page 133 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Dependence of Mauritius upon Trade with Madagascar 
 — Rise in the Price of Provisions in Mauritius — 
 Sufferings of the Malagasse Nation — Claims on the 
 Attention of the British Legislature — Queen Ranava- 
 lona's sanguinary Persecutions — Decrease of Popula- 
 tion at Tamatave and Foule-Pointe — Examination of 
 the French Claim to Madagascar — Retrospective 
 History of the Conquest of the Island — Hatred of 
 the Natives towards the French — Abandonment of the 
 French Settlement of Benyowsky . . 144 
 
 CHAPTER VIH. 
 
 Connexion between England and Madagascar — Plans de- 
 vised for an English Settlement in the Island — Com- 
 mencement of English Connexion with Madagascar — 
 
CONTENTS. Vll 
 
 Proclamation announcing the taking possession of Ma- 
 dagascar in the name of his Britannic Majesty — Per- 
 manent Residence of English Agents in the Island — 
 Effects of Climate — Notes from the Manuscripts of 
 the late Captain Le Sage — Examination of British 
 Claims — Evacuation of Port Loquez — Consequences 
 of having recognised Radama's Sovereignty — Respect- 
 ive Claims of England and France considered and dis- 
 proved — Petition from the Colonists of Bourbon to 
 Louis Philippe — Probable Manoeuvres of the French 
 unless counteracted by the British Government — In- 
 stance of French Machinations — Hostilities between 
 the French and Ranavalona . . Page 187 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 French Aggression upon Madagascar — Exposition of 
 the Policy of France — Their Encroachments on the 
 Comoro Isles — Address of the Chiefs of Mohilla to 
 the Governor of Mauritius — Mayotta a French Pos- 
 session — Seizure of Nosibe ordered by Thiers — 
 Guizot's Opinion on French Pretensions to Mada- 
 gascar — French Colonization — Extracts from Docu- 
 ments in Support of French Claims — Their Inva- 
 lidity established — British Interference called for, to 
 repress the Outrages of Ranavalona's Government — 
 The Annexation of the Island to the British Empire 
 not necessary to this end — The Dethronement of 
 
Vlll CONTENTS. 
 
 Ranavalona, Establishment of a British Agent, and 
 re-introduction of Christianity essential to the well- 
 being of Madagascar — Steps to be taken for the 
 Improvement of Madagascar — Good Effects of a 
 Coalition between England and France — Reasons 
 for turning the Attention of the British Legislature 
 to the present State of Madagascar . Page 218 
 
MADAGASCAR, 
 
 PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 INTKODUCTION. 
 
 The Island of Madagascar has awakened 
 hitherto but little general curiosity in the 
 English breast; nor does it appear to have 
 seriously occupied the attention of those to 
 whom, as legislators of their country, the 
 subject might have been expected to present 
 a larger share of attraction. Some few there 
 are, indeed, who, taking a nobler and less 
 contracted view of semi-barbarous countries, 
 than is confined to the question of their eli- 
 gibility as stages whereon to gamble at the 
 game of conquest, have regarded the present 
 territory as an object of especial interest and 
 solicitude. The number of these, however. 
 
2 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 is unhappily but small, and bids fair to be- 
 come even smaller, should not some more 
 effective measures be adopted to enlist the 
 attention of men's minds to tales such as 
 those w^hich the modern history of Mada- 
 gascar discloses. 
 
 The vs^holesale system of slaughter which 
 for many years past has been, and still is 
 being, enacted, in that benighted quarter 
 (and this, too, partly as a consequence of our 
 own attempt to introduce civilisation into the 
 country,*) is a circumstance, the knowledge 
 of which we might have thought, a priori, 
 would have excited universal interest in a 
 nation like our own. The atrocities in ques- 
 
 * An illustration of this statement is to be found in the 
 following fact : — Soon after a Missionary School had been 
 established in the capital of Madagascar, by the consent 
 and under the auspices of King Radaraa, the parents of 
 the native children, which were the objects of instruction, 
 conceived the notion that their sovereign was in league 
 with the missionaries to obtain their sons and daughters 
 under pretence of instruction, but really for the purpose of 
 selling them into slavery ! In consequence of this appre- 
 hension " many parents," says Ellis, in his " History of 
 Madagascar," " actually hid their children in their rice- 
 holes, where several of them died, suffocated by the 
 heated and confined air of these subterraneous granaries." 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 3 
 
 tion have been publicly and circumstantially 
 laid before us in the interesting " Narrative " 
 of Messrs. Freeman and Johns on the Per- 
 secutions of the Christians in Madagascar. 
 
 In that little w^ork, the number of lives 
 which have fallen a sacrifice to the cruelty 
 and caprice of the present sovereign of Ma- 
 dagascar is computed to be upwards of 
 100,000, — and this guardian of her people, 
 Queen Ranavalona, has worn the diadem 
 as yet scarcely more than seventeen years. 
 
 We shall quote the very passage, which 
 contains this astounding assurance, from the 
 '' Narrative," which now lies before us. " The 
 policy of the queen, during the last seven 
 years, has been to exterminate all the male 
 inhabitants of the conquered provinces capa- 
 ble of bearing arms, and to reduce all the 
 rest to slavery. It may be estimated that 
 no less than the fearful amount of 100,000 
 men have been murdered by the queen's troops 
 since her accession. A few only of this num- 
 ber have been killed while actually fighting; 
 the rest has consisted of those who had laid 
 down their arms, promised submission, and 
 committed themselves into the power of their 
 
4 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 deceitful but remorseless enemies. More than 
 double that number, including women and 
 children, has been captured and shared among 
 the troops, or sold into domestic slavery 
 through various parts of the island." * 
 
 Events of a political nature have recently 
 transpired, which render it probable that Ma- 
 dagascar will occupy, ere long, a larger share 
 of public attention than heretofore. And in 
 anticipation of such an event it is, that the 
 writer of these pages has essayed to put the 
 reader in possession of some of the most pro- 
 
 * *' A Narrative of the Persecution of the Christians in 
 Madagascar," by J. J. Freeman and D. Johns, formerly 
 Missionaries in the Island, p. 26. 
 
 One hundred thousand is greatly short of the number 
 actually slaughtered, up to the present time, under the 
 queen's orders or name. Messrs. Freeman and Johns 
 wrote their account of the persecutions in 1840-1 ; but 
 since the date of their information, which was not carried 
 down to a later period than 1835-6, the system of whole- 
 sale butchery has been greatly on the increase. 
 
 Mr. Griffiths, the oldest living missionary of Madagas- 
 car, calculated the deaths, directly and indirectly occa- 
 sioned by the queen's wars and barbarous usages, at the 
 fearful amount of owe million of adults, of which a large 
 majority were males 1 1 The latter gentleman made this 
 statement publicly from the pulpit in Mauritius, prior to 
 his return to Europe. 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 5 
 
 minent features which have characterised the 
 civil, religious, and political history of that 
 island, subsequent to the period to which 
 Ellis has brought down his account of it. 
 
 Since the possession of Mauritius by the 
 Enghsh in 1810, Madagascar, we have reason 
 to believe, has been frequently pressed upon 
 the attention of the British Government, but 
 the claims of this extensive and important 
 territory would seem to have scarcely ever 
 detained their serious meditations beyond the 
 moment. It is not easy to offer a satisfactory 
 explanation of this circumstance. The un- 
 healthiness of the island (which, by the way, 
 has been greatly over-rated) can scarcely be 
 advanced as a reason to account for it ; for 
 why, on the same grounds, do we not reHn- 
 quish such possessions as Scinde and Sierra 
 Leone ? And if our right to interpose in a 
 foreign territory be doubted, it should be re- 
 collected that Madagascar was formally taken 
 possession of in the name of Great Britain 
 during the early period of our occupation of 
 Mauritius, by right of conquest, in 1810.* 
 
 * " Soon after this period" (viz. the peace of 1814), 
 " a proclamation was issued by the Governor, Robert 
 
6 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 " It was justly regarded by a French writer, 
 at the close of the last century, as capable 
 of indemnifying France for the loss of St. 
 
 Farquhar, Esq. (afterwards Sir Robert), taking posses- 
 sion of Madagascar, as one of the dependencies of the 
 Mauritius, in the name of His Britannic Majesty." — Ellis, 
 History of Madagascar, vol. ii. p. 110. 
 
 To this brief statement of Mr. Ellis we may add the 
 following explanation : — No sooner was the Isle of France 
 possessed by the English, than, on examining its archives 
 for statistical information, it was observed that Madagas- 
 car occupied a place in every Record, and in a thou- 
 sand " Gazettes Officielles," as a regular " dependency 
 of Mauritius," together with Seychelles, Rodriguez, &c. 
 &c. Such being the case, the Governor was perfectly 
 "tw order'' in proclaiming Madagascar as a possession 
 of England, by right of conquest. And his Excellency lost 
 no time in exercising his right, by investing Tamata*i\e, ^]| 
 Foule-pointe, and other points on the eastern coast of 
 Madagascar, at which several places the King of England 
 was formally proclaimed. This official title continued to 
 figure in the " Mauritius Government Gazette" for several 
 years; until at length, on the resumption of Bourbon 
 in 1815 by the French king, the resident French in 
 Madagascar threw off their Jive years' allegiance to Eng- 
 land, and declared themselves subjects no longer of Great 
 Britain. Others again, who happen to be natural born 
 subjects of Mauritius, remained, and found it convenient 
 to call themselves British. About this time, and in con- 
 sequence of our treaty with Radama, we relinquished j 
 our pretensions to Madagascar as a possession. 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 7 
 
 Domingo ; and with equal propriety it has 
 been represented by an English gentleman, 
 intimately acquainted with this subject, as 
 having capabilities to render it of more worth 
 to Great Britain than all her possessions in 
 the West Indies." 
 
 France, for many years, it is true, has 
 occupied a minute speck in the island of St. 
 Mary's, on the east coast (which she has held 
 since 1825); and, still more recently, Nosibe, 
 or Noss Beh, another island on its north-west 
 side ; contenting herself with this insignificant 
 part of the prize until, perhaps, her influ- 
 ence in the southern hemisphere may enable 
 her to throw the mask aside altogether, and 
 pour an army into the capital of the country 
 from the settlement she has formed upon the 
 west coast ; — to which end, such an object 
 would be greatly facilitated by the propinquity 
 of Nosibe to the river Betoiboka (falling into 
 Bembetoka Bay), whose waters would convey 
 an invading force to within a week's march 
 of Tananarivo, the seat of government ! 
 
 *^ There are many events in the wonab of Time, which 
 will be delivered." 
 
 But more of this by and by. We hasten now 
 
8 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 to furnish the reader with some idea of the 
 island itself. 
 
 Madagascar, situated in the Eastern or 
 Indian Ocean, and forming, if we may so 
 speak, the sea or outer boundary of the 
 Mozambique channel, has, from its relation- 
 ship to that continent, as well as from its 
 general dimensions and importance, been de- 
 nominated, and not inaptly, '' the Great Bri- 
 tain of Africa." In extent, it has been com- 
 puted as considerably larger than our own 
 island. 
 
 *' From Cape Amber, or Ambro (its north- 
 ern extremity), situate in lat. 25° 40' S., Mada- 
 gascar extends southwards about 900 miles to 
 Cape St. Mary, its southern point, which is in 
 S. lat. 12° 2'. The breadth of the southern 
 part of the island is about 300 miles ; the 
 northern portion is narrow, and it is widest in 
 the centre, where it is about 350 miles broad. 
 It has been estimated to contain 200,000,000 
 acres of land ; but 150,000,000 would pro- 
 bably be a more accurate computation." * 
 
 * Ellis, " History of Madagascar," vol. i. p. 2. This 
 writer has coraniitted a strange error in his calculation of 
 the above latitudes, having inserted north for south, and 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 9 
 
 The early history of this island, in com- 
 mon, more or less, with that of all the others 
 belonging to the ^Ethiopian Archipelago, is 
 enveloped in deep obscurity. The two very 
 different races which now people the island 
 attest, however, the remarkable fact, that 
 Madagascar has not been colonised from a 
 single source alone. But at what period of 
 the world's history the settlement of either or 
 both of these people was effected — in what 
 relative succession, and in consequence of 
 what temptation or revolution of events, will 
 probably for ever continue to lie behind the 
 veil of the past. It seems, however, to be 
 generally agreed upon, that one of these 
 two people is of Malay descent ; whilst the 
 characteristics of the other bespeak them un- 
 questionably as of African origin : on which 
 
 vice versa. His own map might have enabled him to rec- 
 tify his incorrect account of the latitudes; but in the longi- 
 tudes, the map itself is wrong li/ drawn out, inasmuch as he 
 has assigned to it a degree too much. In his estimate, too, 
 of the breadth of the island, he is not quite correct ; the 
 southern breadth should have been stated at 200, and that 
 of the northern portion 350 miles. In the text it will be 
 observed, that we have inserted Ellis's own account of the 
 dimensions, latitude and longitude, of Madagascar. 
 
 b2 
 
10 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 account we may conclude that the neighbour- 
 ing continent has contributed, at some period 
 doubtless very remote from the present, to 
 engraft a shoot from its own stock upon the 
 island. The missionaries state, as the result 
 of a close examination of Marsden's '' Dic- 
 tionary and Grammar of the Malay Lan- 
 guage," that the dialect of the Hova people, 
 who inhabit the interior, is Malay in all its 
 general features, and in many thousands of its 
 roots ; and this dialect extends to the eastern 
 coast without losing its identity, whilst the 
 features and character of the people are mani- 
 festly cast in the Malay mould. On the 
 western coast, on the contrary, the Sakala^^ t* 
 tribes exhibit the African type, but of the 
 CafFre form, and not in any degree, as we 
 might expect, of the Mozambique or Negro 
 cast of form and feature. 
 
 For many generations prior to European 
 intercourse with Madagascar, it would appear 
 that this island had been a common mart to 
 Arab, Indian, and other eastern traders. But 
 the first distinct notice of it that has reached 
 our own time was that of the Portuguese 
 navigator, Marco Paulo, who published his 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 11 
 
 account as long ago as the close of the 13th 
 century. It was not, however (according to 
 Ellis), until three centuries after its existence 
 had been made known by that adventurer, 
 that Madagascar attracted the particular no- 
 tice of Europeans ; at which time the Portu- 
 guese established a settlement on its coast. 
 About the middle of the next century, it ap- 
 pears to have become an object of cupidity to 
 the French ; for at that time it was (about the 
 year 1642), that " a patent was granted by 
 Cardinal Richelieu to Captain Rivault for the 
 exclusive right of sending ships and forces to 
 Madagascar and the neighbouring islands, in 
 order to establish a colony or plantation for 
 the promotion of commerce." — Ellis, vol. ii. 
 pp. 6, 7. Such appears to have been the 
 earliest connexion of the French with Mada- 
 gascar ; and such the original title upon which 
 that people set up their present claim to a 
 settlement on its coast. Notwithstanding this, 
 it does not seem that the natives at the mo- 
 ment offered opposition to the settlement of 
 the French amongst them. But it was not 
 very long before the encroachments of these 
 intruders, and the exercise of unprecedented 
 
12 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 cruelties towards the people of the soil, occa- 
 sioned them to be an eye-sore to the Mala- 
 gasy, and an object of their bitterest hatred 
 and continued animosity ; whilst, at the same 
 time, the refinements of European vices and 
 civilised methods of cruelty and retaUation 
 were introduced to the minds of the natives, 
 already but too well versed, in common with 
 semi-barbarous nations in general, in the arts 
 of rapine and murder. In a word, if we may 
 confide in the statements of Ellis upon this 
 point, it will not be too much to say of them, 
 that they 
 
 " Left upon the new-discovered clime 
 No art save that which added crime to crime — 
 That taught the barbarous nations they despised, 
 What vices may enslave the civilised."* 
 
 The island is divided by the Hovas, who 
 pretend to have subjugated its scattered tribes, 
 into twenty- two departments or provinces, 
 which, in their turn, are subdivided again into 
 smaller sections : of these, the province of 
 
 • Vide the beautiful modern poem entitled " Polynesia; 
 or, Missionary Toils and Triumphs in the South Seas," 
 p. 17. 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 13 
 
 Ankova is by far the most important in the 
 catalogue, as well, perhaps, in virtue of its own 
 pretensions to greater culture and salubrity 
 as that it is the seat of the capital. This pro- 
 vince occupies the very central point of the 
 island, so that the reader will be pleased to 
 remember that the sovereign holds her august 
 court, and transacts the affairs of government, 
 in the interior of her dominions, and conse- 
 quently far away from the sea coast. Tanana- 
 rivo (the capital), is distant from Tamatave (the 
 principal port of Madagascar, situated on its 
 eastern coast) about 300 miles, or thereabouts. 
 The term "Ankova" receives its name from the 
 derivatives any and hova, two words signifying 
 there and at. The writer specifies the derivation 
 of this particular province, inasmuch as mention 
 will be frequently made, in the course of the 
 following pages, of the Hovas, or the people 
 of Ankova, who occupy the same sort of pre- 
 eminence in Madagascar which the people of 
 Athens and Sparta did in ancient Greece. 
 In connexion with the two distinct races of 
 men which inhabit Madagascar, we may re- 
 mark that the same two species, namely, a 
 light-coloured and a black, appear to people 
 
14 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 all the larger islands of the Indian Archipelago, 
 as, for instance, Borneo and Sumatra ; but 
 with this remarkable difference, that whilst in 
 those islands the Hght -coloured Malays are 
 seen to occupy the maritime provinces, and 
 are allowed to be eminently a maritime 
 people, the provinces of the interior are far 
 less civilised, and are occupied by the more 
 decidedly black inhabitants of the land. In 
 Madagascar, the reverse of this picture ob- 
 tains ; for in that island, the Hovas, or the 
 Malay descendants, who are also the light- 
 complexioned, are the more civilised and en- 
 terprising of the two people, and wonderfully 
 assimilating to the characteristics of their 
 parent stock — the Malay; whilst the tribes 
 who inhabit the sea-coast approximate more 
 nearly to the Negro conformation, or to the 
 various darker races of the Indian Archi- 
 pelago. 
 
 With regard to the salubrity of Mada- 
 gascar, a subject upon which it has been 
 pressed, from the earliest moment, with a 
 larger share of obloquy than it deserved, it 
 may be affirmed that the north-east coast of 
 the island is healthy and free from fever, 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 15 
 
 which perhaps is likewise the case with a strip 
 of the extreme south coast. These parts of 
 the sea-coast offer a soHtary exception to the 
 fact, that fever is the general characteristic of 
 the maritime districts. The province of An- 
 kova is, for the most part, perfectly free from 
 jungle fever, and possesses a bracing chmate. 
 We think it is Ellis who remarks that the 
 thermometer, in the province of Ankova, is 
 sometimes down to 30° in winter.* The 
 capital is particularly salubrious ; a quahty 
 it is principally indebted for to the elevated 
 site which the province itself enjoys, as well 
 as to its isolated condition from the surround- 
 ing country. Ankova is so devoid, moreover, 
 of wood, and particularly of brush-wood, that 
 
 * In the cold season, we can ourselves state, that the 
 thermometer is frequently as low down as 40°, at the 
 capital, — nay, occasionally, at 38° ; whilst the rice-grounds 
 are invested with hoar-frost in the early morning. The 
 variation of the same instrument is, occasionally, most 
 remarkable in the same part of Madagascar; and has been 
 seen sometimes to rise, at 3 p.m. to 80°; whilst it was not 
 more than 40° at 6 a.m. on the same day. Some of the 
 missionaries were unable to support the cold in winter, 
 without all " the means and appliances" to which we resort 
 in our country for warmth at the same season. 
 
16 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 much is doubtless due to this circumstance for 
 the comparative immunity from disease which 
 the natives of that particular district are ob- 
 served to enjoy. 
 
 There can be no fair grounds for supposing 
 that the island might not be stripped of more 
 than half its terrors (arising out of the present 
 pestilential character of the sea-coast, and of 
 many of the inland districts), were the soil 
 submitted to proper processes of draining, and 
 the numerous swamps, which every where 
 abound in the country, converted into maiden 
 soil. Such an achievement as this, together 
 with the total removal of the brush-wood from 
 the affected districts, would go far to turn the 
 scale of salubrity in favour of Madagascar. 
 And had King Radama been spared to his 
 people, it is not unlikely that the indefatigable 
 English agent (by whom he allowed himself 
 to be counselled in every thing affecting the 
 interests of his country) would have brought 
 him to undertake an object, upon the success 
 of which the very existence of the island, as a 
 flourishing state, may be said to depend. 
 Still, the very limited intercourse which Eu- 
 ropeans have ever effected with the less fre- 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 17 
 
 quented parts of Madagascar, leave us much 
 in the dark as to the comparative healthiness 
 of different districts in the island. 
 
 The dreaded fever of the country assumes 
 every variety of character and type, although 
 information at present is wanting to explain 
 upon what particular phenomena the circum- 
 stance is dependent. In illustration of this, 
 we may inform the reader that, at a place 
 about fifty miles north of the capital, the air is 
 so laden with death, that a residence, of no 
 matter how short a duration, is generally fatal 
 to the party visiting or resorting thither by 
 compulsion. Such a person, without evincing 
 any of the phenomena of fever, may present 
 the spectacle of one suddenly overpowered 
 with tetanus (or lock-jaw), and be carried oflP 
 upon the spot. We think it not unlikely, 
 however, that the presence of carbonic acid 
 gas in this and similar situations may be the 
 true solution of their fatal effects upon animal 
 life. At another district, on the contrary, to 
 the west, and distant about fifty or sixty miles 
 from Tananarivo, the fever is also endemic ; 
 but here it is so very mild, that the symptoms 
 
18 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 disappear almost as soon as manifested, and 
 leave no prejudicial consequences behind. 
 
 The government of Madagascar is vested 
 in the person of an absolute sovereign, who 
 exercises the most debasing form of feudal 
 dominion over her subjects; regarding their 
 lives at about the same standard of value as 
 Dom Miguel was wont to set upon the dogs 
 which, in his day, infested the streets of 
 Lisbon ! The only difference existing between 
 the potentates of the two countries, when 
 regarded in this point of view, being, that 
 whereas the latter preferred to exterminate 
 the surplus dog population with his own royal 
 assagay, the Queen of Madagascar is content 
 to spear her people by delegation to others! 
 But we anticipate. 
 
 The first distinct glimpse we obtain of an 
 executive power in Madagascar appears to 
 arise out of the circumstance, that individual 
 communities originally seem to have yielded, 
 by common consent, a sort of servitude to the 
 person most prominent amongst them for age, 
 talent, or for strength. The latter, availing 
 himself of a disposition so favourable to views 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 19 
 
 of power and ambition, succeeded by an easy 
 gradation in procuring for himself the title of 
 ruler or chief: he became also the judicial 
 referee, and the functionary whom all were 
 glad to conciHate, or, in other words, to 
 bribe. The chieftain, or " headman" (as he 
 has sometimes been called), once secure of the 
 services of his fellow-villagers, soon proceeded 
 to extend his dominion over those whose 
 power might be less firmly cemented, and 
 thus to annex new territories to his own, or to 
 enlarge the site of that in which he had origi- 
 nally set up his authority. It is not difficult 
 to understand that, in proportion to the degree 
 of violence or of arbitrary rule which might 
 be exercised by individual chieftains, opposi- 
 tion would arise amongst their subjects, and 
 intestine commotions be occasioned by the 
 restless or the daring; but what appears to 
 have been still more fatal to the continuance 
 of such a scheme of government upon any 
 lasting or solid grounds, was the jealousies 
 continually springing up amongst themselves 
 (the chieftains) ; and hence the unceasing pre- 
 valence of petty wars and consequent exter- 
 minations, wherein we recognise nothing 
 
20 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 materially differing from the manner in which 
 the earliest approximation to government has 
 been developed in more civilised countries, 
 and in those less unknown to us than the 
 present. 
 
 Trials were carried on in the open air — a 
 custom which, even at the present day, is 
 retained ; and the verdict was pronounced by 
 the entire voice of those who might chance to 
 be present (for any spectator had the privilege 
 of speaking) ; and execution of the sentence 
 immediately followed. 
 
 At length, about fifty years ago, the father 
 of the present sovereign's immediate prede- 
 cessor (and whose grandiloquent name, for the 
 gratification of the curious, we insert), Andria- 
 nampoinimerina,* subdued all his neighbouring 
 chieftains, took possession of the present ca- 
 pital, and extended his power from forty to 
 sixty miles in every direction around, radiating 
 from that point. Still, however, throughout 
 the dominions of this prince, a measure of 
 
 * Literally, He who is in the heart of Imerina; — Ime- 
 rina being a principal division of Ankova, and occasionally 
 used to designate the entire dominions of the sovereign — 
 as king or prince of Imerina. 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 21 
 
 honour and authority was retained by the 
 descendants of the ancient headmen or chief- 
 tains. They could express their opinion freely 
 in the public deliberations; they had a fair 
 share in the booty captured in war ; and they 
 were allowed to exercise their right over the 
 feudal vassalage of those who had originally 
 acknowledged their authority. 
 
 About the year 1810, the sovereign above 
 mentioned died, and was succeeded by his son, 
 a very young man, to whose name we shall 
 frequently have occasion, throughout these 
 observations, to refer. That name, though 
 far less imposing to the ear, was destined to 
 become infinitely more remarkable in the 
 history of his country. Radama is said to 
 have had many of the shining qualities of his 
 character handed down to him from his father, 
 who contributed greatly to place his kingdom 
 upon a secure foundation, and to augment the 
 resources of the country, antecedent to his 
 son's accession to the throne. The father had 
 been an ambitious prince, and his views appear 
 to have extended to nothing short of the 
 entire subjugation of Madagascar. Neverthe- 
 less, Radama succeeded by no means to an 
 
22 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 idle or absolute sceptre; for his predecessor 
 was still tributary, at the time of his death, to 
 some of the neighbouring provinces. These 
 Radama was not long in freeing himself from ; 
 and organising, soon afterwards, a part of his 
 army on the European discipline, he had occu- 
 pied the throne of Madagascar but a short 
 time before he caused the power of his arms 
 to be felt and his authority to be acknow- 
 ledged. His progress, however, towards this 
 dearest object of his wishes was by no means 
 conducted over a bloodless path ; for the 
 native Malagasy of some of the provinces 
 are a brave and determined people, and 
 but little formed by nature to surrender so 
 sweet a boon as freedom without a struggle. 
 An incident is mentioned somewhere (we 
 think, in Ellis), that is highly illustrative of the 
 character of some of the tribes of this country, 
 and corroborates, in a remarkable degree, our 
 eulogium of their bravery. 
 
 Radama, having carried an army into a 
 province which declined to recognise his 
 authority, sent forward an herald to threaten 
 annihilation to an encampment which had 
 taken up a position to dispute his progress. 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 23. 
 
 Upon receipt of his summons to surrender, 
 an answer was returned that the Hovas had 
 better advance and receive, in their own per- 
 sons, what they demanded. Thus defied, 
 Radama gave the martial word " forward ! " 
 to his troops, and an attack was commenced. 
 The besieged disputed every inch of ground, 
 and disdained to sue for quarter; but 
 borne down by numbers, they suffered them- 
 selves to be slaughtered, preferring death at 
 their posts to an ignominious pardon. They 
 were worthy of a nobler fate. When Darius 
 sent ambassadors to the Grecian republics to 
 demand *' earth and water," in token of sub- 
 jection to him, we are told that the demand 
 was acceded to, in Athens, by one of the 
 heralds being thrown into a well, and the 
 other immured in a cavern, where they were 
 told to help themselves to their " earth and 
 water." The reply of the invaded Malagasy 
 chiefs was as remarkable for its dignity as that 
 of Athens for its cruelty and disregard of the 
 law of nations. 
 
24 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Prevalence of Idolatry and Superstition — Infanticide — 
 Trial by Ordeal — Divination and Astrology — The 
 Giant's Tomb — Theory in Relation to the World's 
 Form and Nature — The Slave Trade — Efforts for its 
 Abolition — Elevation of Radamato Sovereign Power 
 — Introduction of Missionaries. 
 
 Like all barbarous and semi-civilised na- 
 tions, the people of Madagascar are sunk in 
 the most deplorable state of idolatry and super- 
 stition. Theirs is the land, the very temple, 
 we might be allowed to say, of religious super- 
 stition ! * and to such an extent do they yield 
 obedience to its control, that it is scarcely 
 less concerned in the depopulation which, 
 
 * In connexion with the word religious, it may be 
 stated that all the clans hold some " one day in the week 
 as more sacred, favoured of the gods, or more lucky than 
 the rest ; some, however, regard Friday as that day, others 
 Saturday, and others Sunday." — Ellis, History of Ma- 
 dagascar y vol. i. p. 147. 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 25 
 
 during the last twenty years more particularly, 
 has been going on in the land, than is the 
 ruthless hand of war itself. In proof of this 
 statement, it would be unnecessary to mention 
 more than the single fact, that every child 
 which is born on an unlucky day or hour (and 
 the number of these is quite at the will of the 
 astrologers), is destroyed upon the spot ; whilst 
 the same fate often awaits others who may be 
 ordered to be sacrificed merely in consequence 
 of a single malignant symptom frowning upon 
 their birth-day. The same amount of super- 
 stition, and the same cruelties arising out of it, 
 are common throughout the various clans or 
 tribes in the island. They are diversified only 
 in their manner of celebration, and but little 
 in degree. Thus, *' all practise trial by ordeal, 
 but the ordeal itself, and the mode of its ad- 
 ministration, differ. All employ the ' sikidy,' 
 or divination, but have different modes of 
 working it."* 
 
 This sikidy, or divination, is unceasingly 
 in requisition, and is regarded as infallible 
 amongst the miserable dupes upon whom it is 
 
 * Ellis's ''History," vol. i. p. 147. 
 
 C 
 
26 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 practised ; and the belief in its infallibility is 
 the more incomprehensible, inasmuch as the 
 several impotent contrivances which are re- 
 sorted to, in order to the working of it, are so 
 indifferently disguised, that it seems as though 
 a child might detect the fact, that the mate- 
 rials are designedly disposed in order to bring 
 about the result which the diviner himself 
 desires. But our surprise at this seeming in- 
 congruity is lessened when we revert to the 
 celebrated sikidy of one of the most wonderful 
 people of antiquity, the Delphian Apollo ; a 
 specimen of imposture which supported its 
 reputation so uninterruptedly through ages, 
 and with such unquestioned success. The 
 worthies in Madagascar, who practise the 
 thriving trade of divination and astrology, con- 
 tribute, as we above remarked, in a fearful 
 degree, to the destruction of life. Some check 
 had begun to be put upon this wholesale sys- 
 tem of murder by Radama ; nay, that prince 
 had, we believe, successfully put a stop to it 
 in the immediate vicinity of the seat of go- 
 vernment : but it has since been re-intro- 
 duced, and is now, perhaps, resorted to even 
 more than at any former period ; for her ma- 
 
PA'ST AND PRESENT. 27 
 
 jesty Ranavalona is, in her own person, wedded 
 to the particular species of superstition we are 
 speaking of, namely, that of soothsaying and 
 divination.* 
 
 The contrivances resorted to for the de- 
 struction of infants f when once doomed by the 
 
 * " The divination seems to be in constant requisition 
 by the queen. She could scarcely venture to take even 
 an ordinary meal of rice without having it worked ten or 
 a dozen times." — Note to "Narrative of Persecutions in 
 Madagascar," p. 60. 
 
 t The natural relish which seems to exist in the bosom 
 of Heathen nations for infanticide is very peculiar and 
 mysterious ; and to whatever point of the Pagan world we 
 direct our eyes, a common bond of sympathy in this parti- 
 cular indulgence would seem to exist. Dr. Mac William, 
 in his recent account of the Government expedition up the 
 Niger, informs us, that at Ibu, or Aboh (a settlement 
 within the Delta of that river), human beings are occasion- 
 ally offered up in sacrifice ; whilst twins are in all cases 
 put to death ; and children who cut their upper-jaw teeth 
 first are instantly destroyed I (A benign form of legisla- 
 ture that of Ibu, to be sure !) 
 
 Again, in Williams's " Narrative of Missionary En- 
 terprise," it is stated, that on questioning three native 
 women at the Tahitian and Society Islands, as to the num- 
 ber of infants which they had respectively murdered ; — 
 the first said, "I have destroyed nine/' the second, "I 
 have destroyed seven ;" and a third admitted that she had 
 destroyed ^^Jive.'' " Thus three individuals, casually 
 ■^elected, had killed one-and-twenty children I" 
 
28 MADAGASCAR, * 
 
 astrologers to die, are not the least atrocious 
 features distinguishing this dark page in the 
 history of the people under our notice. Thus, 
 a common modus operandi for the attainment 
 of this end, is that of exposing the unconscious 
 babe in a narrow passage, through which a 
 herd of cattle is furiously driven, and by the 
 feet of which it is scarcely possible to avoid 
 being mangled and tortured by a gradual 
 death ! — at other times it is suspended by the 
 heels, whilst its face is held downwards in a 
 pan of water, until suflPocation ensues ! — or, 
 still more horrible to relate, it is sometimes 
 buried alive, w^ith the head downwards, in a 
 pit especially dug for the occasion. And this 
 atrocious murder is, in regular order, com- 
 manded under the queen's authority, to be 
 perpetrated by the father or nearest relative of 
 the infant ! An incident, very characteristic, 
 in the writer's opinion, of the taste of the 
 Malagasy for cruelty, is mentioned by Ellis, in 
 the second volume of his " History of Mada- 
 gascar." One of King Radama's sisters being 
 ill, her four female attendants were subjected 
 to trial by ordeal, for the purpose of ascer- 
 taining to what extent the poor helpless 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 29 
 
 wretches in question had been accessory to 
 her sickness. The Tangena ordeal discovered 
 th^ee out of the four to have been instrumental 
 thereto, and they were adjudged, as a matter 
 of course, to instant death ! '' The supposed 
 criminals were then taken to a rock on the 
 south side of the capital, and, having their Jin- 
 gers, toes, armSf legs, noses, and ears cut off, 
 were precipitated from the rock, the children 
 from the surrounding crowd amusing them- 
 selves, for nearly an hour after, with throwing 
 stones upon their mangled bodies." The his- 
 torian goes on to state, that not one anxious 
 or sympathising countenance was to be seen 
 amongst the spectators, many of whom were 
 females. Amongst the dramatis personce who 
 were exerting themselves in the praiseworthy 
 pursuit of converting the dying victims into a 
 target (as above stated), two younger brothers 
 of the king were prominent characters. 
 
 It is almost superfluous to remark to the 
 reader, that the ignorance of these benighted 
 people keeps pace with their superstition ; be- 
 cause the one is the immediate offspring of 
 the other. But a single instance of this may 
 not be out of place, in elucidating the cha- 
 
30 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 racter of the Malagasy. In the province of 
 Ankova, the tomb of a renowned giant of old 
 is the object of fervent adoration ; it \s firmly 
 believed by them, that he was once engaged in 
 single combat with the moon ; whilst he could 
 gather whatsoever was asked of him from the 
 opposite extremity of the world, without 
 relinquishing his seat! This highly- endowed 
 individual possessed a Pandora's box full of 
 useful qualifications, of nearly a similar de- 
 scription. 
 
 The geographical and astronomical theory 
 of the Malagasy philosophers in relation to 
 the world's form and nature is, that we live on 
 a flat surface, encompassed on all sides beyond 
 the sea (for they are aware that Madagascar is 
 " in the midst of the waters " — an island), by 
 a solid sphere let down upon us, which is the 
 horizon. They entertain no doubt, that one 
 might climb up this horizon on its outer side, 
 supposing they could only transplant them- 
 selves thither ; and innumerable are the fables 
 founded upon the history of such arduous 
 enterprises, encountering the great God, and 
 so forth ! One of the first questions which 
 they put to a white man has immediate rela- 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 31 
 
 tion to the said sphere. '^What is the hori- 
 zon ? Is it made of gold or of pearl, of wood 
 or of stone ? And upon such ideas of astro- 
 nomy they have built up a system of judicial 
 astrology, that is the means of annually con- 
 signing thousands to a violent and early death ; 
 the justice, however, nay, the necessity of 
 which, is for the most part respected and 
 CQufided in by the vox populi of the country. 
 And as 
 
 *' The widow'd Indian, when her lord expires, 
 Mounts the dread pile, and braves the funeral fires," 
 
 so, in Madagascar, the verdict being clothed 
 wdth all the sacredness of predestination, the 
 victim bows himself to the decree ! 
 
 Soon after the din of war had ceased to be 
 heard in the southern hemisphere, the governor 
 of our newly-acquired possession, Mauritius, 
 began to look around him for a more effectual 
 and less expensive means of suppressing the 
 slave-trade, which was in open operation be- 
 tween the foreign purchaser and the native 
 proprietor of Madagascar ; — a market, indeed, 
 which had hitherto offered an inexhaustible 
 supply of captive labourers to Bourbon, and 
 
32 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 even to the Isle of France itself. In order 
 to bring about such an object with the surest 
 success, Sir Robert Farquhar formed the pro- 
 ject of elevating some native chieftain to 
 universal dominion in Madagascar, and of 
 inducing and enabling him to suppress the 
 said traffic by municipal institutions. The 
 prominent character of Radama at once point- 
 ed him out as the fittest and most natural 
 instrument for this purpose. Intent upon 
 this excellent object. Sir Robert never slum- 
 bered upon the matter, until his exertions 
 were productive of all the success which his 
 benevolent heart had designed. He sent an 
 emissary to the capital of Madagascar, who, 
 partly by the promise of liberal supplies, (by 
 way of indemnity), such as fire-arms, soldiers* 
 clothing, personal presents, and the like — 
 but still more, perhaps, by ministering to 
 Radama's master passion, viz. ambition and 
 a love of praise, succeeded in bringing over 
 the king to the views of his patron, and to 
 the entering upon a treaty with Great Britain 
 for the unconditional suppression of the slave- 
 trade in his dominions ! To cement this good 
 understanding, the English governor under- 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 33 
 
 took to forward (and at the expense too 
 of his own government) a certain nunaber of 
 such of his subjects as Radama should appoint, 
 to Great Britain, where they were kindly 
 received and carefully educated ; and on their 
 return to Madagascar, artificers and workmen 
 accompanied them, in order to furnish the 
 island with the means of becoming acquainted 
 with its own hidden riches and resources. 
 
 A specific stipulation was also proposed 
 and agreed to by the king for the admission 
 of missionaries into Madagascar. 
 
 To add still more weight to the control 
 of Radama over his subjects. Sir Robert Far- 
 quhar put a fresh engine of power into his 
 hands, by furnishing him with the means of 
 initiating his soldiers into the European sys- 
 tem of tactics. Sergeant Brady was the only 
 survivor of several individuals entrusted to 
 the sovereign for that important object — a 
 non-commissioned officer serving, we beheve, 
 with his regiment in Mauritius — and, as an 
 earnest of his majesty's satisfaction with the 
 selection, Mr. Brady soon arose to the highest 
 military dignity in the country, and became 
 a general almost before he had time to step 
 c 2 
 
34 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 out of the ranks into the atmosphere of a 
 commissioned officer ! With such an argument 
 to enforce his wishes as that of a disciphned 
 army, Radama encountered but Uttle successful 
 opposition to the claim which he now set up 
 to the entire sovereignty of Madagascar. 
 
 The agent from the British government, 
 who in past years had been located at the 
 port of Tamatave, now went to reside at 
 Tananarivo, the capital ; and so successful 
 did he prove in exerting an influence over 
 the mind of Radama, that that chieftain 
 consulted him on every act of importance 
 connected with his management, ahke of 
 the internal government of the country, as 
 of its relations with other states. Indeed, 
 for his person the king conceived a sincere 
 and ardent attachment; and too much credit 
 cannot be awarded to Mr. Hastie for the 
 moderation and good sense with which he 
 exercised this control. 
 
 No sooner had the treaty for the suppres- 
 sion of the slave-trade been ratified by Ra- 
 dama, than that prince set an example of 
 sincerity and earnestness in the performance 
 of his part of the engagement, which reflects 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 35 
 
 the highest honour upon his character, and 
 is a pattern which it would be well if more 
 civilised potentates would imitate. To those 
 who have any acquaintance with the circum- 
 stances relating to this treaty, it need scarcely 
 be mentioned how unwarrantably it was broken 
 off by an individual, who was temporarily hold- 
 ing the reins of government at Mauritius in the 
 absence of Sir Robert Farquhar in England. 
 
 The return, however, of the governor to 
 the colony, and the indefatigable address of 
 Mr. Hastie at Tananarivo, united to the 
 personal influence of the latter over Radama's 
 mind, succeeded at length, but not without 
 the greatest difficulty, in restoring the confi- 
 dence of the Malagasy chieftain in the honest 
 intentions of the British government. Radama 
 again renewed the treaty, and evinced all his 
 former determination to compel the exporters 
 within his kingdom to relinquish the traffic ; 
 and to convince Mr. Hastie, not less than 
 themselves, that he was in earnest, he enacted 
 a law proclaiming it death to him who should 
 thereafter violate his dictum in connexion with 
 the exportation of slaves from the island. 
 And this law, we have reason to believe, was 
 
36 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 really enforced in the case of some few re- 
 fractory man-stealers. 
 
 King Radama had yet to be taught that 
 slavery was a crime in itself, and that on 
 account of its own inherent wickedness it 
 should be suppressed.* 
 
 For the attainment of this latter object, 
 the British government, as already noticed, 
 had stipulated with the king for the introduc- 
 tion of missionaries intj^ Madagascar, to which 
 they were at that auspicious moment anxiously 
 seeking access. And this brings us, in the 
 natural order of our detail, to the considera- 
 tion of that epoch in the history of the island. 
 
 * The following statement will serve to convey an idea 
 of the extent to which slavery is encouraged, even in the 
 administration of the laws of Madagascar: — 
 
 " Those who borrow money, without being able to 
 refund it, or those who incur debts which they arc unable 
 to pay, are taken into the public market to be sold for 
 payment of what they owe. A man, his wife, and children, 
 are thus frequently sold together, unless some friend should 
 come forward and become his surety, or pay his debts. 
 Thousands of free people have been reduced to s^lavery 
 by this means ; and this is a law which is generally carried 
 into effect without any mitigation of punishment. If a 
 debtor has property, that is seized to pay his debts, often 
 with compound interest at sixty per cent per annum ; and 
 if that be insufficient, he is sold in the market ; and if the 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 37 
 
 The native mind of the Malagasy had imbibed 
 an insuperable dread of, and hatred for, the 
 religion which, both by the Portuguese and 
 early French intruders, had been rather forced 
 upon than offered to their notice. Pursuing 
 that line of bland and persuasive eloquence, in 
 Madagascar, which it has ever observed in 
 Christendom amongst the indisposed and the 
 refractory (and which may be briefly summed 
 up in the well-known arguments of '^ fire and 
 szi'orcl"'), the propagators of the Romish mum- 
 mery had left behind them prejudices so 
 deeply rooted in the native breasts against 
 
 produce of his sale should still be insufficient to satisfy his 
 creditors, his family must share the same fate. A man 
 who has become surety for another is exposed to similar 
 treatment, if unable to meet the claims substantiated 
 against the person for whom he has become surety." — 
 Ej.lis, History of Madagascar, vol. i. 
 
 There is a curious coincidence between this state of 
 the law in Madagascar at the present day, and the original 
 Athenian enactment upon the same subject, where " an 
 insolvent debtor might be taken as a slave, and his wife 
 and children also, if less would not satisfy the debt." — Vide 
 History of Greece, published under the superintendence 
 of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge, 
 p. 20. This law was afterwards abrogated by Solon. 
 
38 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 that particular form of faith, that the people 
 have frequently since evinced their determi- 
 nation not to suffer its re-appearance amongst 
 them ! And, what is not to be very much 
 wondered at, the native bosom conceived, for 
 some time, a natural antipathy to the re-intro- 
 duction of the Christian religion, under any 
 guise, when rumours began to circulate of the 
 expected arrival of our missionaries. But, 
 upon this head, all opposition was borne down 
 by the king; and the people had but one 
 course before them, which was to furnish their 
 quota of children required from the respective 
 villages to the government schools, which 
 were ultimately to comprise upwards of sixty 
 villages, and not less than 5000 scholars in 
 daily attendance. In all this, the king was 
 seeking merely and exclusively that " know- 
 ledge" which is most directly "power;" but, 
 with scarcely the remotest idea of its adverse 
 bearing on the superstitions of his ancestors ! 
 
 The missionaries (to the number, at dif- 
 ferent times, of between eight and twelve) were 
 accordingly received at Madagascar, and en- 
 tered upon their arduous undertaking with 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 39 
 
 more than usual promise in a heathen country. 
 The sovereign was their immediate patron, 
 and the English representative the active 
 organ of forwarding their interests with the 
 government.* 
 
 Had Mr. Hastie and the king been spared 
 to the country for even a few years longer, 
 there is every reason to believe, that not even 
 
 * During fifteen years (namely, from 1820 to 1835), 
 *' the whole of the Scriptures of the Old and New Testa- 
 ments were translated, corrected, and printed in the native 
 language, at the capital, aided by very liberal grants from 
 the British and Foreign Bible Society; not fewer than 
 25,000 tracts, aided by the prompt and generous encou- 
 ragement afforded by the Religious Tract Society, were 
 printed; Russell's 'Catechism' was translated, and an 
 edition of 1000 copies generously given by Mr. Cameron, 
 a member of the mission. Nearly all these publications 
 were put into circulation. The number of schools in- 
 creased till they amounted to nearly 100, containing, 
 nominally, about 4000 scholars, to whom were imparted 
 the elements of instruction and of religious truth. Pro- 
 bably, some 10,000 to 15,000, altogether, passed through 
 the mission-schools during the period under review. Ele- 
 mentary books were provided for the use of these, and 
 probably as many more were distributed among those who 
 voluntarily acquired the art of reading without attendance 
 on the mission-schools." — Narrative of Persecutions, &c. 
 p. 75. 
 
40 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 the under-current, setting in so strongly upon 
 Radama from his own courtiers, would have 
 been sufficient to interrupt the steady advance- 
 ment of Christianity and of mental improve- 
 ment ; inasmuch as, although the king himself 
 had not as yet avowed his personal contempt 
 for the idol-worship of the country, and for- 
 bore to commit himself by openly embracing 
 the new religion, his mind was, nevertheless, 
 so perceptibly expanding under the discipline 
 of European intercourse, and more than all, 
 also, under the anxious tutelage of his friend, 
 Mr. Hastie,. that a much longer adherence to 
 the ignorance and absurdities of his people 
 would have been incompatible with the light 
 which was bursting in upon it from every 
 point to which its vision was directed. Mr. 
 Ellis recites a curious, yet interesting, anec- 
 dote in confirmation of this, as it bears directly 
 upon the suspicion which he began to enter- 
 tain of the infallibility of the idols,* to which 
 
 * It would draw us into a very long digression to afford 
 the reader even a general idea of the nature, the attributes, 
 and the influences of the idols of Madagascar. Suffice it 
 to say, that belonging to different tribes, are attached an 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 41 
 
 he had blindly knelt and succumbed. The 
 people of a village in Ankova betook them- 
 selves to Radama, for the purpose of soliciting 
 a piece of fine cloth wherewith to invest their 
 idol. " Why, surely," said Radama, " he must 
 be very poor, if he cannot get a piece of cloth 
 for himself. If he be a god, he can provide 
 his own garments!" On another occasion, 
 his subjects complained to him of the *' inju- 
 rious tendency of the schools" (meaning 
 
 unmeaning block of wood, of almost an indescribable form, 
 which the people invest with the power of curing diseases 
 amongst them, favouring them in war, procuring rain, 
 removing calamities, affording riches, and so forth : they 
 are consequently regarded with the highest veneration. 
 All these idols have their " fady," that is, something which 
 they abhor, and which it would be sacrilege to take within 
 their holy precincts. This fady may be, in one case, a 
 pig, in another a goat ; but, in the eyes of one famous 
 idol, a "snail" is dreadful beyond all other objects of pol- 
 lution. They are not themselves directly objects of wor- 
 ship, but are rather talismans, or charms, against evil. In 
 public proclamations the queen invariably names the idols 
 as supporting the kingdom, and herself on the throne of 
 her ancestors. Ranavalona acknowledges herself as en- 
 tirely indebted for her crown to the idol " Rakelimalaza" 
 — the little but renowned one (as his name signifies), and 
 to " Ranahavaly " — the aide-de-camp of the other; 
 
42 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 thereby the seminaries estabh'shed by the 
 missionaries). " Our children are forsaking 
 the customs of our ancestors, and forsaking 
 our gods.*' " Do you mind your work," re- 
 phed the king, ** and let the children mind 
 their instructions." 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 43 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Death of Radama — Usurpation of the Crown by one of 
 his Wives — Queen Ranavalona established on the 
 Throne — Her Cruelties — Murder of Prince Rataffe 
 
 — Ignominious Dismissal of the Agent of the British 
 Government, Mr. Lyall — Progress of Christianity 
 checlved — Restoration of Idol- worship — Persecution 
 of the Christians — Vassalage of the People — Starvation 
 
 — Prevalence of Theft — Decree to prevent the Prac- 
 tice of the Arts out of the Government Premises — 
 Permission granted to learn Reading and Writing — 
 Consequences of not obtaining this Permission — 
 Seizure on. the Property of Europeans — Atrocities 
 committed by the Queen. 
 
 Upon the death of Radama, which took 
 place at about his thirty-eighth year, the 
 crown of Madagascar was snatched surrepti- 
 tiously from the brow (scarce as yet cold) of 
 its recent wearer, and placed upon that of one 
 of his wives, whose daring and decision en- 
 abled her to outstrip the legal claimant (or 
 
44 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 rather those in whose hands his interests were 
 reposed) in those preliminary measures, upon 
 which the success of any candidate in a bar- 
 barous country, whether lawful or otherwise, 
 must usually in a great measure depend. In 
 short, by engaging those upon whom she 
 could rely, and by intimidating others, the 
 present queen contrived to raise a party who 
 carried her irresistibly over the heads of all 
 opposition, even up to the steps of the throne, 
 upon which her own address immediately 
 seated her. During the pubHc meeting (" ra- 
 bary") which the queen convened to declare 
 her accession to the nation, and at which it 
 was pronounced, by the proper officers, that 
 the " Idols had named Ranavalona as suc- 
 cessor to Radama," it happened that four 
 individuals protested against the usurpation, 
 remarking that " they could not, whatever 
 might be the consequence, conceal the fact, 
 that the late king had named Rakotobe and Ra- 
 ketaka (Radama's own daughter), as the party 
 to succeed him." They had scarcely given 
 this proof of their fidelity to their late sove- 
 reign, than twenty or thirty spears were 
 plunged into them by the bystanders, and 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 45 
 
 they perished on the spot. This decided the 
 whole question ! " * 
 
 No sooner did she find herself secure upon 
 the throne of Madagascar, thjfn she proceeded 
 to rid herself of every member of Radama's 
 family, whose pretensions might by possibility 
 disturb her subsequent repose, or whose know- 
 ledge of the late king's intentions, well-known 
 loyalty, or noble rank, were calculated to give 
 force to their testimony against her usurp- 
 ation. 
 
 Amongst the number was that of Prince 
 RatafTe, the father of the immediate heir- 
 apparent to the throne, and the brother-in- 
 law of the last king. This prince had been 
 selected by Radama in 1820, to head a mission 
 or embassy to England ; and his mind seems 
 to have been unusually awakened, as a con- 
 
 ♦ " Narrative of Persecutions," p. 11. — The reader 
 will perceive some little obscurity here. The authors of 
 the "Narrative" make the four officers alluded to to say, 
 that the king had named two individuals as his successors 
 to the throne, and that one of these (Raketaka) was his 
 own daughter. The same gentlemen remark, at p. 7 of 
 their " Narrative," that " Rakotobe, the eldest son of 
 Radama's eldest sister, was the recognised heir-apparent 
 up to the time of Radama's death." 
 
46 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 sequence of that visit, to the softer influences 
 of human nature. " There were also evi- 
 dences," according to Ellis, " that his mind 
 had been enlightened, and his heart changed 
 by the power of divine grace." A mock-trial 
 condemned him to death, even in his absence; 
 and he suffered the usual mode of death by 
 spearing almost immediately after his appear- 
 ance at the capital. His pregnant wife re- 
 ceived the same doom not very long after 
 him. And here we shall put on record, in 
 order to brand it with the infamy such an act 
 deserves, a fact that occurred in connexion 
 with the fate of Prince RatafFe in 1828. When 
 Radama died in July of that year, the former 
 was at Tamatave with his wife. The queen 
 summoned him to proceed forthwith to the 
 capital ; but learning either there, or on the 
 way up to Tananarivo, that her majesty 
 only required him in order to have him put 
 out of her way by a violent death, he ear- 
 nestly entreated the master of a vessel then in 
 the roadstead to allow himself and family a 
 retreat in his ship. The merchant captain 
 (whose name was Parsons), peremptorily de- 
 clined, on the plea that the owners of the 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 47 
 
 ship might incur some loss or responsibihty 
 by such an act, but admitted the practicability 
 of serving the unhappy prince in the way he 
 pointed out ; for the residence of the latter 
 was on the beach, and within an easy distance 
 of his ship. Poor Rataffe then prevailed on 
 an English friend to address the governor of 
 the Mauritius in his favour^ and point out the 
 urgency of his position ; an appeal to which 
 immediate attention was paid by his excel- 
 lency, who hurried off two English men-of-war 
 to his rescue (one of which was commanded 
 by Lieutenant Brownrigg) ; but both of which 
 arrived at their destination too late to save 
 him or his family. Had they succeeded in 
 rescuing Prince Rataffe, the destinies of Ma- 
 dagascar would, in all probability, have under- 
 gone a material change. 
 
 Queen Ranavalona, not less ambitious of 
 the entire sovereignty of the island than her 
 predecessor, called together her army as one 
 of the first public steps of her new authority, 
 and prepared to give her distant subjects a 
 taste of her parental solicitude ! Several of 
 the chieftains of provinces, who were not quite 
 near enough to Ankova to have imbibed a 
 
48 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 faithful estimate of the new monarch's cha- 
 racter, displayed any thing but an immediate 
 readiness to put their necks unconditionally 
 within the yoke ; and many of those who had 
 consented to acknowledge the king, con- 
 sidered their allegiance by no means due, as 
 a matter of course, to a woman. In accord- 
 ance with this latter feeling, not a few per- 
 sisted in this ground of objection and died, 
 asserting the necessity which the country laid 
 under of a male supremacy. One sturdy old 
 chieftain, being suspected of a refractory spirit, 
 was challenged by a royal detachment to yield 
 up his arms and acknowledge the sovereignty 
 of the queen. " What !" he exclaimed, " would 
 you have me submit to a woman ? Should I 
 do so, tell me how I am to render an account 
 of the matter to my wives ?" The veteran 
 being somewhat of a pluralist in this last re- 
 spect, the consideration seemed to surround 
 him with difficulties he had not thought of 
 perhaps before. The spears being raised in 
 reply to this inquiry, " Spear away ! then," 
 said he, and presenting his bosom with a firm 
 front to the soldiers, his life paid the penalty 
 of his principle and of his bravery. 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 49 
 
 Such is the monarch at whose court the 
 British government had an accredited agent 
 at this very period ! Although permitted to 
 v^^ear his head upon his shoulders, he had 
 scarcely been suffered to represent the inter- 
 ests of his country at the capital eighteen 
 months after Radama's death, when he was 
 suddenly dismissed from Tananarivo, and 
 that too in a manner the most ignominious 
 and insulting that could even have been im- 
 posed on the humblest individual of her own 
 country. Mr. Lyall was not permitted to 
 make arrangements for the removal of his 
 family or household property ; but, like a 
 criminal who had forfeited every claim to the 
 law's consideration, he was torn from his own 
 hearth, and hastened onwards to the coast, 
 whence he embarked for Mauritius, and died 
 not long after his arrival at the latter ! How 
 fair a pretence might not England here have 
 claimed to unseat from her throne the usurper 
 by whom such enormities had been com- 
 mitted ! And, indeed, when we received the 
 fearful history of her government from the 
 period in question, and reflect upon the abso- 
 
50 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 lute hopelessness of her present policy under- 
 going any other change than such as must be 
 still more disastrous to her people, it is a sub- 
 ject for every good man's sorrow and concern 
 that the occasion was not embraced by the 
 ministry at that time in power to interpose in 
 the cause of humanity, and remove the pre- 
 sent monster from the power she has assumed 
 of sporting with the lives of the miserable 
 natives of that country. 
 
 Such an opportunity cannot again occur. 
 An agent from the British government was 
 located at Tananarivo, in virtue of a treaty 
 between England and Radama, and which 
 treaty was confirmed by his successor; and 
 had we asserted a national right to indemnify 
 ourselves for the wrong, even by transporting 
 an army into the capital of the country, Eu- 
 rope must have acknowledged our title to 
 such a step ; and France, the only northern 
 power whose jealousy we might have expected 
 to awaken, could have done no more than 
 regret the occasion which fortune had afforded 
 England to be beforehand with herself in le- 
 gislating for the future interests of the island ! 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 51 
 
 But we shall postpone the further consideration 
 of this important part of our subject until a 
 later period of the present inquiry. 
 
 The assumption of sovereign power by 
 Ranavalona was viewed with feelings of the 
 most despondent description by the missionary 
 body at the capital. Nor w^ere they long left 
 in doubt as- to the degree of encouragement 
 or toleration which their labours were to expe- 
 rience at her hands. With that characteristic 
 deception which marked her nature, she made 
 a pretence, at first, of cultivating their exer- 
 tions for her people, and pursued a moment- 
 ary policy towards them which might have 
 thrown more practised diplomatists off their 
 guard. But the fondling of her majesty was 
 estimated at its proper value by those who 
 were too well acquainted with the fatal cha- 
 racter of her embrace ; and whilst they con- 
 tinued to labour unceasingly, lest the night 
 should come when no man might work, confin- 
 ing their usefulness strictly within the bounds 
 to which they were given to understand they 
 must limit themselves, they appear to have 
 been ever awake to the probability of some 
 sudden fiat, which, upon the pretence of some 
 
52 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 paltry fabrication, should undermine their fa- 
 bric at its very base. Meanwhile the greatness 
 of that object in which their whole heart was 
 embarked supported and encouraged them to 
 hope, almost against hope, so rapidly did 
 one arbitrary measure of atrocity follow upon 
 another. 
 
 " But still with hope in view, 
 The men of peace their hallowed task pursue ; 
 But vain the creed their faithful lips proclaim, 
 For Jesus still is a rejected name !" — Polynesia. 
 
 The two last lines of our extract from the 
 poem in question (originally designed to apply 
 to the condition of the entire Tahitian people), 
 are here allusive only to the queen's (or the 
 persecuting) party in Madagascar, at the time 
 under review ; for incredible almost was the 
 progress which the march of Christianity had 
 effected upon the great bulk of those who had 
 been brought within its sphere.* At length 
 
 * It is interesting, and at the same time curious, to 
 observe the discrepance as to time, which has charac- 
 terised the reception of Christianity amongst the different 
 nations of the great Southern Ocean. In Williams's " Nar- 
 rative of Missionary Enterprise," it is stated that at Tahiti 
 the missionaries incurred many years of toil and anxiety ^ 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 53 
 
 their doubts were all dispelled. An unusual 
 excitement in the capital betokened the irrup- 
 tion of some great demonstration on the parts 
 of " the war-party," and orders were issued 
 for the assembling of the people at a kabary, 
 the magnitude of which set curiosity unusu- 
 ally on tip-toe, and raised fears in the breasts 
 of not a few, that the queen would proceed to 
 mark it by a display of cruelty at the expense 
 of some amongst her subjects. 
 
 It was evident that the instructions com- 
 municated by the missionaries tended to de- 
 stroy the influence of the national idols, and 
 to bring the customs and superstitions of the 
 country into contempt ; and the only wonder 
 
 before the word of God took any lasting root in the soil. 
 " And at New Zealand also, to what privations, labours, 
 and perils were the devoted missionaries of the Church 
 Missionary Society called for nearly twenty years, before 
 any thing like a general desire for instruction was evinced 
 by the inhabitants !" *^ At the Navigator's, on the con- 
 trary, in less than twenty months, chapels were erected 
 and the people anxiously waiting for instruction." In 
 Madagascar, instruction was eagerly received from the 
 commencement of the mission in 1818 ; but it was not 
 until twelve years afterwards that two native churches 
 were formed, and the first converts to the Christian faith 
 baptised. 
 
54 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 is that this tendency should not have been 
 fully developed until seventeen years after the 
 arrival of the first missionaries in the island. 
 The idols were supposed to bless the rice 
 grounds, and to render them fertile ; to pre- 
 serve the army, and insure it victory ; and 
 above all, to have placed her majesty on the 
 throne, and to keep her there. To the " si- 
 kidy " divination she was in the habit of re- 
 sorting daily ; the " tangena " ordeal was her 
 favourite method of unmasking guilt ; and 
 these, together with a thousand petty ances- 
 tral customs besides, began to be despised by 
 the very children, and were publicly repudiated 
 by the Christians as an abomination ! She 
 decided, therefore, to cleave to the customs of 
 her forefathers, and to compel her subjects to 
 do the same. In this great kabary (to which 
 we now allude), Ranavalona declared that she 
 knew nothing of Jehovah and Jesus Christ ; 
 it was Rahilimalaza and Ramahavaly (the idol 
 and his aide-de-camp) who had seated her on 
 her throne ; and her orators, appealing to the 
 multitude, exclaimed, " Is it not so ?" and 
 were answered simultaneously, " It is so !" As 
 a natural consequence, it followed that the 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 55 
 
 worship of these new Gods, Jehovah and Jesus 
 Christ, became treason, and was proclaimed 
 so upon pain of death ! Her majesty, Rana- 
 valona, was determined that the same pros- 
 perous state of things should be restored as 
 during the glorious reign of Andrianampoin- 
 imerina, the great father of King Radama. 
 
 As to the past, the people were pronounced 
 guilty in having gone so far in " changing the 
 customs." In accordance with this decision, 
 they were called on to submit to a heavy fine ; 
 and all who had embraced the new faith were 
 compelled to confess their iniquity, to crave 
 forgiveness for the same, and to give an un- 
 conditional promise of abjuring it : in a word, 
 to return to their allegiance. The schools 
 were shut up. The books of instruction, 
 amounting to a number sufficiently large to 
 fill an entire house, were returned to the mis- 
 sionaries, to whom the strictest injunctions 
 were sent not to let them be accessible to the 
 people — inasmuch as death would be the re- 
 ward of any Malagasy thenceforth discovered 
 to be the possessor of a printed book! 
 
 These stringent measures underwent no 
 modicum of relaxation ; and the missionary 
 
56 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 body finding it impossible to abide at their 
 post, except under some Jesuitical protest, 
 which neither their honour nor sincerity 
 would have inclined them to, at once took 
 their departure. The last of their number 
 tarried until 1836. 
 
 Could the present government of Mada- 
 gascar have compounded with the European 
 residents at the capital, so that the question of 
 religion might have been altogether dropped, 
 and their knowledge of the arts alone em- 
 ployed for the good of the country, most rea- 
 dily would it have consented to their remain- 
 ing amongst them. But as the sovereign is 
 wont to concentrate tlie meaning of the *'good 
 of the country" in her own individual person, 
 it was, in reality, to her own profit and aggran- 
 disement that their knowledge would have 
 been converted. Even in the life-time of the 
 king, this was a line of poficy so closely ad- 
 hered to as to have become a principle. Ra- 
 dama, availing himself of the existing feudal 
 laws, which recognise the people as vassals 
 only of the sovereign, appointed certain indi- 
 viduals of his own selection to acquire know- 
 ledge under the missionaries and artisans (who 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 57 
 
 accompanied them to the country), and with 
 whom they were required by him to continue 
 a stated period of years, until conversant in 
 the particular objects of their pursuit. And 
 once that an art or a trade was engrafted upon 
 them, they reverted, in due course, to himself, 
 as vassals of the state ! From the very first 
 admission of Europeans into the island, it was 
 distinctly understood that parents were to ap- 
 prentice out their children, to learn for the 
 good of the sovereign, and not for that of them- 
 selves ! In this manner he availed himself of 
 the services of those who had been giving 
 themselves up to the acquisition of reading 
 and writing, as well as to that of the several 
 handicrafts, which were to bestow upon the 
 people the means whereby their monarchs 
 should the more firmly rivet their manacles ! 
 Precisely in the steps of her predecessor did 
 Ranavalona follow, as relates to the fruits 
 which she extracted from the knowledge im- 
 ported by our countrymen into Madagascar. 
 By the present queen the schools have been 
 drained to fill up the ranks of her frequently 
 exhausted army, as well as for the purpose 
 of supplying the civil departments of her 
 d2 
 
58 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 government ; and even the girls, falling under 
 the feudal principle like those of the opposite 
 sex, are drawn from the same source to sew 
 for the queen and her favourites, — nay, more, 
 for the entire army under the sovereign's or- 
 ders. Thus, several hundred smiths are em- 
 ployed at the capital in the public works; 
 an equal, or perhaps a still larger, number of 
 wood-fellers are compelled to cut down in, and 
 carry timber from, the forests, for the purposes 
 of the queen ; and these wretched beings are 
 not only not paid for such work, but are suf- 
 fered to find the means of sustenance in the 
 best way they can, and at such moments as 
 they can furtively employ themselves, out of 
 view of their inhuman task-masters ! There 
 results from this shocking system of servitude 
 not only want in its most hideous aspect, but 
 crime likewise, as a direct consequence of that 
 misery.* Thus, whilst employed unceasingly 
 
 * " Unable to meet the demands of the government 
 upon their personal services and their property, and to pro- 
 vide the means of support, multitudes fled from the towns 
 and villages to the forests, formed themselves into banditti, 
 and sought a precarious subsistence by seizing the cattle 
 that might graze in the adjacent country, or plundering 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 59 
 
 about the interests of another, they have 
 scarcely an alternative between that of starv- 
 ation and theft. The latter propensity has 
 become, in consequence, a national charac- 
 teristic ; and petulancy walks hand-in-hand 
 with falsehood, of which, in the history of the 
 modern Malagasy, it is the most productive 
 parent.* As long ago as 1825 or 1826, a Mr. 
 Le Gros, the king's architect (by birth a 
 Frenchman, but a British subject of Mauri- 
 
 the travellers that passed near their places of retreat. 
 These bands of robbers increased to such a fearful degree, 
 that in the summer of 1835 a considerable military force 
 was employed in suppressing them. Great numbers were 
 with difficulty taken, and brought to the capital, where, in 
 the second or third week in September, nearly 200 were 
 publicly executed, 84 were killed by the spear of the com- 
 mon executioner, 17 were cruelly burnt alive, some were 
 barbarously buried alive, and the rest having been declared 
 guilty by the ordeal of the ' tangena,' were accordingly 
 killed on the spot." — Ellis, History of Madagascar^ 
 vol. ii. pp. 517, 518. 
 
 * " Lying has, in some cases, been enforced upon the 
 natives, it having been required of every Hova, when 
 speaking with foreigners on political matters, to state the 
 exact opposite to truth, on pain of punishment. So far 
 has this been carried, that it was once a serious and public 
 complaint against Christianity, that it taught the people 
 to scruple at telling lies even to deceive their country's 
 enemies." — Ihid, vol. i. 
 
60 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 tius), had his premises set fire to by a couple 
 of carpenters, who revenged themselves upon 
 him in virtue of his being the origin, in their 
 eyes, of their unrequited labours. The fate 
 which these misguided men encountered re- 
 minds us painfully of Shylock's limited penal 
 code : *' The villany you teach me, I will exe- 
 cute ; and it shall go hard, but I will better the 
 instruction." They were burnt alive to expiate 
 their offence. 
 
 To render the case of the people still more 
 appalling, the queen, in June 1836, decreed a 
 new law, " that any persons happening to ac- 
 quire a knowledge of the new arts introduced 
 by the Europeans, and venturing to practise 
 those arts for their own benefit, or out of the 
 government premises, under any pretence, 
 should be put to death." This new law de- 
 prived at once an immense number of people 
 of their means of livelihood, because they had 
 hitherto dabbled a little '' on their own ac- 
 count," albeit at the risk of punishment. 
 
 Under the same kind of restrictions other 
 arts and occupations may be introduced into 
 Madagascar, but, alas ! cui bono ? The rulers 
 of the people alone could profit by them. 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 61 
 
 whilst their own miseries would be propor- 
 tionately increased. 
 
 The permission which had been granted 
 by Radama, to the effect that all and any of 
 the people might learn to read and write in- 
 discriminately, according to their own wishes, 
 was so extensively taken advantage of, that 
 soon after the queen's accession she issued a 
 proclamation, insisting that those only should 
 learn to read and write that received her ex- 
 press permission and approval ; and that if 
 any slaves who had already acquired such 
 knowledge should be discovered practising 
 such arts, or if any others in future should 
 attempt to study them, all such slaves should 
 have *' their bones reduced to ashes, whilst 
 their owners should be dealt with according 
 to the pleasure of her majesty."* 
 
 • Inexpressible was the grief of many slaves on this 
 occasion. One poor fellow who, with his wife, was a bap- 
 tised Christian, was never seen to look cheerful again. His 
 name was Rantanana. He gave himself up to despair; 
 went unnecessarily into the most dangerous fever district, 
 returned, and died. He had been employed at the mis- 
 sionary press, and his wife was subsequently speared to 
 death, with eight others, in June 1840, for their known 
 adherence to Christianity. 
 
62 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 " In June 1836, when her rage seemed 
 somewhat abated, Messrs. Johns and Baker, 
 the only remaining missionaries, printed, by 
 permission, 4000 copies of native fables, from 
 a desire merely to keep up the art of reading 
 amongst thoSe who had acquired it. But these 
 were not allowed to be distributed — not even 
 amongst the remnant of scholars in the pubhc 
 schools, who still made the ostentation of 
 assembling to write on slates." 
 
 " The effect of this system is, that the 
 people universally execrate the period when 
 they were instructed by the Europeans, and 
 would view any new instructors presented to 
 them, through their own government, as their 
 enemies rather than their friends. 
 
 " On the same principle, at the breaking 
 up of the London Missionary Society's mis- 
 sion in 1835-6, the queen publicly declared 
 that all the labour of the Europeans was for 
 the queen, and their property likewise hers. 
 They therefore seized Mr. Jones*s garden, 
 valued by him at 340 dollars, and Mr. Chick's 
 residence, left by him on sale. They were 
 extremely angry with the family of Joli-Coeur 
 for buying a movable house from Mr. Baker 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 63 
 
 for forty dollars ; and absolutely (though pri- 
 vately) forbade them to ratify their purchase 
 of Mr. Freeman's house for 400 dollars, as 
 agreed upon. They compelled Mr. Griffiths 
 to sign a paper, stating that his residence and 
 chapel, valued at 3000 dollars, was the pro- 
 perty of the queen ; and she entirely pre- 
 vented the sale of every public building be- 
 longing to the London Missionary Society. 
 Messrs. Johns and Baker could not even leave 
 these buildings, or Mr. Freeman's* private 
 residence, in charge of a native, without a 
 paper exonerating him from blame in the 
 event of the queen seizing upon them."f 
 
 It seems, that the queen had no sooner 
 succeeded in beridding herself of the moral 
 control (insignificant, indeed, as she suffered 
 that to be) arising out of the presence of the 
 missionaries around her, than her natural fero- 
 city broke loose afresh, and with more than 
 accustomed license. About the period in 
 
 * The names recited in this paragraph are those of 
 some of the missionaries. 
 
 f From an unpublished manuscript by E. Baker, Esq. 
 one of the parties principally concerned in these transac- 
 tions. 
 
64 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 question a military force was despatched by 
 her majesty into the southern portion of the 
 island, where the natives had already acknow- 
 ledged her sovereignty over them, and sworn 
 fealty to her. What took place upon this 
 occasion, as it occupies the blackest page in 
 the entire volume of the enormities hitherto 
 recorded, we shall acquaint the reader with, 
 by transcribing the entire sketch unabbre- 
 viated from Ellis : — 
 
 " The negotiations relating to the terms of 
 their submission being completed, and after 
 being induced to give up their arms on the 
 most solemn and repeated promises of the 
 queen's friendship and protection, they assem- 
 bled, men, women, and children, in the neigh- 
 bourhood of the Hova army. The men were 
 then required to remove to a short distance, 
 under pretence of taking the oath of allegi- 
 ance. As striking a pool of water constitutes 
 a part of the ceremony, a low swampy ground 
 was chosen for the occasion. Such was the 
 ostensible reasons of the choice. A darker 
 reason was concealed in the bosoms of the 
 chief leaders of the queen's troops. On the 
 arrival of the natives at the appointed place. 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 65 
 
 they were surrounded by the soldiers, and 
 were then dehberately murdered. Not fewer 
 than ten thousand men were thus basely assas- 
 sinated on the spot ! ! 
 
 " In these circumstances/' continues the 
 writer from whom we are citing, " a number 
 of the chiefs of the southern provinces sent, 
 in the close of the year 1837, the most affect- 
 ing and earnest application to the British 
 government at Mauritius, denying all right of 
 the Hovas to their country, and praying for 
 assistance to save them from annihilation." * 
 
 * Ellis, " History of Madagascar," vol. ii. pp. 520, 521. 
 
66 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Letters from Queen Ranavalona to the British and French 
 Governments — Failure of the Project of obtaining 
 Protection for the Natives of Madagascar — Remiss- 
 ness of the British Government — Monetary Fluctu- 
 ation — Depressed Condition of Commerce — Value 
 of the Cut Dollars arbitrarily fixed — Oppression 
 and Wretchedness of the People — Their Cunning — 
 Military Authority — The Produce of Labour mono- 
 polised as the Feudal Property of the Queen — Cause 
 of Depopulation — Bribery and Corruption — A Capi- 
 tation Tax — Means adopted to prejudice the English 
 in the eyes of the Natives. 
 
 The reader will probably recollect the cir- 
 cumstance of an embassy from Madagascar 
 having reached the English shores about ten 
 years ago.* But although the parties were 
 intimately acquainted with the demand in 
 which the people of that extensive island stood 
 
 * The letters addressed on this occasion by Ranavalona 
 to her well-beloved brothers. King William the Fourth of 
 England, and Louis Philippe of France, are such perfect 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 67 
 
 for immediate protection and a saving hand, 
 they were doomed to witness the failure of 
 that project, in the attainment of any thing 
 beneficial to the afflicted natives. Not, in- 
 deed, that the queen had any other motives in 
 communicating with the British government 
 than those of ultimately riveting more closely 
 the fetters of her subjects ! But it was not 
 unreasonable to expect, that the latter might 
 
 " curiosities of literature " that we have been at some 
 trouble to obtain a copy of them for the reader's grati- 
 fication : — 
 
 To King William the Fourth, King of Great Britain 
 and Ireland, ^c. 
 
 '"24th June, 1836. 
 
 " This I say to you, my friend, that I have sent letters 
 to you, and you have sent letters to me, and perhaps some 
 of our friendly correspondence has failed to reach its desti- 
 nation. Therefore, I send my ambassadors into your pre- 
 sence to announce friendship. 
 
 " Now I did not receive the customary present to 
 Radama, not because I was vexed or angry ; but, if 
 friendship is to be obtained by the purchase of money 
 and riches, and to be perpetuated by the exchange of 
 goods, then I did not accept the present. And things 
 which are with us and not with you, you can buy here ; 
 and things with you and not with us, we buy from you. 
 
 " And with respect to your friendship with Radama, 
 
68 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 have embraced the occasion to urge the other 
 (by some such irresistible arguments as might 
 have touched the savage breast in the most 
 vulnerable quarter) to remove the restrictions 
 upon education and the gospel, and to sheath 
 the sword of vengeance for the future. We 
 are aware that some overtures were made to 
 the members of this mission for the readmis- 
 sion of an English agent into Madagascar. 
 
 Radama did not export people across the sea ; and I, the 
 successor of Radama, do not export people across the sea; 
 whether to you or any other nation. 
 
 *' May you live long and be my friend always ; and 
 may the people of England be always the people of 
 Madagascar. 
 
 " May you live long, 
 
 " Saith Ranavalonamanjaka." 
 
 To the King of the French. 
 
 " This I say to you, that my ambassadors will visit 
 you to announce friendship. And if things are with us 
 and things not with you, you can buy from us ; and if 
 there are things with you and not with us, we can buy 
 from you. 
 
 " For I have no enemy across the sea, of whatever 
 nation ; but I desire good friendship and good commerce. 
 ** This I say to you. May you live long, 
 
 " Saith Ranavalonamanjaka." 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 69 
 
 But the individuals comprising it being scarcely 
 more than animated automatons, had no power 
 vested in them to treat upon such terms — 
 and, what is not improbable, did not even 
 dare to touch upon such a proposition in 
 their narration of what they were intrusted 
 to convey, on the part of the British govern- 
 ment, to their sovereign. 
 
 The departure of the missionaries, and the 
 growing dislike of the queen's party towards 
 all intercourse with Europeans, together, as 
 a consequence of that policy, with the de- 
 pressed condition of commerce on the coast, 
 produced a striking fluctuation in the sandana 
 agio (or premium on the dollar) in the inte- 
 rior. The origin of this institution was this : 
 — The Malagasy, possessing no other monet- 
 ary medium of circulation than that derived 
 from the Spanish dollar, and none whatever 
 of their own, were perplexed to discover a 
 means of trafficking in sums smaller in value 
 than that coin. They betook themselves, in 
 their difficulty, to the expedient of cutting 
 the dollar into pieces, and thenceforth issued 
 the latter by weight. At first, a small agio 
 was given by the possessor of the whole dollar 
 
70 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 to obtain its weight in cut money ; but as the 
 cut money would not pass in the maritime 
 provinces, it tended continually to concentrate 
 in the capital, and to exceed the demand that 
 was made for it. In proportion as the trade 
 languished on the coast, a fewer dollars were 
 imported, the mutilated representatives of the 
 entire coin became more generally current, 
 and, at the same time, of less value than the 
 uncut dollar. It resulted from all this, that 
 five cut dollars soon began to be looked upon 
 as an equivalent only to four whole ones. 
 And the sapient monarch, begitming to ascribe 
 the growing pressure of this evil to the enor- 
 mous rise in the per centage upon sound 
 money, instead of to its true cause, the stag- 
 nation of her maritime commerce, legislated 
 in this spirit for the emergency, by fixing the 
 agio in favour of the whole dollar at ^^ ! 
 
 So deadly a blight does the fostering hand 
 of Ranavalona shed upon her people, that the 
 latter are prosperous or otherwise in propor- 
 tion to the proximity which they may chance 
 to occupy to the capital. Immediately within 
 the atmosphere of Tananarivo, every one is 
 exposed to the personal observation and cog- 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 71 
 
 nisance of the government ; and society pre- 
 sents accordingly but two faces — the one 
 oppression, and the other its effect — wretch- 
 edness ! The latter engenders the natural 
 consequence — cunning; and, in the practice 
 of this infirmity (either to assuage hunger 
 or escape punishment), many a wretch pays 
 the forfeiture of his hfe. 
 
 The cruel, drunken, and debauched queen, 
 then, supports her unnatural fabric, as we 
 have seen, exclusively through the medium of 
 terror. Yet the influence exerted by that 
 power could not have succeeded so com- 
 pletely in debasing her subjects, were it not 
 for the strength with which it nerves itself 
 through the military organisation which she 
 keeps up, and whereby she holds the chief- 
 tains and higher orders of society as much 
 under subjection as the populace. To this 
 engine, therefore, and to the English, who 
 introduced it, very much of their misery is 
 habitually ascribed by the people themselves. 
 In the employment of this power, her pre- 
 decessor did not entirely forget that his sub- 
 jects were also his children ; and it did not, 
 therefore, react upon their liberties in the 
 
72 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 same sense which it has done with herself. 
 Radama still clung to them with the paternal 
 tie. He was, moreover, in his single person, 
 supreme ; and the people had, at the worst, 
 to suffer only from the caprice or wickedness 
 of a single individual. But the present poten- 
 tate is actuated by no such feelings to restrain 
 her conduct ; and holding the reins of govern- 
 ment with a feeble hand, her paramours and 
 other favourites are allowed to share in the 
 oppression of the people, until " the land is 
 filled with violence!" 
 
 Regarded in the above point of view, it 
 will be evident that there cannot be claimed, 
 for our passive interference with the country, 
 an unconditional measure of good, as the 
 result, to Madagascar. On the contrary, not 
 a little harm has ensued upon our efforts to 
 raise her to a higher standing in the scale of 
 nations. But this harm, inasmuch as it has 
 sprung out of unforeseen and extraneous 
 agencies, such as the overthrow of the mis- 
 sionary scheme, and the natural depravity and 
 hard-heartedness of the reigning power, is not 
 to be reflected back upon us, to the disparage- 
 ment of the means employed, still less to the 
 
PAST, AND PRESENT. 73 
 
 support of a line of argument (far from un- 
 common with some pseudo-philanthropists 
 and politicians) which contends that a " na- 
 tural state of society can only be depreciated 
 by our attempts to engraft an artificial civi- 
 lisation upon it. Much as we respect any 
 opinion which may be advanced by such 
 authorities as Messrs. Freeman and Johns, 
 upon the immediate subject of their interesting 
 ** Narrative," we by no means unconditionally 
 assent to the censure with which those gentle- 
 men are disposed to visit the active steps 
 which England has taken, in her anxiety for 
 an ultimate improvement in the condition of 
 the Malagasy. The views which these gen- 
 tlemen have taken upon this point are strongly 
 worded. '' Great Britain," they say, " having 
 supplied a handful of men with the weapons 
 of destruction, and taught them how to wield 
 them most effectually by sending a few soldiers 
 to drill the natives, lent herself ungraciously 
 to the task of abetting the ruin of the inde- 
 pendence, liberty, property, homes, and lives 
 of thousands and many tens of thousands of 
 the peaceful inhabitants of the island, who had 
 never raised a finger against the British throne, 
 
 E 
 
74 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 nor against the Hovas over whom Radama 
 reigned ; but who now, furnished with British 
 weapons, could desolate whole regions of 
 inoffensive agriculturists, and glory in schemes 
 of conquest, rapine, and blood — that bane 
 literally filled the whole of Madagascar with 
 groans, and anguish, and death ! " * Now, if 
 by this philippic it is intended to be under- 
 stood that, but for the introduction of Eu- 
 ropean implements and tactics of warfare, as 
 well as but for that of throwing the entire 
 balance of power into a single scale, Mada- 
 gascar, in common with other heathen coun- 
 tries, would have presented a picture of 
 pastoral simplicity and immunity from blood- 
 shed ; why, then, we shall venture to denounce 
 such hypothesis as based upon reasoning which 
 facts, the most incontrovertible, contradict. 
 And that we are not reduced to mere asser- 
 tions, in corroboration of a position the oppo- 
 site to that assumed in the present question, 
 the following fact we deem conclusive. 
 
 " When, in 1823, Mr. Williams visited 
 Hervey's Island, expecting to find a consider- 
 
 ♦ " Narrative of Persecutions," &c. pp. 6, 7. 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 75 
 
 able population, he was shocked to learn that, 
 by their frequent and exterminating wars, 
 they had reduced themselves to about sixty in 
 number ! Some six or seven years later, on 
 visiting the same island, he found that this 
 miserable remnant of its former population 
 had fought with such frequency and despe- 
 ration, that the only survivors were five men, 
 three women, and a few children ; and that 
 even then there was a contention among them 
 who should be king!"* 
 
 Here, then, we meet with a direct negative 
 to the assumption, that the savage bosom 
 stands in need of European arts and insti- 
 gation in order to imbibe a relish for the 
 bloodshed of its fellow-creature.f 
 
 If England has been the direct means of 
 organising a disciplined army in Madagascar, 
 and of enabling a single authority to concen- 
 
 * Notes to " Polynesia," pp. 99, 100. 
 
 t Madame Gatti de Gamond, in her brief exposition 
 of Fourier's remarkable " System," observes — " The 
 savages offer the only image of a primitive and natural 
 society ; generally we see them free, obeying those only 
 who please them." . . . . " The Phalansterians enjoy the 
 security of the savage, the absence of care respecting the 
 
76 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 trate the entire power of the country in itself, 
 she has enabled that people to exchange a 
 certain and very ruinous evil, namely, that of 
 unceasing petty warfare amongst the numerous 
 chieftains, and consequent exterminations of 
 the natives, for the lesser one of a single con- 
 trolling influence. Many provinces have thus 
 purchased a degree of repose and happiness 
 to which, before the time of Radama, they 
 were strangers; although, from the abuse of 
 authority of which the Hova governors or 
 commandants are guilty in those provinces, as 
 well as from their liability to be subjected now 
 and then to a visit from a marauding force of 
 their sovereign, their condition is far from one 
 of perfect exemption from sufferings. Nor 
 have the interests of humanity been slightly 
 served in what we have effected for Mada- 
 gascar, in the suppression of her slave ex- 
 portation. There we recognise, at least, 
 
 morrow : entirely happy in the present, they are not at all 
 beset with insecurity and care for the future I " 
 
 This realisation may be raet with in the case of the 
 brute creation ; but that the description does not cor- 
 respond with the state of even natural society in our own 
 species, let the history of Madagascar and the South Sea 
 Islands attest. 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 77 
 
 one positive good we have conferred upon 
 her. 
 
 With regard to Imerina itself (the ancestral 
 district of the present family in power), the 
 consequences of our connexion with the 
 country are unquestionably for the worse, 
 under the government of Ranavalona; and, 
 for the simple reason, that those agencies to 
 which we invited the attention of her prede- 
 cessor, and which, if properly applied, would 
 have afforded the elements of the country's 
 prosperity, have been perverted and prosti- 
 tuted to ignoble ends ; and thus, by a reflex 
 operation, inflicted a ruinous evil upon the 
 many. 
 
 Thus, many hundred people are forced into 
 learning a trade; but, when conversant with 
 its minutiae, instead of being allowed to offer 
 themselves as competitors in its exercise, their 
 labour is monopolised as the feudal property of 
 the queen, by whom it is unceasingly put into 
 requisition, and that, as we have before stated, 
 without any sort of requital. This principle 
 runs through the entire catalogue of the me- 
 chanical arts. Again, the people think it 
 matter of exultation, if she demands but one 
 
78 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 half of the men out of each hundred for per- 
 petual unpaid servitude. The destruction of 
 life occasioned by her prolonged military 
 expeditions, and their annual renewal, has 
 dwindled down many of the former hundreds 
 of the people to twenty, ten, and even five. 
 The effect of this shocking system on the 
 rising generation is most deplorable. Not one 
 woman, perhaps, in seven, can point to a 
 husband; and in regard to those who can, 
 many of them are absent with the army, or 
 stationed at distant outposts. Hence we may 
 perhaps affirm, that not one woman in twenty 
 is the mother of children ; and the population 
 is rapidly diminishing. It is affirmed by the 
 natives that, in villages where formerly 500 
 children might be seen playing about, it is 
 difficult now to number even twenty!* 
 
 If the queen, in her own person, is arbi- 
 trary and tyrannical, the same license is dele- 
 gated to her minions : all civil and military 
 service being enacted gratuitously, the judge 
 
 • How truly applicable, in this place, are the words of 
 one of the Fathers, in connexion with the early Christian 
 condition of man — *' Prohibere nasci est occidere!*' — 
 Tertullian. 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 79 
 
 and the general, as well as the bailiiF and the 
 private, are equally exposed to the necessity 
 of living upon their w^its ! The consequence 
 of such a system is, that bribery and corrup- 
 tion, to an unparalleled extent, pervade every 
 department of the state. Hence, the people 
 have an inherent conviction, that justice is 
 only attainable by such as can out-pay the 
 opposite party ; and such a debasing example, 
 re-acting upon the character of the mass 
 itself, is a pregnant source of that demorali- 
 sation to which the Malagasy mind has 
 arrived. 
 
 In order to instil a dislike for Europeans 
 into the native mind, her majesty has had 
 recourse to several expedients, the selection 
 of which reflects no little credit upon her 
 ingenuity. One of these was her apparent 
 readiness, at all times, to afford means of 
 transport for the baggage of the latter back- 
 wards and forwards from the coast to the 
 capital ; and as the backs of her subjects were 
 the only medium of conveyance, the parties 
 for whose advantage they were laid under 
 contribution became proportionably hateful to 
 them. Another device for bringing about a 
 
80 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 similar end was that of levying on the people 
 a capitation-tax, " to pay the white people," 
 at the period that the missionaries were with- 
 drawing themselves from the country. It is 
 needless to remark, that those gentlemen did 
 not receive one farthing of this consolidated 
 fund ; but the English enjoyed the reputation, 
 amongst the deluded natives, of having been 
 the instigators of the measure. Again, Rana- 
 valona was in the habit, whilst the missionary 
 schools remained in operation, of draining 
 those seminaries to fill the constant vacancies 
 occurring in the army ; until, at length, the 
 people suffered so immeasurably under this 
 system, that they sought to evade the pressure 
 of it by substituting their slaves' children in 
 place of their own. And with the growth of 
 this tyrannous impost upon the dearest asso- 
 ciations of their nature, the wretched people 
 transferred their hatred from the active to the 
 innocent instrument of their calamity — from 
 the queen, who enacted the regulation, to the 
 English, who, for their weal and happiness, 
 sought to increase the numbers and prosperity 
 of the schools. 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 81 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Enactments prejudicial to Commerce with Europeans — 
 Outrage on British Subjects — Contempt of the British 
 Flag — Captain Heppick offered for Sale in the Public 
 Market of Tamatave — Memorial to his Excellency 
 Sir William Gomm — The Case investigated — The 
 Charge denied — Letter from the Queen of Mada- 
 gascar — Duplicity of the Queen. 
 
 It had long ago been anticipated, as a not 
 improbable consequence of Ranavalona's pre- 
 sent policy, that Madagascar would, sooner or 
 later, become closed as a foreign market of 
 commerce to Europeans, even if that was not 
 I the direct object which she had in view by 
 the stringent enactments which, from time to 
 time, she had introduced against them. Though 
 this latter design may not yet have been pub- 
 licly charged against her, yet, for ourselves, 
 we " stand accountant for as great a sin," 
 inasmuch as it is precisely that which, for a 
 long time, we have mentally laid at her door. 
 £ 2 
 
82 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 The harassing obstacles which she has thrown 
 in the way of those engaged in the bullock- 
 trade can be explained alone, we think, upon 
 this supposition ; and none to whom the con- 
 tinuance of that particular branch of com- 
 merce was an object of concern, can have felt 
 otherwise than uneasy that her majesty would 
 not let slip the faintest opportunity which 
 might present itself of throwing overboard the 
 interests of those embarked in the same. The 
 reader has, perhaps, to be informed that the 
 British colony, Mauritius, has to look to Ma- 
 dagascar, almost exclusively, for its supplies 
 of horned cattle. Hitherto, an active trade in 
 bullocks had existed between the two islands ; 
 and although the growing impediments which 
 her majesty's government had thrown in the 
 way of the native and European exporters 
 had raised their price at Tamatave (the prin- 
 cipal point of export), from eight Spanish 
 dollars to twelve and fifteen, Mauritius, ne- 
 vertheless, had enjoyed an uninterrupted sup- 
 ply of beef as well as of draught cattle from 
 the mart in question. But the moment was 
 at hand when the queen prepared to lay aside 
 further duplicity, and throw off altogether the 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 83 
 
 mask which, for decency's sake, she had hi- 
 therto worn. 
 
 The opportunity which she embraced for 
 this demonstration of her real feehngs towards 
 the European settlers in her dominions, is a 
 point to which we must now invite the espe- 
 cial attention of the reader ; inasmuch as it 
 was the first of a train of outrages to which 
 she has recently exposed British subjects, in 
 common with other Europeans ; and arising 
 out of which a recent attack was made upon 
 Tamatave, by a conjoint naval force from 
 Bourbon and Mauritius. 
 
 In order to make the reader acquainted 
 with this serious part of our subject, we shall 
 subjoin the copy of a letter which appeared in 
 a local newspaper at Mauritius, dated August 
 19th, 1844, the contents of which will, per- 
 haps, convey the best idea we could afford 
 him of the particular circumstances alluded to. 
 This letter bore the somewhat unattractive 
 title of *' Les pauvres Anglais .'" and is as 
 follows : — 
 
 " The words I prefix as a motto to this 
 communication have been used in reference to 
 the late edifying occurrence of an Englishman 
 being forcibly exposed for sale in the markets 
 
84 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 of Tamatave, in Madagascar, by officers acting 
 under her majesty Ranavalona's commission. 
 I will not say if the appellation ' pauvre' is 
 applicable; that remains to be seen. The 
 British government has endured so much out* 
 rageous insolence and contumely from the 
 infatuated and imbecile queen of Madagascar, 
 whom one-half of the armament employed to 
 subdue Mauritius would hurl for ever from 
 the throne of Radama, which she has unright- 
 eously usurped, that I shall not wonder if this 
 indignity also is silently put up with. It is 
 not long since the Sampson, bearing the British 
 flag, whilst trading near Bogana Bay, on the 
 western coast of Madagascar, was violently 
 seized by the queen's soldiers, bulk broken, 
 and the cargo, which had been shipped un- 
 der their eyes, was re-landed and forfeited, 
 and the captain kept prisoner for some time. 
 The commander of her majesty's brig Cleo- 
 patra* arriving soon after, as I have heard, 
 excused the outrage, and gave a written state- 
 ment to the queen's officers, exonerating them 
 from consequences. Afterwards, by way of 
 
 * The writer of the above letter is incorrect in describr 
 ing the Cleopatra as a brig ; she is a sloop of war, carrying 
 26 guns. 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 85 
 
 shewing how they regard every act of this 
 kind as weakness and pusillanimity, we learn 
 from the * South African Advertiser/ that 
 the Cleopatra having struck upon a coral reef. 
 Lieutenant Molesworth and several of the 
 crew, whilst attempting to lighten her by 
 landing some guns, were barbarously massa- 
 cred by the Hova queen's soldiers. The of- 
 ficers and crew, as would appear, immediately 
 sailed off, without avenging the death of their 
 companions in arms, leaving the native autho- 
 rities to put their own interpretation upon 
 their apparent apathy. No sooner does this 
 news reach Mauritius, than her majesty's ship 
 Iris sails quietly off to another station, as if 
 to invite a renewal of Malagasy insolence, 
 by leaving us without the means of obtaining 
 redress. 
 
 " Numerous instances of similar contempt 
 of the British flag and name have occurred at 
 Tamatave, and been recorded in your paper ; 
 and they appear latterly, as might be ex- 
 pected, to have so increased, as to become the 
 order of the day. 
 
 " At length Captain Heppick, of the Marie 
 Laure, a British American-born subject, is 
 
86 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 seized on a pretended accusation of suflPering 
 seven of her sable majesty's wretched subjects, 
 brought from Mauritius, to be hid in his 
 vessel, until, as is supposed, a gale of wind in 
 the harbour of Tamatave terrifying them, they 
 endeavoured to swim on shore, in which at- 
 tempt one was lost. Such is the accusation ; 
 for that the Malagasy either believe, or expect 
 us to believe, that the captain did or could 
 forcibly detain a man on board his small 
 vessel, open from stem to stern, and crowded 
 hourly by natives from the shore, is wholly 
 out of the question. 
 
 " This accusation the captain denies, and of 
 it no evidence exists, except the unsupported 
 deposition of one native. On this evidence, how- 
 ever, the captain is kept a prisoner for months 
 at Tamatave, and put on his trial for murder, 
 in direct defiance of an article in the treaty 
 with Radama, that cases of capital crime laid 
 against British subjects in Madagascar should 
 be referred to Mauritius. At length he is con- 
 demned to slavery (proh pudor !) and taken, 
 like a bullock or sheep, to the public market- 
 place at Tamatave to be sold, the public crier 
 proclaiming him to be on sale, and inviting 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 87 
 
 bidders to offer for him. On no offer being 
 made, he was taken to another place, and 
 again exposed to the scorn of the thousand 
 natives assembled, and only saved, as is in- 
 tended to appear to the natives, by his coun- 
 trymen redeeming him at the price (thirty 
 dollars) of a Malagasy slave ! 
 
 " Now I should greatly like to know whe- 
 ther her majesty Ranavalona avows this act 
 of her officers ; and if she does (of which I 
 make no doubt), whether Sir William Gomm 
 will tacitly recognise her right to make slaves 
 of Englishmen ? for during the time occupied 
 in this Tamatave farce. Captain Heppick was, 
 to all intents and purposes, a slave ; and if Sir 
 William Gomm does acknowledge such a right, 
 whether Lord Stanley and the Right Honour- 
 able the Secretary for Foreign Affairs will ? 
 and if they also do, whether the people of 
 England will ? Can you, Mr. Editor, reply 
 to these queries ? because it seems highly ne- 
 cessary that British subjects should know, 
 before trusting themselves in Madagascar, what 
 protection for life and liberty international laws 
 afford them. If such events are to pass over 
 in * expressive silence,' I think we may inscribe 
 
8d MADAGASCAR, 
 
 on the proud flag of England at Mauritius, 
 'Les pauvres Anglais/ — the pitiable English !* 
 
 " Your's, &c. 
 
 (Signed) « A BRITON. 
 
 " Port Louis, l^th August, 1844." 
 
 About the same time his excellency Sir 
 William Gomm received a memorial upon the 
 subject of the foregoing letter from the party 
 whom it most immediately concerned. 
 
 " The Memorial of Jacob Heppick, Mariner. 
 
 " To His Excellency Lieutenant-General Sir 
 William Maynard Gomm, K.C.B., &c.&c., 
 Governor of Mauritius and Dependencies. 
 
 " May it please your Excellency, 
 
 " Your memorialist begs to inform your 
 excellency, that he sailed from Port Louis for 
 Tamatave, Madagascar, as chief officer of the 
 bark Maria Laure, of Port Louis, Captain 
 Croft, on the 10th of February last ; and that 
 on the 3rd of March, having part of the cargo 
 on board, there came on a severe gale, by 
 which the said ship was driven ashore, un- 
 shipped, and broke her rudder; and was in 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 89 
 
 consequence detained for the reparation of the 
 same. On the 4th of March, your memorialist 
 being on shore on duty, he and several of the 
 resident traders were called to the Custom- 
 house, when the authorities of Tamatave 
 brought forward a Malagasy labourer, who 
 accused your memorialist with having de- 
 tained him and six other men on board the 
 bark Marie Laure, by force which your me- 
 moriahst declared to be false, and called upon 
 them to produce proof that the men were seen 
 on board the said ship, which they could not 
 do : yet they detained him on shore that day 
 and night, in charge of four armed men. On 
 the 5th and 6th days of March, your memo- 
 riahst was conveyed to the Custom-house, 
 when the same charge was made against him 
 in presence of several of the resident traders 
 on each occasion, without any evidence being 
 produced. Notwithstanding, he was still de- 
 tained on shore. On the 7th of March, the 
 authorities having summoned all the resident 
 traders of the port to a kabary at the govern- 
 ment-house, the said charge was repeated ; 
 but without any evidence whatever of the 
 men having been seen on board, or leaving 
 
90 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 the said ship, notwithstanding a number of 
 men and women from the shore daily visited 
 the ship, and had access to all parts thereof. 
 The Hova authorities, still persisting in the 
 charge, your memorialist was advised by the 
 ship\s agent to propose a decision according to 
 their law, in cases of doubt, preferring to pay 
 a small sum, should the decision be against 
 him, rather than that he or the ship should be 
 detained or subjected to annoyance for the 
 future. But the authorities, without having 
 made a decision according to their law, or 
 having produced any evidence in confirmation 
 of the charge, did, on the 25th of March, 
 whilst your memorialist was proceeding to 
 take the rudder on board the ship, detain him 
 forcibly on shore, and informed him that he 
 could not proceed in the ship. 
 
 " Your memorialist begs to state, that from 
 that period up to the present date he has been 
 detained a prisoner at Tamatave, under strict 
 charge, night and day, without any further pro- 
 ceedings having been adopted, or any evidence 
 produced in confirmation of the charge made 
 against him, notwithstanding the efforts made 
 by Captain Laconfourgue, when at Tamatave, 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 91 
 
 in April last, and the frequent demands made by 
 your memorialist, who apprised the authorities 
 that, as they did not comply with his proposal 
 before the departure of the ship, neither would 
 he now consent to a decision by the ordeal ; de- 
 manding of them either to prove their charge, 
 or to give him his release and compensation 
 for the loss of his time and expenses. But 
 hitherto he has not been favoured with any 
 communication whatsoever ; nor has he any 
 prospect of obtaining his release from confine- 
 ment in an unhealthy climate, or compen- 
 sation for the loss he will sustain through the 
 unjustifiable proceedings of the authorities of 
 Tamatave, sanctioned by the Hova govern- 
 ment. Your memorialist begs to enclose to 
 your excellency a certificate from the only 
 British resident of Tamatave present at the 
 kabary, in confirmation of his statement. 
 
 " Your memoriahst humbly begs your 
 excellency will be pleased to take into con- 
 sideration the hardship and injustice of his 
 case ; and solicits your excellency will adopt 
 measures to obtain his release, and compensa- 
 tion for his loss, which cannot be estimated at 
 less than twenty pounds sterling per month. 
 
02 MADAGASCAR^ 
 
 and four shillings per day expenses, from the 
 25th of March until the time of his release. 
 And your memorialist, as in duty bound, will 
 ever pray. 
 
 (Signed) JACOB HEPPICK. 
 
 ** Tamatave, \^th June^ 1844." 
 
 This petition (of which we have now 
 afforded the reader a literal copy) was ac- 
 companied by a written voucher from Mr. 
 Samuel Shipton, then residing as a trader at 
 Tamatave, and of whom the petition makes 
 mention as the only Englishman present dur- 
 ing the conference at government-house. This 
 document being nothing more than a concise 
 statement in corroboration of Mr. Heppick*s 
 petition, we shall not take up the time of the 
 reader by transcribing it. 
 
 At the period of Mr. Heppick's appeal to 
 the governor of the Mauritius, the authorities 
 at Tamatave do not appear to have proceeded 
 to the extremities against him with which 
 they were charged in the letter of " A Briton," 
 of which we have offered a copy. That letter, 
 however, was indited as late as the 19th Au- 
 gust, whilst Mr. Heppick's petition bore a date 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. " 93 
 
 of nearly two months earlier, and the occur- 
 rence of his detention took its rise, as we 
 have seen, in the beginning of March. It was 
 during this interim, as was afterwards proved 
 by the queen's own admission, that he was 
 reduced to a state of slavery, and sold for the 
 " goodly price " of " thirty pieces of silver," 
 videlicet^ in the form of Spanish dollars ! 
 
 In consequence of this memorial, and of 
 minute inquiries instituted by Mr. Dick, the 
 colonial secretary, amongst parties engaged in 
 the bullock -trade carried on between Mada- 
 gascar and Mauritius, her majesty's ship 
 Conway, of twenty -six guns, commanded 
 by Captain Kelly, which happened to be in 
 the harbour of Port Louis at the time, was 
 despatched immediately to Madagascar, with 
 instructions to call upon the authorities for an 
 explanation of the particular circumstances 
 whereby they had felt authorised to inflict 
 such a sentence on a British subject. Captain 
 Kelly was also the bearer of a letter to the 
 queen herself, which he was instructed to for- 
 ward, through some trustworthy channel, to 
 Tananarivo. 
 
 The governor availed himself on the occa- 
 
94 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 sion of the valuable services of Mr. Baker, of 
 whom we have had occasion already to speak 
 as one of the missionary body formerly resi- 
 dent at Tananarivo, and who, in company 
 with Mr. Johns, remained in the capital until 
 as late as August 1836. Mr. Baker, on quit- 
 ting Madagascar, did not return with the 
 other members of the mission to Europe ; 
 but, fixing his residence at Port Louis, in 
 Mauritius, had settled there with his family, 
 and never ceased to keep his eye steadfastly 
 fastened on the interests and the sufferings of 
 his poor Malagasy neighbours. To a large 
 number of these, who had found their way 
 into the colony and were engaged in different 
 occupations for their support, he had been, 
 subsequent to his departure from Tananarivo, 
 the medium of conveying religious instruc- 
 tion ; in the prosecution of which excellent 
 object his best energies, his purse, and much 
 of his time, were employed.* 
 
 ♦ It is believed that there are not fewer than 10,000 
 of the natives of Madagascar living in Mauritius, most of 
 whom were either originally imported as slaves or brought 
 there by ships as " prize negroes," or are the descendants 
 of such. They now form a valuable and important class of 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 95 
 
 About the same period, his excellency. Sir 
 William Gomm, despatched her majesty's ship 
 Conway to Madagascar, with instructions, as 
 Mr. Heppick had now been redeemed by cer- 
 tain of the resident traders, to institute inqui- 
 ries into the circumstances of his imprison- 
 ment and subsequent scandalous treatment. 
 
 Upon anchoring in the roads of Tama- 
 tave. Captain Kelly lost no time in executing 
 the important object of his mission ; for 
 which purpose he landed, in company with 
 Mr. Edward Baker, as interpreter of the occa- 
 sion, and with three of his officers. 
 
 A guard of honour* was drawn up at the 
 
 free labourers on the island. Many of them came daily to 
 visit our Christian refugees, and expressed the kindliest 
 feelings towards them." — Narrative of Persecutions, 8^c, 
 p. 276. 
 
 In a recent number of a Mauritius newspaper it is 
 asserted, upon good authority, that there are not less than 
 20,000 people of Malagasse origin in that colony; but 
 we are inclined to think the estimate is exaggerated. The 
 number of people from that country who have settled in 
 Mauritius, and who, during their own life-time, were re- 
 siding in Madagascar, may be computed at somewhere 
 about 1000. Great numbers within the last three years 
 have returned to their native country. 
 
 ♦ This '* guard of honour" consisted of a single line of 
 Hova soldiers, exemplifying in their dress and accoutre^ 
 
96 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 government-house to receive Captain Kelly; 
 and thus far the authorities adhered to the in- 
 ternational etiquette of more civilised countries, 
 and evinced, as v^^as believed, their desire to 
 comport themselves with dignity and with re- 
 spect towards the flag of Great Britain. * 
 
 ments the poet's asseveration, that <<man wants but little 
 here below;" for, with the exception of a girdle round 
 the loins, they were literally naked. The greater portion 
 of them were armed with the musket, in which case the 
 body was in a manner covered with the belt for the car- 
 touch-box, and the shoulders with the knapsack. Others, 
 in lieu of the musket, were furnished with two spears of 
 great length and strength ; one of which is designed to be 
 thrown, the other to be retained for the death-struggle, or 
 last rush. Their hair was cut short, the body destitute of 
 ornament, and their general appearance indicated an ap- 
 proach to discipline and order. 
 
 The dresses of the present queen's army are by some 
 stated to be relics from those supplied to Radama by the 
 English government, as according to an article in our 
 treaty with that sovereign. But we have good reason to 
 believe that the officers figure, to a considerable extent, in 
 the cast- off garments of the French and English soldiery 
 of Bourbon and Mauritius, for we chance to have been 
 present at the purchase of epaulettes, cocked hats, and the 
 like, at the latter, effected by the masters of the bullock- 
 ships trading between Tamatave and Port Louis, avowedly 
 with a view to their sale at Madagascar I 
 
 • We cannot resist acquainting the reader with a ludi- 
 crous illustration of the advances which the Hova army 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 97 
 
 The captain of the Conway at once de- 
 manded an interview with the commandant 
 of Tamatave and the chief judge of the 
 same ; but the former was denied to him 
 upon the plea of sickness, and the latter, with 
 a number of Hovas, represented themselves 
 as commissioned by Razakafidy (the said com- 
 mandant) to receive him.* 
 
 have effected in the European science of "soldiering." 
 Upon Captain Kelly's approaching the guard of honour, 
 the officer in command vociferated, in broken English, 
 *' Rear rank take open order I " We have remarked in the 
 text that the guard consisted but of a single line ! Some 
 other equally laughable words of command were issued in 
 English, which the very organisation of the force rendered 
 it incapable of obeying, had the same commands been even 
 understood ! This system of manoeuvring might be likened 
 to the tactics of the Romish Church, one admirable ma- 
 nceuvre of which is the inculcation of their blasphemous 
 mummery through a language which is about as intelli- 
 gible to four-fifths of its disciples as though their pastors 
 were to address them in Cherokee. 
 
 * Before the commencement of any proceedings, Cap- 
 tain Kelly was requested by the dignitaries assembled in 
 the opposite interest to inform them of the number of his 
 rank! In Madagascar, twelve gradations of honour are 
 recognised, A grand marshal occupying the twelfth and 
 highest, and a private soldier being an instance of the first 
 or lowest. And it was evident, that, had Captain Kelly 
 represented himself as belonging to any number lower thaa 
 
98 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 Upon inquiry being made of the party as 
 to who was to be looked upon as the chief and 
 responsible Malagasy present, it was intimated 
 that Rainihova was appointed as the repre- 
 sentative of the commandant. 
 
 Captain Kelly then proceeded to state, for 
 the information of the party assembled, that 
 he was deputed by the governor of Mauritius 
 to require information as to the character of 
 
 twelve, he would have been confronted with men of more 
 national importance than himself. 
 
 We have understood that the gallant officer, not suffi- 
 ciently alive to the cunning of these sable diplomatists, was 
 unlucky enough to answer, artlessly, that he belonged to 
 the eleventh rank. But Mr. Baker, equally conversant 
 with the constitutional dishonesty of the people as with 
 their object on the present occasion, bethought him of 
 a happy alternative ; and, as the only individual amongst 
 the English who could make himself intelligible to the 
 authorities, he replied to the query, "that the rank of 
 Captain Kelly corresponded to the number of guns which 
 his vessel mounted, and that that number being twenty- 
 six, the rank of the English officer exceeded any thing 
 for which their country was prepared I " They had not 
 another word to say upon the point I Much credit is due 
 to Mr. Baker for the readiness and ingenuity with which he 
 thus met their subtlety — for had he allowed Captain Kelly 
 to commit himself under this head, nothing is more certain 
 than that they would have profited by it to embarrass the 
 proceedings. 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 99 
 
 Mr. Heppick's offence, together with the nature 
 of the sentence which had been passed upon 
 him : apprising the authorities, at the same 
 time, that his excellency had no desire to 
 encourage Enghshmen in a breach of the 
 laws of Madagascar, or to protect them when 
 so committing themselves. 
 
 The chief judge, '^Filibert," replied to this 
 query, that the vessel in question had come 
 to Tamatave, bringing along with her seven 
 labourers, natives of Madagascar, who were 
 returning thereto after the expiration of 
 their engagements at Mauritius. That Cap- 
 tain Croft (who commanded the Marie Laure), 
 together with Mr. Heppick his mate, instead 
 of landing the men on his arrival, took upon 
 themselves to confine them below, and to 
 detain them in his ship. And that, when 
 the searchers went on board to inquire if any 
 labourers had returned to their native coun- 
 try, they were assured by the master and 
 Mr. Heppick that there were not any such in 
 the ship ; notwithstanding that there were 
 seven at the moment under the hatches ! 
 
 That in confirmation of this assertion, two 
 witnesses had been examined by them ; also 
 
100 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 that there were two other Malagasy natives 
 who had subsequently gone on board whilst 
 she was at Tamatave, for the purpose of pro- 
 curing a passage to Madagascar; and that 
 these likewise were admitted and concealed 
 below in company with the seven other men ; 
 that a gale of wind springing up, and the vessel 
 being found to have broken from her moor- 
 ings, the nine Malagasys were ordered upon 
 deck to assist in managing her. But that 
 being alarmed for their safety, they had jumped 
 overboard with a view to reaching the shore, 
 and that, in this attempt, one of their number 
 had found a watery grave. Two were made 
 prisoners of by the soldiers on duty in the 
 town, and the remaining six escaped. The 
 two men captured on the occasion had as- 
 serted that the captain had concealed them 
 below, and these men it was that were ready 
 to confirm all that he had now advanced 
 against the officers of the Marie Laure. 
 
 These two witnesses, however, were not 
 forthcoming upon the demand of Captain Kelly 
 for their appearance. This was nothing more 
 than might have been looked for from a people 
 of such national duplicity of character. Cir- 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 101 
 
 cumstances had intervened to render their 
 appearance unattainable, so that the ipse dixit 
 of the accuser must be supposed to be decisive 
 as to the guilt of the accused. The same 
 parties accused the captain of the Marie Laure 
 of forcibly detaining the nine Malagasy natives 
 on board the ship. 
 
 The authorities went on to state that the 
 mate, Mr. Heppick, was, in consequence of 
 these charges, detained at Tamatave, but that 
 the captain of the vessel was allowed to pro- 
 ceed with the cargo to its destination, the 
 presence of the former being required on the 
 spot until the trial should have ended. That 
 that trial then returned a verdict of guilty 
 against them both, and adjudged Mr. Heppick 
 to pay a fine of a hundred dollars ; that upon 
 the said fine having been reduced to sixty dol- 
 lars, and liquidated, Mr. Heppick was freed, and 
 quitted Tamatave.* These representatives of 
 the majesty of Madagascar denied that they 
 had incarcerated Mr. Heppick, but had sub- 
 
 • It has been already stated at page 87, that Mr. 
 Heppick was fined thirty dollars only. The reader must, 
 therefore, understand this sum to embrace the conjoint 
 $ne levied upon Messrs. Croft and Heppick. . 
 
102 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 jected him to the surveillance of a guard, in 
 consequence of his refusal to pay the fine 
 awarded. 
 
 It was then particularly inquired on the 
 part of Captain Kelly, if there was any truth 
 in the statement, that the British subject in 
 question had been reduced to slavery in com- 
 pliance with the laws of Madagascar ? They 
 replied that he had not been so treated, and 
 had suffered no other sentence than that of 
 being adjudged to pay the fine. In answer to 
 another question from Captain Kelly, as to 
 whether Mr. Heppick had not undergone a 
 second judgment from the queen herself, sub- 
 sequent to that first pronounced upon him at 
 Tamatave, a shuffling refusal to speak upon 
 that particular point was all he could elicit, 
 whilst they took shelter behind the Jesuitical 
 stronghold that they had followed in the pre- 
 sent instance, as well as in all others, — the 
 customs and laws of the country. Again they 
 denied that they had reduced him to slavery ; 
 but dechned any satisfaction as to the acts of 
 their royal mistress. 
 
 Captain Kelly next demanded to know 
 how it came about, if Mr. Heppick had not 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 103 
 
 been sold as a slave, that the European traders 
 of Tamatave had redeemed him for thirty 
 dollars, — a fact which was well known to be 
 incontrovertible. To this they replied, nothing- 
 disconcerted, that the sum of money paid for 
 him by the European traders was nothing 
 more or less than the amount of the fine 
 which he had incurred by transgressing the 
 law of the country. 
 
 Captain Kelly : '' Was it not publicly pro- 
 claimed in two distinct places, that the white 
 men, namely Croft and Heppick, had been 
 reduced into slavery?" 
 
 " No such proclamation," they replied, 
 *' was ever issued in the case of the white 
 men.'' 
 
 Captain Kelly demanded to know if they 
 were aware of the existence of a treaty of 
 friendship between Radama and the English, 
 by the terms of which it was agreed that no 
 British subject could be reduced to a state 
 of slavery in Madagascar ? 
 
 The authorities did not deny their know- 
 ledge of such an international compact, and 
 remarked that they had no desire to injure 
 Englishmen, whilst they asserted that the ori- 
 
104 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 ginal friendship contracted by Radama was 
 still in force towards them. At the same time 
 they maintained that the laws must be re- 
 spected by foreigners as well as natives, and 
 enforced against all alike. 
 
 Such then being asserted to be an exact 
 statement of the steps to which the authorities 
 had resorted in the case of Mr. Heppick, 
 Captain Kelly proposed that they should pub- 
 licly declare in a kabary that he (Mr. Hep- 
 pick) had not been, and that no Englishman 
 could be, reduced to slavery in the island of 
 Madagascar, as far as it was tributary to the 
 power of Ranavalona. Hereupon a long dis- 
 cussion ensued. For such a proposition as 
 this they were, without doubt, wholly unpre- 
 pared ; and finding that they could not turn 
 their English visitors from the particular scent 
 in question, they had no other course open to 
 them than that of declining to comply with it. 
 A contrary line of pohcy would, in all proba- 
 bility, have been rewarded with the loss of 
 their heads. 
 
 It was then explained to the native officers 
 present, that, whether true or otherwise, a 
 report had made its way to Mauritius, to the 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 105 
 
 effect that Mr. Heppick actually had been 
 sold into slavery at Tamatave, and that as 
 this communication had originated with a party 
 or parties actually resident at the latter place, 
 it became a matter of palpable necessity that 
 it should be publicly denied at the same. 
 
 And, finally, Mr. Baker remarked to them, 
 on the part of Captain Kelly, that they were, 
 no doubt, aware that the British government 
 had paid an enormous sum of money in order 
 to put a stop to the continuance of slavery in 
 the English colonies ; and that a very little 
 reflection might therefore convince them that 
 England would not permit the authorities of 
 Madagascar to sell into slavery her free-born 
 subjects ; and, more particularly, that she could 
 not hesitate to resent such an injury, inas- 
 much as Madagascar had bound herself by 
 the ties of honour as well as of friendship, that 
 the liberties, no less than the lives of Eng- 
 lishmen, should be protected. 
 
 Hereupon it was agreed by both parties, 
 that the matter should be referred to the 
 governor of Tamatave (Razakafidy) ; and 
 that that functionary should pronounce a final 
 decision the next day, at a meeting to be held 
 f2 
 
106 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 between himself and Captain Kelly. But that 
 conference led to no result; and it being 
 evident that nothing was to be gained by a 
 further delay at Tamatave, the Conway 
 weighed anchor and hastened to return to 
 Mauritius.* 
 
 Time rolled on, when a letter was received 
 by his excellency. Sir Wilham Gomm, in the 
 month (we believe) of December, from the 
 queen of Madagascar, which purported to be 
 an acknowledgement of that conveyed to her 
 by Captain Kelly on the occasion of his late 
 visit to Tamatave. 
 
 We have elsewhere remarked that it was 
 enacted in the hfetime of Radama, and in order 
 to carry out with the more certainty and effect 
 the entire principle of the treaty which he 
 
 * At the close of the first day's conference, Captain 
 Kelly was met, on his return to his boat, by a deputation 
 from the authorities, requesting his acceptance of a bullock, 
 &c. in token of the friendly relationship subsisting between 
 himself and the queen's representatives at Tamatave. 
 This, however, he declined to receive at the present stage 
 of the proceedings; which, as it indicated any thing but a 
 pacific feeling in their own eyes, was the cause of evident 
 concern to them. 
 
 Captain Kelly, however, consented to accept the pre- 
 sent at the final close of the deliberations. 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. JP7 
 
 had contracted with us for the suppression of 
 the slave-trade, that any individual hereafter 
 committing a breach of the new law, in con- 
 nexion with that treaty, should forfeit his life 
 for the same. 
 
 The queen, now driven, in some measure, 
 into a corner (as concerns her reputation for 
 consistency and integrity of character), makes 
 a demonstration of her attachment to justice 
 in the outset of her letter, which, although 
 based upon a direct falsehood, evinces never- 
 theless much cunning and ingenuity. After 
 prefacing her letter with the intimation that 
 *' we do not transport slaves across the sea," 
 she retaliates upon ourselves, and declares that 
 it is the English who seek to instruct her 
 people in the traffic of man-stealing ; for that 
 Messrs. Heppick and Croft had been guilty of 
 concealing her people on board their vessel, 
 with a view to transporting them across the 
 sea, and carrying them into slavery — which act 
 " did cause them to be lost," or reduced to 
 slavery I The felicity of this stratagem is not 
 the less complete, that it is true Radama did 
 decree a law to the effect that any foreigner 
 detected in exporting slaves (in the face of the 
 
108 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 treaty which he had contracted with England), 
 should himself be reduced to slavery in Mada- 
 gascar ! * So that her majesty turned the fact 
 to account by seeking to excuse herself upon 
 the broad principle of justice, and in virtue of 
 the respect with which she is imbued for the 
 literal observance of those laws enacted by 
 her predecessor for the discouragement of 
 slavery without. 
 
 At the close of her letter her majesty em- 
 phatically denies (what the wording of the 
 treaty expressly declares, viz.) that any agree- 
 ment was conceded by Radama, to the effect 
 that Englishmen should not be brought to 
 judgment by the laws of Madagascar; which 
 is only another of the innumerable falsehoods 
 which Ranavalona is in the habit of investing 
 with all the sanctity of the queenly dictum. 
 
 In connexion with that part of the epistle 
 which intimates her determination to follow 
 her own humour in her own country, however 
 little we may respect the policy which dictates 
 such a line of action in the present instance, 
 
 * In the Government Gazette of Mauritius for March 
 1821, a notice of this decree of Radaina's may still be 
 seen by those curious in the matter. 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 109 
 
 we must, at least, admire the independence 
 by which it is characterised ; although we are 
 not certain that it will be appreciated in 
 Downing Street in such a spirit as shall be 
 satisfactory to her majesty ! 
 
1 10 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Insult to European Traders in Madagascar — Their Ba- 
 nishment Decreed — Account of the Tangena Ordeal 
 — Arrival of the Conway and the Zelee in the Roads 
 of Tamatave — Conference with the Hovas — Unsuc- 
 cessful close of the Discussion — Hostile Conduct of 
 the Hova Officers — Their Insolence to the French — 
 Protest of the English and French Commanders — 
 Refusal of the Hovas to receive the Protest — Hostili- 
 ties commenced — Storming of the Fortress — Barbarity 
 of the Hovas — Tamatave reduced to Ashes — Good 
 Feeling between the English and French — Departure 
 of the European Residents. 
 
 About the month of May, 1845 (that is, 
 six months after the Conway's return from 
 Madagascar), an address was received by the 
 governor of Mauritius from the united Eng- 
 hsh traders resident at Tamatave, embody- 
 ing the details of a new grievance which had 
 just been put upon them, in common with the 
 rest of the Europeans inhabiting that locale. 
 The wrong which they complained of was 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. Ill 
 
 nothing less than that of a sudden order con- 
 veyed to them from the queen to quit Mada- 
 gascar, with their famihes and effects, within a 
 fortnight from that period ; and to dissolve 
 their connexion altogether with the island. 
 
 It is worthy of remark, in connexion with 
 the European traders of Tamatave, that those 
 amongst them not bond fide Englishmen, 
 appear to be much less the objects of our com- 
 passion, upon a review of the losses and 
 inconveniencies to which they have since been 
 subjected, than a priori might be supposed ; 
 and that Fortune had, in some measure reta- 
 hated upon them for the want of integrity 
 which they had manifested in the late trans- 
 action affecting Mr. Heppick. What we 
 allude to is this. Had the traders (and they 
 were principally Frenchmen, or men of French 
 extraction, who released him) refrained from 
 ransoming Mr. Heppick, the authorities would 
 have proceeded to extremities with that gen- 
 tleman, and have sold him, in reality, into 
 slavery ! Such an act, the traders were aware, 
 must have brought Great Britain down upon 
 them with all her might ; and the interests of 
 France, peradventure, would have permanently 
 
112 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 suffered in the crisis I With the design, there- 
 fore, of rescuing him from the prospect of 
 becoming the agent to put such an engine 
 into motion, and in the hope of seeing the 
 matter hushed up in the end, they stepped for- 
 ward in an interest, which had the additional 
 merit of being invested with an ostensible 
 aspect of benevolence! Hinc illce lacrymoe. 
 
 As this last act of Ranavalona's was one 
 which admitted of no delay on the part of 
 those to whom the traders appealed for pro- 
 tection, his excellency again despatched Cap- 
 tain Kelly with the Conway to their relief 
 And as a similar petition had been trans- 
 mitted to the governor of Bourbon by the 
 French settlers of Tamatave, it appeared pro- 
 bable that that ship might already have been 
 preceded by a squadron from the neighbouring 
 isle. 
 
 The services of Mr. Baker were again put 
 in requisition for the occasion, and he accom- 
 panied Captain Kelly as interpreter to the 
 expedition. 
 
 We should have explained above, that the 
 European traders were not unconditionally 
 reduced to the alternative of quitting Mada- 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 113 
 
 gascar ; for the benevolent government of that 
 country had proposed to them the desirable- 
 ness of their remaining in the island on a 
 footing with the native inhabitants, — sub- 
 mitting themselves, unreservedly, to the arbi- 
 trary laws and unconstitutional practices of 
 the Hovas ; as well as consenting to observe 
 the feudal institutions, and to have their pro- 
 perties and persons brought, as occasion might 
 suggest, within the jurisdiction of the idols; 
 and their innocence or guilt, on occasions of 
 their supposed infringement of the laws, de- 
 cided (at the risk of their lives) by the Tangena 
 ordeal.* 
 
 * We shall avail ourselves of the present mention of 
 this Malagasy form of trial by ordeal to offer a brief notice 
 of that most disgusting, filthy, and preposterous of all the 
 trials by ordeal ever devised by the misguided wit of man. 
 The unfortunate victim of a malicious and unproved accu- 
 sation is suddenly seized on by ruffians, employed for this 
 purpose by the government, and, after being invited to 
 gorge as much rice as may be expected to shield the coats 
 of the stomach from the poison to which it is about to be 
 subjected, he is compelled to swallow three pieces of the 
 skin of a chicken, rolled up in the form of pills, and imme- 
 diately thereupon a dose also of the poisonous kernel of 
 the tangena (palm-tree) fruit, mixed up with the juice of 
 the banana-tree. A curse is then invoked upon his head 
 by the " head-curser," or administrator, in the event of 
 
114 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 In a word, they were offered permission to 
 remain, on the strict understanding that they 
 were to consider themselves subjects of Rana- 
 valona, and as such, circumstanced precisely 
 with her native people, who did fealty, not as 
 a free nation, but as vassals of the soil, whom 
 she had conquered and reduced. 
 
 *' The inducements to the traders to sub- 
 
 his guilt, and a verdict of acquittal, should the ordeal 
 proclaim him innocent. He is next obliged to drink warm 
 water, sufficient to provoke vomiting ; and upon the ejec- 
 tion of the contents of the stomach a verdict of innocence 
 is announced, should the three pieces of skin previously 
 swallowed be found amongst them I But should they not 
 be discovered, the victim of this double death is strangled 
 upon the spot, unless, as often occurs, he falls a victim to 
 the virulence of the poison. 
 
 This very benevolent mode of inquiry for the discovery 
 of truth reminds us strongly of an ingenious institution, 
 which adorned the legal code of our own country in the 
 time of King James I. ; the Malagasy expedient, however, 
 possessing the superiority over the other, of allowing the 
 possibility of a loop-hole out of which the accused might, 
 in some instances, escape. La voild : — 
 
 " There is a famous way of trying witches, recom- 
 mended by King James I. The old Moman is tied hand 
 and foot, and thrown into the river ; and if she swims, she 
 19 guilty, and taken out and burnt ; but, if she is innocent, 
 she ginks, and is only drowned I" — Goldsmith's Miscel- 
 laneous Works, 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 115 
 
 mit were extremely urgent. They had, many 
 of them^ grown grey in Madagascar, some 
 having resided there about forty years ; and 
 some having properties enabling them to live 
 in ease and comfort. Others had foreign com- 
 missions to execute and affairs to close, the 
 non-completion of which would involve them 
 in bankruptcy and ruin. Many had families, 
 who were now seized by the Hovas and con- 
 veyed inland to await the decision of their 
 fathers and husbands. All were tied to Tama- 
 tave as the place of their livelihood and worldly 
 prospects, to conquer a footing in which they 
 had sacrificed every chance of advancement 
 elsewhere, and, in nine cases out of ten, bodily 
 health and vigour. Every method of terror 
 that could be devised by the Hovas was put 
 in practice to extort their submission. They 
 were assembled repeatedly at the Custom- 
 house shed, refused permission to go to their 
 dwellings until they promised to acquiesce, and 
 assured that the rent the queen would demand 
 in the event of their submission should only 
 be ten dollars for each of their houses per 
 annum ; and they were but imperfectly in— 
 
116 . MADAGASCAR, 
 
 formed of the degradations that would await 
 them as Hova subjects." 
 
 *' Two Creoles of Mauritius, two French- 
 men, and one Spaniard surrendered their 
 birthright to their fears, and gave in their 
 oath of fealty, which has probably now in- 
 volved four of them in the treasonable act of 
 carrying arms against their respective coun- 
 tries. The rest, amounting to thirty or forty, 
 appealed to the governments of Mauritius and 
 Bourbon to protect them against violence and 
 wrong." 
 
 The above extract is taken from an article 
 given to the Mauritius public (on the return of 
 the Conway from Madagascar), by the best 
 authority from which the intelligence con- 
 tained in it could have proceeded, namely, 
 from Mr. Baker, who accompanied the expe- 
 dition ; who was, of course, present at every 
 conference which ensued between the opposite 
 parties ; and who was the immediate channel 
 of communication, not only between the Eng- 
 lish and the Hovas, but between the latter 
 also and the French — for no interpreter ac- 
 companied the force from Bourbon : indeed. 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 117 
 
 we are not aware of any other individual, 
 either Creole or European, who possesses a 
 familiar intimacy with the language of Mada- 
 gascar in either of the sister colonies.* 
 
 On the Conway's arrival in the roads of 
 Tamatave, on the 12th of June, 1845, it was 
 discovered that a French man-of-war had pre- 
 ceded her. The Zelee, of 12 guns, had an- 
 chored there the day before. At nightfall, a 
 French commodore made his appearance in 
 the Berceau frigate, of 26 guns. The com- 
 mander of the Z^lee had waited upon Captain 
 Kelly, on the latter's arrival in the roadstead, 
 communicating to him the fact of his having 
 been engaged that day on shore in a confer- 
 ence with the authorities of the place, from 
 
 * We perceive by a Mauritius newspaper, that Mr. 
 Baker has just brought out a grammar of the Malagasy 
 language. This work appears to us to comprise a con- 
 densed view of the Hova language of Madagascar; ex- 
 ceedingly interesting to the philologist, and the possession 
 of which must form a necessary text-book to, and greatly 
 facilitate, the student's acquisition of the language. Should 
 England open a " fresh account " with Madagascar upon a 
 more solid and advantageous footing than heretofore, it 
 cannot but become the interest of many to acquaint them- 
 selves with, at least, the rudiments of this tongue. 
 
118 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 whom he was unable to obtain the smallest 
 concession in favour of the Europeans. They 
 resolutely adhered to their former determi- 
 nation to oblige them to quit within the period 
 assigned for their departure. 
 
 At two o'clock on the 13th of June, "Cap- 
 tain Kelly sent letters on shore, desiring an 
 interview with the commandant, chief judge, 
 and officers, as soon as convenient. Ten 
 o'clock the next morning having been ap- 
 pointed, he went on shore, accompanied by 
 three officers and Mr. Baker as interpreter. 
 It was a pitiable sight to see all the traders 
 huddled together at the Custom-house build- 
 ing, surrounded by merchandise and luggage, 
 packed apparently in extreme hurry and con- 
 fusion, and their looks and dress plainly ex- 
 pressing the equal agitation of their minds. 
 Nor was it much less discouraging to be met 
 at the landing-place by a body of Hova sol- 
 diers, armed with muskets and spears, to pre- 
 vent our landing, as if we had been a nation at 
 open war with them instead of the old and 
 tried friend of Madagascar. 
 
 " Captain Kelly, however, seemed deter- 
 mined to endure all without retaliation, and 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 119 
 
 spare no possible efforts to bring them to rea- 
 son and moderation. Seated at the house of 
 the grand judge, in the midst of a multitude 
 of Hovas of all ranks, he held with the go- 
 vernor, chief judge, and officers, an animated 
 discussion, lasting nearly three hours. 
 
 *' It would be tedious to give the details 
 and endless repetitions (on the part of the 
 Hovas) of this conference. They had no cri- 
 minal charges to bring against the British 
 traders, but were resolved to carry out the 
 recent law subjecting them to Malagasse vas- 
 salage, or to banishment. In vain it was 
 pleaded that time was not allowed to the mer- 
 chants to wind up their affairs ; that no ves- 
 sels had arrived to convey them and their 
 effects away; only the Manchester, from Mau- 
 ritius, and a small trading bark from Bourbon, 
 lying then at anchor in the roads of Tama- 
 tave. Where and how were they to go ? and 
 what to do if the vessels would not take them? 
 The Hova officers 'did not know;' but 'the 
 law of the land must be obeyed, and the time 
 allowed would expire the next day.' 
 
 " To every argument and petition for de- 
 lay they opposed an obstinate negative. 
 
120 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 '* Captain Kelly, therefore, now demanded 
 that before the traders were forcibly expelled, 
 a sealed letter from the governor of Mauritius 
 which he had delivered, and one from himself 
 to the queen, asking for one year to be granted 
 to the merchants holding property at Tama- 
 tave, might be forwarded to her majesty at 
 Tananarivo, and the question left entirely to 
 her decision. He pleaded the ancient friend- 
 ship of the British and Hova governments ; 
 offered to be responsible for the peaceable 
 conduct of the traders in the interim ; and 
 promised that they should be ordered to abide 
 by the queen's decision. The Hova officers 
 seemed divided in opinion, but finally rejected 
 the proposal. Thus, all reference to higher 
 authority was rendered impracticable by the 
 obstinacy of the Hova officers, and both parties 
 were left to act on their own responsibility. 
 
 " There appeared nothing remaining but 
 to ascertain whether British subjects who ab- 
 solutely could not leave within the prescribed 
 period would be protected in life and pro- 
 perty, in accordance with ancient treaties and 
 the customs of friendly nations. The Hova 
 officers distinctly and repeatedly declared they 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 121 
 
 would not promise any security to the pro- 
 perty of the white people leaving ; they would 
 not admit that they had any property in Ma- 
 dagascar; neither would they be responsible 
 for the hves of those who stayed contrary to 
 the law. In short, they would give no assur- 
 ance or promise whatever. They insisted upon 
 the traders leaving or submitting, but they 
 would not allow the sailors of the Conway 
 to assist in fetching away goods from the 
 traders' houses. Here, therefore, the discus- 
 sion closed ; Captain Kelly solemnly declaring, 
 that he could not but regard their conduct as 
 hostile to the British nation, which they re- 
 pHed to with marked insolence and defiance. 
 It appeared obvious that certain of the Hova 
 officers, thinking themselves unassailable in 
 their fortress, wished for an opportunity of 
 shewing their strength. 
 
 " Captain Kelly returned on board. The 
 Hova officers immediately withdrew into their 
 ' batterie,' or fort ; and when the French com- 
 modore sent two officers on shore to convey 
 letters and receive their answers, they abso- 
 lutely refused them an interview, or even per- 
 mission to land. 
 
122 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 *^ Saturday was occupied in assisting the 
 traders with boats to embark their goods ; 
 and two other trading vessels luckily came to 
 anchor. 
 
 ''On Sunday morning a joint protest of 
 the English and French commanders against 
 these outrageous proceedings having been 
 drawn up in Enghsh, French, and Malagasse, 
 was taken on shore by an English and a French 
 officer, accompanied as usual by the inter- 
 preter; but the Hovas refusing to send an 
 officer to receive it, the boat returned bearing 
 back the protest. Captain Kelly, still resolved 
 to afford them every chance of conciliation, 
 went himself on shore, accompanied by the 
 same French officer, when the Hovas yielded 
 so far as to send an officer of rank to receive 
 the protest, promising to reply to it, if at all, 
 by two o'clock. 
 
 *' Thus, all having been done that the 
 joint commanders could devise for bringing 
 the authorities to reason and justice, it ap- 
 peared unavoidably to follow, that if they still 
 persisted in refusing to allow the traders a 
 reasonable time to embark their merchandise 
 and luggage, (on which condition it was 
 
\ 
 
 PAST AND PRESENT. 123 
 
 understood the question would be referred to 
 the governments of Mauritius and Bourbon ;) 
 if they rejected this ultimatum, there appeared 
 but one course — to engage and disable the 
 Batterie. The important trade of Tamatave 
 was already suspended or destroyed by the 
 insane conduct of the Hovas. The affair had 
 gone too far for the representatives of two 
 great nations to recede with honour ; and all 
 depended upon the final reply of the Hovas. 
 
 " At the appointed hour of two o'clock 
 a boat was sent on shore, and a written reply 
 received, to the effect that the law could not 
 be changed; no concession would be made. 
 An unusual stillness prevailed on shore ; the 
 soldiers having apparently retired into the 
 fort, and the people fled. All had been open 
 and candid on our part ; but they evidently 
 understood that hostilities would commence. 
 
 " At half-past two the ships opened their 
 fire, which continued with unabated activity 
 for nearly two hours, directed, for the most 
 part, at the large fort, which it is now neces- 
 sarv to describe."* 
 
 * Mr. Baker's description of the expedition, attack, 
 &c. published at Mauritius, as alluded to in a preceding 
 
124 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 Here follows, in the original detail of 
 these proceedings, an able description of the 
 fort above alluded to, together with a cir- 
 cumstantial relation of the attack, which 
 
 page. The " batterie" in question may be briefly described 
 to the reader as follows: — A sand-bank of nearly 180 
 feet above the level of the sea, surrounding (on a circuit 
 of perhaps a mile, or a mile and a half,) a kind of case- 
 mented fortification. The latter, which is of a circular 
 form, and encloses an open area of very large capacity, 
 consists of three walls of solid masonry ; the first of which 
 is nine feet in thickness, within and around which are 
 stationed thirty-two eighteen pounders. The height of 
 this wall is estimated at thirty feet. The second, unlike 
 the last described, is built of coarse sand, is six feet in 
 diameter, twelve feet only in height, and fills up entirely 
 the space between the first or outermost and the third or 
 innermost wall. On the summit of this second wall a 
 platform is erected, which forms the floor of a gallery 
 running round the entire building. This gallery is about 
 ten feet high, where it is roofed, and the same wall (the 
 second) carried on from that point to nearly a level with 
 the first. It is within this gallery that the soldiers 
 destined to work the guns are located. The third and 
 innermost wall extends to about the same height with the 
 second ; and on the top of all men were stationed with 
 firelocks, protected by the somewhat greater height of the 
 first. Such is a rapid and imperfect sketch of the strong- 
 hold in question. It was built, but a very few years ago, 
 by two Arab engineers ; and, as the reader can under- 
 stand, is quite unassailable by musketry. 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 125 
 
 subsequently followed upon the same, by a 
 combined force of French and English seamen 
 and marines, which had been disembarked for 
 that purpose. 
 
 We hesitate not to recur to the same 
 source of information, in order to acquaint 
 the reader with the short but interesting 
 scene which took place upon the forming of 
 our force on the beach, preparatory to the 
 storming of the fort. And as the present is 
 the only public account which has been 
 afforded of it, at least the only one upon 
 which any credence can be placed, we do 
 not feel ourselves justified in abridging a 
 single line of the original.* 
 
 It has been observed, that the little sea 
 
 * Out of the three newspapers published at the Mau- 
 ritius, one alone ("The Watchman") is imbued with 
 thoroughly English feelings, and this journal was, there- 
 fore, selected as the organ of communicating to the public 
 the interesting materials from which we have drawn our 
 information. The two other papers are not only avowedly 
 anti-English in their spirit and constitution, but on 
 all occasions in which the interests or the honour of the 
 mother-country can be sacrificed to the advantage of 
 France, those conscientious vehicles of information hesi- 
 tate not to "make the worse appear the better reason," in 
 the prosecution of the above line of policy. The two 
 
126 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 jforce had kept up an uninterrupted cannonade 
 upon the land works for a space of nearly 
 two hours. We resume, therefore, at that 
 point of the article before us. 
 
 ** Gradually the batteries slackened their 
 fire. The storming parties from the ships 
 were then piped away, as had been previously 
 arranged, and about four o'clock shoved off 
 from the ships under their appointed leader. 
 The boats formed in line in a concerted order, 
 
 othei's, whose names, considering the nature of the occa- 
 sion, we will honour with a passing notice, and which are 
 as follows : the " Cerneen " and " Mauritien," the two 
 others studiously refrained from inserting the English, 
 and only authentic account of the proceedings ; but that 
 which they did dish up for their dainty readers, in con- 
 nexion with the matter before us, consisted of the most 
 false and dishonest statements, which had been offered for 
 publication to the Bourbon journals, but which had been 
 rejected by the Public Censor (to whose surveillance the 
 French press is subject) of that colony, in virtue of their 
 inaccuracy. We blame not the inherent French bias 
 which directs the tactics of these journals, for every man 
 has a right to the exercise of the natural feelings of his 
 heart ; and there is nothing very unnatural in the cir- 
 cumstance of a Frenchman, even though a British sub- 
 ject, preferring the honour and interests of France to that 
 of Great Britain. Only let them adhere to the simple 
 line of truth, when facts are the merchandise which they 
 may have to advertise. 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 127 
 
 and then pulled briskly for the beach towards 
 the left of the ships, which still kept up a 
 steady cannonade upon the enemy's position. 
 The men disembarked under repeated dis- 
 charges of round and grape shot from the 
 enemy, and formed immediately. They then 
 made a short detour to the left, to clear the 
 jungle and gain a more direct access to the 
 point of attack. A portion of our force filed 
 off to carry a breastwork mounting six guns, 
 which flanked the large fort, and commanded 
 the approaches to it : the main body formed 
 in line facing the fort itself, now distant about 
 200 yards. The word being given to advance, 
 the men, with a loud cheer, charged at full 
 speed across the interval in defiance of a 
 destructive fire from the enemy's works ; and 
 instantly we were masters of the external 
 defences. 
 
 " The subordinate attack succeeded. The 
 assailants, after a sharp conflict at the point 
 of the bayonet, in which the first lieutenant 
 of the Zel^e fell, slew or expelled the de- 
 fenders, spiked the guns, and hastened to 
 the main attack. Here the real character of 
 the works had first come into view; and 
 
128 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 one glance was enough to make it evident 
 that they were reducible by nothing short 
 of breaching artillery. Two French field- 
 pieces, which had been dragged to the summit 
 of the embankment, were utterly inadequate 
 to make impression upon the solid masonry 
 within. 
 
 " Our people kept up an unintermitting 
 fire of musketry upon the embrasures, within 
 which many were seen to fall, and upon such 
 of the enemy as attempted to reload their 
 cannon, and as issued in small parties from 
 time to time, from the bush, to inspirit their 
 companions, and disorder the attack. They 
 were destroyed almost to a man. The 
 enemy's fire, too, was waxing feebler, and 
 eventually ceased, with the exception of one 
 gun ; but the occupation of the fort was not 
 the less impracticable. Our men were, there- 
 fore, collected and withdrawn. They fell 
 back to their first position at landing, pro- 
 tected by a gun in the Conway's boat, in 
 charge of which was an officer ; and the ships 
 again opening a fire into the jungle. But 
 the Hovas made no decided effort to molest 
 the movement; and from this time, about 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 129 
 
 half-past five, their fire ceased altogether ; a 
 circumstance which speaks most significantly 
 their loss and consternation. 
 
 " Our wounded had previously been care- 
 fully handed into the boats and sent on 
 board ; and the surf, now running inconve- 
 niently high for embarkation, the men were 
 marched down to the usual landing-place, to 
 the left of the Custom-house, firing that build- 
 ing as well as others in the way. By half- 
 past six all had returned on board. 
 
 " The storming party amounted in all to 
 350, of whom 85 were English seamen and 
 marines, and 100 were French infantry. The 
 loss sustained was nearly in proportion to 
 their respective numbers. French, 17 killed, 
 and 43 wounded ; English, 4 killed and 13 
 wounded ; including 1 Enghsh officer amongst 
 the wounded, and 3 French officers among 
 the slain. 
 
 " The loss of the Hovas must have been 
 very great. A run-away native, who came off 
 in a canoe on Monday morning, declared the 
 report of a wounded soldier, whom he had 
 just seen on shore, to be that 4 generals had 
 
 G 2 
 
130 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 fallen, including one named Rainingiory, who 
 had been present at all the conferences ; 20 
 captains, a number of intermediate officers, 
 and about half the garrison of 400." 
 
 Such was the result of the Conway's visit 
 to Tamatave ; a result, we believe, wholly 
 unanticipated in Mauritius at the moment of 
 that ship's departure for Madagascar. 
 
 The timely coincidence of both French 
 and English forces arriving on the spot si- 
 multaneously, was of essential service to the 
 vigour of the operations ; whilst it cannot fail, 
 we should suppose, to ensure our combined 
 co-operation, in the event of a future castiga- 
 tion being in store for the Hovas. 
 
 On the morning after the attack, the 
 officers and men of the ships of war were 
 regaled, at day-break, with a spectacle suffi- 
 ciently revolting. This was nothing less than 
 that of a row of poles, whereon the heads 
 of our deceased countrymen were suspended, 
 which had been arrayed on the beach imme- 
 diately abreast of the vessels ! 
 
 No opposition was offered now to the 
 landing of a party from the Conway, which 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 131 
 
 was effected for the purpose of bringing off 
 supplies of beef that had been deposited the 
 day before in the situation of the Custom- 
 house. At this period Tamatave appeared 
 utterly deserted. Not a human being was 
 to be discovered, whilst the village itself was 
 a heap of ashes.* 
 
 On Tuesday morning the men-of-war 
 weighed anchor, and taking leave of one 
 another with a peal of cannon, proceeded to 
 their individual destinations, for which the 
 merchant-vessels had already departed, with 
 
 * In the course of Mr. Baker's account of the trans- 
 actions at Tamatave, it has been remarked that the storm- 
 ing party, at the close of the attack upon the fort, pro- 
 ceeded to fire the town of Tamatave. This was com- 
 pletely reduced to cinders. The spectacle, as viewed from 
 the ships after dark, is stated to have been truly grand. 
 We have been assured by eye-witnesses of the scene, 
 that the smallest print was capable of being read from 
 the deck of the Conway, at the distance of two or three 
 thousand yards! Immediately behind and beyond the 
 " batterie," there existed, at the time of the attack, a small 
 village occupied by the Hovas. This was quite distinct 
 from the town of Tamatave, and was entitled by a name 
 symbolical of its being the Hova cantonment. This 
 likewise was partly destroyed by fire, but in a different 
 manner from Tamatave itself — it fell under the operation 
 of those shells which extended beyond the fort. 
 
132 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 the persons and families of the European 
 residents of Tamatave.* 
 
 * It cannot but be gratifying, alike to French and 
 English, at a distance from the scene of these operations, 
 to be assured of the perfect unanimity and kindly feeling 
 which were manifested by the soldiers and sailors of 
 the three ships towards one another. All national heart- 
 burnings and petty jealousies were forgotten or laid 
 aside, and the people of both great countries co-operated 
 hand-in-hand together. . Upon the occasion of the flag- 
 staff having been shot away from the fort, a trial of 
 strength took place between a French and an English 
 sailor for possession of the flag ; upon which Lieutenant 
 Kennedy, of the Conway, stepped forward and put an 
 end to the dispute, by dividing the flag into two equal 
 portions, and allotting one to either of the martial can- 
 didates. 
 
 On the day succeeding the attack, the commodore 
 and officers of the French men-of-war went on board the 
 Conway, prior to their separation with the English, upon 
 which occasion they expressed their great surprise to 
 Captain Kelly at finding the guns clean and in their 
 place ; the decks in as perfect order as before the can- 
 nonading commenced ; and, in a word, an entire ab- 
 sence of any thing that could denote the manner of the 
 Conway's employment but a few hours before. The 
 commodore frankly remarked that his own ships were in 
 a condition, at that moment, precisely the opposite to 
 this. 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 133 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Excitement at Port Louis — Consequences of Passive 
 Conduct of the Home Governments of England and 
 France — Victory claimed by the Hovas — Indignities 
 offered to the native Wives and Children of the ba- 
 nished Traders — Hostile Demonstrations of the 
 Hovas. 
 
 Great was the excitement in the little 
 town of Port Louis, in Mauritius, upon the 
 receipt of these war-like tidings from Mada- 
 gascar. Every one, as usual under such 
 circumstances, constituted himself a judge of 
 the merits and demerits of the step which 
 the men-of-war had taken on the occasion, 
 as well as of the ultimate line of conduct 
 into which France and England would be 
 forced, in order both to resent the usage 
 our countrymen had experienced from Rana- 
 valona, as well as to make good the attempt 
 we had begun upon the works at Tamatave. 
 
134 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 There were not wanting, indeed, those who 
 loudly declaimed against the open hostilities 
 which we had commenced at that place; 
 and who took up the ground, that we had 
 no right whatever to dispute the queen's title 
 to extend the operation of her laws to all 
 persons who might find it convenient to settle 
 in her dominions, and, in default of their sub- 
 mitting to such terms, to order them out of 
 her country. But this position is untenable 
 in toto, both because we have the security 
 of a treaty entered into between Madagascar 
 and England, to the effect that British sub- 
 jects shall be protected in their lives and 
 property, and adjudged by the laws of their 
 own country ; and because, moreover, we do 
 not recognise the lawful right of Ranavalona 
 to interfere with them at all ; inasmuch as 
 she has no legal authority as sovereign of 
 the country, her present power having been 
 usurped and acquired by robbery and blood- 
 shed. 
 
 It cannot but be admitted that the de- 
 sign which Captain Kelly and his coadjutors 
 had in view, in their hostile operations, was 
 a failure in as far as their destruction of the 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 135 
 
 fort, and their defeat of the Hovas within it, 
 were concerned. And it is equally certain, 
 our very partial success will tend rather to 
 confirm their assumed contempt of us than 
 to invest them with a real dread of our su- 
 periority. That this opinion is not ill-founded 
 will presently appear to the reader. Those 
 to whom the Hova character is familiar are 
 confident, that should the home governments 
 of England and France decide upon leaving 
 them in the enjoyment of their own institu- 
 tions, as well as of the " victory " which they 
 are now, doubtlessly, boasting of having ac- 
 quired over us, the passive conduct thereby 
 developed towards them will corroborate, 
 most strongly, a deeply rooted feeling which 
 possesses them, to the effect that we are 
 afraid to proceed to extremities with them, 
 and will give an additional stimulus to their 
 already sufflated opinion of themselves. 
 
 The destruction of their great national 
 stronghold, viz. the fort at Tamatave, would 
 have produced, as has been suggested else- 
 where, the happy moral result, that her in- 
 fatuated Hovas would no longer have looked 
 upon their sovereign as bearing a charmed 
 
136 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 sceptre. They would have felt, on the con- 
 trary, that they had much more to fear than 
 to lose by adhering to her cause. " The pres- 
 tige of the Hova queen's power destroyed, 
 her provinces thrown into anarchy, and her 
 subjects fleeing to the woods or taking up 
 arms, would have furnished incessant occu- 
 pation to the greater part of the Hova forces, 
 till the time we shall hear from England." 
 
 *' The sympathies and emotions of our 
 governments in Europe towards us are di- 
 minished in the geometrical ratio of distance, 
 like those who stand distant from the fire ; 
 and should they resolve not to interfere, our 
 dishonour would be complete, permanent, and 
 irremediable. What ship of war can ever 
 again be sent to Madagascar ? What En- 
 glishman or Frenchman, having the least 
 feeling of manliness and honour, will ever 
 endure the indignities to which every one 
 will be subject at Tamatave ? " 
 
 *'We cannot entertain such an idea. Let 
 us therefore suppose, that, after all, a suffi- 
 cient force is sent out with authority to 
 humble the Hovas : what a vast advantage 
 will they have gained by our having missed 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 137 
 
 the opportunity to destroy the moral prestige 
 of the Hova supremacy by a single victory ! 
 So deeply do they feel the necessity of main- 
 taining this supremacy, that every man of 
 them who turns his back in fight is burnt 
 alive ! They know that the news of one de- 
 feat would destroy their power." 
 
 Two ships, which had quitted Mauritius 
 for Madagascar prior to the arrival at the 
 former of the news of the attack, sailed into 
 the roads of Tamatave, where they anchored 
 and opened a communication with the shore. 
 Not prepared for a display of treachery, the 
 crew^s of these vessels were only saved from 
 being butchered by a secret intimation from 
 some friendly source on shore, that it was 
 in contemplation to board them and massacre 
 all who should offer resistance. In conse- 
 quence of these tidings they weighed an- 
 chor forthwith, and put to sea again. 
 
 The same vessels put into Foule-Pointe, 
 where they were cordially received by the 
 native authorities. And here it was ascer- 
 tained, from a good source of information, that 
 the native wives and children of the banished 
 traders were compelled to dance and sing 
 
138 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 before the Hovas ; and in addition thereto, 
 were carried about the country as a species 
 of natural curiosity, whereon the minions and 
 supporters of Ranavalona were accustomed to 
 glut their curiosity and indignation. 
 
 A short period only elapsed when (some 
 time in July) the Conway frigate again weighed 
 anchor, and rather unexpectedly sailed for 
 Madagascar. A somewhat general opinion 
 prevailed at Mauritius that her destination 
 was to watch the movements of the French 
 men-of-war attached to the Bourbon station, 
 and to ascertain to what extent Governor Ba- 
 zoche was sincere in his avowal to observe a 
 perfectly inactive hue of policy, until the re- 
 ceipt of instructions from his government at 
 home for his future conduct. How far this 
 may have been the actual object of her cruise, 
 the ostensible one was that of affording as- 
 sistance to the vessel so frequently alluded to 
 already in this article, under the name of the 
 Marie Laure. It appears that after quitting 
 Tamatave, the Marie Laure, commanded now 
 by Captain Laconforque, sailed for Foule- 
 Pointe, and embarked a cargo of 120 bullocks, 
 but immediately afterwards struck on a coral 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 139 
 
 reef, which obliged her to reland her cattle 
 and repair to St. Mary's Island to refit, and 
 the Conway now proceeded to join her, and 
 to afford her the aid of an able ship's com- 
 pany, for those repairs of which she stood in 
 need, before she could again be made sea- 
 worthy. But before reaching her destination, 
 we may state that the frigate touched, en pas- 
 sant, at Foule-Pointe, where she was boarded 
 by three Hova officers of importance belonging 
 to that post, by which functionaries the utmost 
 courtesy and good feeling were evinced. They 
 protested very strongly as to the imbecile 
 pohcy of Ranavalona, at which they expressed 
 their deepest concern, but lamented that the 
 stringency of the queen's instructions obliged 
 them to adopt a show of unfriendliness and 
 distrust towards the Enghsh ; which, at the 
 same time, precluded them from exercising 
 the insignificant power even of granting a few 
 supplies to the Conway.* 
 
 * Mr. Baker was here apprised by one of the Hova 
 authorities (himself a converted Christian), that the small 
 band of Christians in the country were continuing stead- 
 fast in the faith ; and that their numbers were almost im- 
 perceptibly increasing, notwithstanding the urgent want of 
 
140 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 Having completed the object of his third 
 visit to Madagascar, Captain Kelly took his 
 leave of St. Mary's Island, and proceeded on 
 his return to Mauritius. Prior, however, to 
 quitting Madagascar altogether, he sailed into 
 the roadstead of Tamatave, with a view, we 
 believe, to reconnoitring the state of things 
 which then obtained at the seat of the late 
 hostile operations. 
 
 And here a very different scene presented 
 itself from that which they had so lately be- 
 held in the same situation. Every thing 
 now bespoke the hostile grounds which the 
 Hovas were preparing themselves to assume, 
 in the event of a similar visit from their 
 neighbours of the adjacent islands. All was 
 ostentation and menace. A number of sol- 
 diers, averaging in number from three to five 
 thousand, were busily occupied about the 
 place, together with other workmen, in re- 
 pairing the damage sustained by the military 
 works. The place of landing was occupied 
 
 Bibles and other books of instruction amongst them. The 
 same party informed him that there had appeared of late a 
 sort of lull from persecution and ferocity on the part of 
 Ranavalona towards them. 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 141 
 
 by armed men, who wore the aspect of deter- 
 mined defiance. 
 
 Captain Kelly, considering that as not only 
 no declaration of war had been declared by 
 us against Ranavalona, but that he had done 
 all in his power to invite a pacific intercourse 
 at Foule-Pointe with her majesty's authorities, 
 determined, after so unfriendly a display on 
 shore, not to permit the authorities (who came 
 off to the ship) to go on board until they 
 should satisfy him of their amicable inten- 
 tions, by explaining themselves upon the two 
 following points, which had formed the sub- 
 stance of a letter he had addressed to the 
 responsible officers of the place. 
 
 Firstly, Why had they not taken down 
 what appeared to him to be the heads of his 
 deceased countrymen, and which (according 
 to his impression) were still suspended upon 
 the poles on the beach, as at the period of the 
 late departure of the men-of-war ?* Secondly, 
 
 * It was subsequently ascertained, that what appeared 
 to Captain Kelly on this occasion to be the decapitated 
 heads of the English who had fallen in the late attack at 
 Tamatave, were nothing more than rolls of straw suspended 
 upon poles. This custom, denominated kiady, is put in 
 
142 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 Was it true that an English sailor (as had 
 been reported to him after the late affair at 
 Tamatave), who had been discovered alive 
 amongst the slain, had been subjected by the 
 authorities of that port to the horrors of bodily 
 torture ? Receiving, after two day's delay in 
 the roadstead, no reply to these queries. Cap- 
 tain Kelly once more weighed anchor, and 
 prosecuted his homeward-bound voyage to 
 Mauritius.* 
 
 practice upon occasions where it is sought to interdict 
 strangers from approaching a particular locality. But be 
 it clearly understood that this misconception refers exclu- 
 sively to the occasion of the last and accidental appear- 
 ance of the Conway at Tamatave. For on the day subse- 
 quent to the attack upon the fort, the face of the first 
 lieutenant of one of the French men-of-war (who had been 
 killed in the onset) was distinctly recognised by his coun- 
 trymen on board as that characterising a head which had 
 been placed in a prominent part of the line on the beach. 
 
 * We cannot in this place resist the gratification of 
 recording an incident which took place about this time at 
 Bourbon, and for the authenticity of which we can vouch, 
 as we had it from the lips of the party himself to whom it 
 immediately relates. 
 
 A day or two after the Conway's last return from 
 Madagascar, Captain Kelly was ordered to take his ship 
 with despatches to the governor of Bourbon. Upon his 
 arrival there, his excellency, Admiral Bazoche, expressed 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 143 
 
 his great desire to fete the officers with a ball, and to offer 
 some sort of entertainment to the men of the frigate ; but 
 as Captain Kelly's orders to return admitted of no delay, 
 he was under the necessity of departing before the neces- 
 sary arrangements for such an end could be accomplished. 
 Under these circumstances the gallant captain (together, 
 we believe, with his officers) was invited to dine with the 
 governor. An elegant banquet was provided for them, at 
 which one lady alone, Madame Bazoche, was present. 
 No sooner were the guests assembled in their several 
 places at the table, than his excellency arose, and request- 
 ing all the French present to do the same, he filled his 
 wine-glass with Madeira, and proposed, as a toast, the 
 health of the Queen of England, which was cheered with 
 the greatest enthusiasm by all his countrymen at the table. 
 The party then sat down, and the entertainment com- 
 menced. 
 
14'1 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 Dependence of Mauritius upon Trade with Madagascar 
 — Rise in the Price of Provisions in Mauritius — 
 Suflferings of the Malagasse Nation — Claims on the 
 Attention of the British Legislature — Queen Ranava- 
 lona's sanguinary Persecutions — Decrease of Popula- 
 tion at Tamatave and Foule-Pointe — Examination of 
 the French Claim to Madagascar — Retrospective 
 History of the Conquest of the Island — Hatred of 
 the Natives towards the French — Abandonment of the 
 French Settlement of Benyowsky. 
 
 Scarcely had this termination to our 
 friendly relations with Madagascar been for- 
 mally announced in Mauritius, when the vast 
 importance of the former island to the neces- 
 sities of the latter began almost immediately 
 to be sensibly felt. We have already in- 
 formed our readers that the colony in ques- 
 tion is (we might say with truth) entirely 
 suppUed with horned cattle from Madagascar, 
 whilst large supplies of rice, together with 
 poultry, are annually drawn from the same 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 145 
 
 quarter to meet the consumption in demand 
 at Mauritius. No sooner^ therefore, had that 
 country become closed against us, than those 
 engaged in the importation of bullocks in 
 Mauritius, perceiving how great a run would 
 necessarily be made upon the small stock of 
 beef existing in the colony, proceeded to avail 
 themselves of the advantage which accident 
 had placed in their hands, and to raise the 
 price of that article of consumption from nine- 
 pence per pound (which may be taken, per- 
 haps, as the average price of prime beef), to 
 eighteen, twenty pence, and upwards. As 
 this particular kind of meat in the markets 
 of Mauritius is that at all times the most 
 economical, and to a very large majority of 
 the people the only one really attainable, the 
 pressure which so great a rise in its price has 
 lain the bulk of society under may easily be 
 conceived. We are now speaking of the in- 
 convenience as it exists in its infancy merely, 
 and as it was felt in our colony of Mauritius, 
 almost synchronously with the first interrup 
 tion to our intercourse with Madagascar. From 
 this it is not difficult to foresee how greatly 
 the evil must increase in its ruinous conse- 
 
 H 
 
146 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 quences upon the many, unless some expe- 
 dient should be speedily devised for opening a 
 fresh mart of supply. In the article of price, 
 too, the total withdrawal of those supphes 
 hitherto derived from Madagascar was speedily 
 followed by a considerable rise in the price of 
 the Indian grain, whilst every article of con- 
 sumption has felt the impulse thus given to 
 the two or three under our notice, and the 
 necessaries of life have become, as a direct 
 consequence, proportionately raised in their 
 value. 
 
 The details with which we have presented 
 the reader, in connexion with the past and 
 present sufferings of that large portion of the 
 Malagasse nation over which Ranavalona has 
 thrown the mantle of her protection, invite 
 his attention earnestly to the fact, that ever 
 since that female Nero ascended the throne, 
 the existence of this unhappy people has lite- 
 rally been nothing less than one long and 
 uninterrupted groan ! Were it possible that 
 the stage of these operations could be trans- 
 planted to our own hemisphere, and that its 
 consequent propinquity to our own hearths 
 enabled our newspapers to furnish a constant 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 147 
 
 and regular detail of them to the English 
 public, we have too good an opinion of the 
 natural goodness of amiable John Bull's affec- 
 tions to feel a doubt but that petitions would 
 be poured in by him upon the House of Com- 
 mons, until the very table groaned under their 
 number! Nor do we believe that her ma- 
 jesty's advisers would, in such case, be back- 
 ward to enlist themselves in the interests of 
 a people subject to the worst forms of cruelty 
 at the whim of a tyrannical despot ! The 
 country would look for such a display of 
 humanity at their hands, if it did not even 
 claim a natural right to exact it from them. 
 Is the quality, then, of the Malagasses' suffer- 
 ings of a more endurable description? and is 
 Ranavalona's ferocity less detestable, because 
 the Equator lies between the territory upon 
 which they are displayed and our own shores ? 
 By what subtlety of argument, by what refine- 
 ment of state policy, can we pretend to tax 
 this country for the support of an expensive 
 establishment to check a lawless system of 
 cruelty, carried on in the shape of slave- 
 dealing, and yet look coolly on at the perpe- 
 tration of enormities, in no whit less revolting, 
 
148 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 and scarcely conducted on a scale less exten- 
 sive ? Perhaps it will be contended, that in 
 the one instance the injustice is perpetrated 
 by strangers to the soil of the oppressed, 
 whilst in the other we recognise nothing 
 more than the exercise of a sovereign's own 
 jurisdiction upon its people ! We admit the 
 validity of such a distinction in a political 
 sense ; — but, regarding the question in the 
 wider one of humanity, we must declare it to 
 be, in good truth, a distinction without a dif- 
 ference, and one which ought not, in our 
 opinion, to be recognised where the opposing 
 interests are such as reflect, by their very ex- 
 istence, a scandal upon human nature. It 
 will not be assumed, we trust, from the fore- 
 going remark, that we are raising our voice 
 against the gigantic efforts which our country 
 is making for the suppression of man-stealing ; 
 and in the steady continuance of which she is 
 laying the foundation of a species of glory, 
 which will long outlast, we believe, the dura- 
 tion of that more tinsel reputation derivable 
 from less disinterested successes.* But that 
 
 * It is not a little remarkable, that the early Mosaic 
 interdiGt against mali-stealing (which, be it remembered. 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 149 
 
 which we do mean to be understood as ad- 
 vancing, is, that it is unworthy of a nation 
 like England to apply such a balm to her 
 conscience as that of exerting herself, even to 
 this extent, for the overthrow of cruelty in 
 one shape, and yet of betaking herself to the 
 opiate of poHtical casuistry, as a means of 
 deadening her senses to its continuance in 
 another ! 
 
 And here, we think, it will not be out of 
 place with such a view of the subject, if we 
 put the reader in possession of one of the 
 most recent instances of the Queen of Mada- 
 gascar's sanguinary exploits, — that is to say, 
 recent in comparison of any others which 
 have made their way to our knowledge ; 
 although it is not to be supposed that the 
 cravings of such an appetite for blood could be 
 long sated by the extent even of the present 
 
 was never subsequently repealed with other portions of the 
 old law) has been so entirely disregarded by the most 
 practically religious and virtuous country in Christendom, 
 until within the present century. Can aught be more 
 positive than the words of God himself in condemnation 
 of the traffic? — *' He that stealeth a man, and selleth him, 
 or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to 
 death." — Exodus, xxi. 16. 
 
150 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 sacrifice. Occupying the entire western side 
 of Madagascar, we meet with a race quite 
 distinct in themselves, and between whom and 
 the Hovas there has ever existed a reciprocal 
 hatred. This people are well known to those 
 acquainted with the modern history of Mada- 
 gascar, under the name of the Sakalava or Sa- 
 kalave tribe; or as some early writers (Copland, 
 for instance) denominate them, the Seclave 
 tribe. "They are pastoral tribes" (to take 
 our account from the source alluded to), 
 "living on the milk and flesh of their domestic 
 herds, and on the chase of the blue or wild 
 cattle, and wild hogs ; on arrow-root, arum, 
 and many other roots and esculents of spon- 
 taneous growth. They are an athletic, bold, 
 and hardy race, and numerous compared with 
 any other tribe of common origin in Mada- 
 gascar ; although few, compared with the vast 
 territory they occupy, extending full 900 miles 
 in length, and, on an average, 100 in breadth. 
 In the opinion of the best-informed French 
 authorities they are destined to become, 
 sooner or later, the dominant power in the 
 island. 
 
 " The eastern coast, in about three-fourths 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 151 
 
 of its length, from the north point where the 
 widely spread Sakalaves are found lying west- 
 ward, to within a few hundred miles of the 
 southern extremity, is occupied by the Betsi- 
 misaraka (the inseparable multitude, or united 
 people), the only tribe with which we are 
 acquainted at Mauritius. 
 
 " They are an agricultural people, culti- 
 vating rice extensively for exportation as well 
 as consumption ; notwithstanding "which they 
 also, during a part of the year, subsist on 
 bananas, yams, and such spontaneous roots 
 and fruits as the herds of wild hogs, monkeys, 
 squirrels, and lemurs, think proper to leave 
 for the human aborigines. They are an in- 
 offensive and unwarhke people, great part of 
 them having submitted to the Hova govern- 
 ment without a blow, about twenty-five years 
 ago ; and to this they have proved useful and, 
 indeed, indispensable auxiharies. 
 
 "A large tribe which formerly occupied 
 the north-east shores of Antongil Bay refused 
 to submit, and have been exterminated by 
 devastating wars, selling about 300,000 of 
 them into slavery, and destroying an equal 
 number by outlawry, rewards offered for their 
 
152 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 heads, and such other diabolical means as the 
 Hovas could devise. 
 
 " At length the Hova government, wasted 
 in its limited resources by the death of its 
 soldiers, is unable to defend the eastern pro- 
 vinces against the more vigorous Sakalavas, 
 who, nevertheless, prior to the Hova dominion, 
 were always kept off by the Betsimisaraka 
 themselves. For about five years past, annual 
 invasions have been carried on by the north- 
 west Sakalavas against the north-east districts 
 of the Betsimisaraka, destroying the Hova 
 fortresses, and carrying off, as booty, the cattle 
 of the Betsimisaraka for food, and their 
 mothers, wives, and children, into slavery. 
 Before last year they had destroyed every 
 fortress of the Hovas, and devastated the 
 whole country from Diego Saurez to Angontsy, 
 excepting the impregnable peninsula of Diego. 
 They have repeatedly declared their intention 
 of not ceasing these invasions till Tamatave, 
 the last port of the Hova queen, is destroyed. 
 
 " Last year they invested Angontsy with 
 a large army, when the Hova troops, throwing 
 up the best defence they could, and pointing 
 several cannons at the enemy, shut themselves 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 153 
 
 up in the village and fortress with their cattle 
 and property. The Sakalavas beat the queen's 
 troops, boldly approached the fortifications, 
 and seized and spiked the cannon. Affairs 
 now went very hard against the Hovas, and 
 they expected to be all cut off. But when 
 they drove out the rich booty of cattle to the 
 assailants, the Sakalava were content with 
 such an acquisition, and took their leave, 
 promising to repeat their visit the following 
 season. 
 
 ** During this period, the native Betsimisa- 
 raka not being allowed to keep fire-arms, with 
 which the Sakalavas were well provided, had 
 fled with their wives and children into the 
 woods, to seek a refuge amongst the serpents 
 and other denizens of the forest. The way 
 being again clear, they now began to creep 
 back into their villages. 
 
 " The Hova officers, mortified at their 
 disgraceful defeat and dishonourable capitula- 
 tion, and fearing the consequences of their 
 . queen's anger, determined to cloak their dis- 
 grace by wreaking their cowardly fury upon 
 the defenceless Betsimisaraka, the tclat of 
 which should serve to eclipse the infamy of 
 H 2 
 
154 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 their defeat They therefore collected as 
 many of the returning villagers as they could 
 at Angontsy, and formally accused them of 
 cowardice and treason for not coming to the 
 help of the queen's troops. Accusations of 
 this nature are soon ended in Madagascar. 
 The wretched people were all seized and hand- 
 cuffed, including the women and the circum- 
 cised boys, comprehending generally all above 
 seven years of age." 
 
 The preceding explanatory detail we have 
 deemed necessary, in order both to make the 
 particular circumstances (giving rise to this 
 transaction) intelligible to the reader, as 
 well as that he may be able to form an idea of 
 the sort of motives which are sufficient at the 
 present day in Madagascar to instigate those 
 in authority to the wholesale destruction of 
 life. We now come to the very gist of the 
 matter, which the writer of the preceding 
 narrative informs us he has published in the 
 unadulterated language of the native, who 
 (through an almost miraculous incident) has 
 been preserved to put on record what we are 
 about to transcribe ; and who cannot but be 
 looked lipon with a degree of additional in- 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 155 
 
 terest from the " quorum pars magna fui " 
 associations which attend him. 
 
 " I was amongst the number," says the in- 
 dividual in question, " who were seized and 
 handcuffed. We were all ordered to be 
 slaughtered in a general massacre, beginning 
 with the women and children. I was sitting 
 on the ground by the side of my brother. 
 The soldiers came and cut down and pierced 
 the victims with swords and spears. I saw 
 eighty-nine women slaughtered, and a great 
 number of men ; I cannot tell how many. 
 At length it came to our turn. I and my 
 brother stood up, when he being killed with 
 a sword fell dead on the ground, knocking 
 me down in his fall. I lay a few seconds, 
 when a Hova officer pulled me up by the arm 
 to be killed ; but, looking at me, said * This 
 is a good-looking youngster, I will take him 
 for my slave and pay his redemption-money.' 
 Thus I alone was saved from death, and went 
 home to the officer's premises." (The poor 
 fellow's lament reminds one of the language 
 of Job's messengers, on recounting the succes- 
 sive calamities of the patriarch, — " And I only 
 am escaped alone to tell thee.") 
 
156 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 " I took an early opportunity of running 
 away, having the fear of death continually 
 before me ; and, reaching a near port, I con- 
 trived to get on board a ship and escape. 
 After the horrible massacre was completed, 
 the heads of the victims were all cut off and 
 put into canoes, the men's heads being below 
 and the women's and children's above. They 
 completely filled seven large canoes ! They 
 were sent coastwise, north and south, to be 
 stuck on poles along the shore. The line of 
 human heads extends as far as from Port Louis 
 to Pamplemousses,* about seven miles. They 
 are now bleached by the sun and rain, and 
 present to the ships which approach the coast 
 of Angontsy the appearance of lumps of chalk 
 or lime, glistening in the rays of the sun as 
 far as the eye can reach!" 
 
 The narration of the above tragedy closes 
 at this point of our extract, when the writer 
 
 * " Pampleniousses " is the name of a village about 
 seven miles from the town of Port Louis in Mauritius : — 
 the same which receives an interest from its frequent 
 mention in the story of " Paul and Virginia." It was 
 to this spot that their parents resorted for the purposes 
 of religion. 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 157 
 
 from whom we are now taking our sketch 
 thus concludes his remarks in connexion with 
 it:— 
 
 " Such is the unvarnished tale by which 
 the poor fellow lays claim to British protec- 
 tion. It needs no comment, no advocacy ; 
 but it seems to call for one remark : that, 
 as the man is here, it would not be difficult 
 for his excellency the governor to institute an 
 inquiry into the exact facts, in order to lay 
 them before the Secretary of State. 
 
 **An inquiry of this kind might probably 
 lead to others, and ultimately perhaps to a 
 general investigation into the present state of 
 the eastern provinces of Madagascar (with 
 which we have commercial intercourse), as 
 compared with her former state. Tamatave 
 and Foule-Point have notoriously declined in 
 population from thousands to hundreds. Other 
 places to which vessels used to resort are be- 
 come absolute deserts. North of Angontsy, 
 comprehending the healthy province of Vohi- 
 marina, is said to be so ; and Angontsy itself, 
 after the horrible events that have occurred 
 there, may be expected to follow the same 
 fatal course. 
 
158 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 '' The Betsimisaraka say, ' Unless the Eng- 
 lish save us we are lost.' But, the British 
 government looks coolly and unconcernedly 
 on : the commerce of one port after another 
 being destroyed, and whole tribes becoming 
 extinct, and not so much as an inquiry insti- 
 tuted, or an official report made to the supreme 
 government, until the whole may be irrevo- 
 cably lost. Her majesty's frigates come and 
 go, and lie idle, dismasted, their men falling 
 sick in the confined Trou-Fanfaron,* for six 
 months together, whilst laissez faire is the 
 permanent order of the day. 
 
 " These eighty-nine women thus ruthlessly 
 butchered in cold blood, would have been very 
 useful at Mauritius for making vacoa-bags, 
 mats, hats, and roafia-cloth, which we pur- 
 chase from Madagascar : the work of their 
 hands whilst they are suffered to live. The 
 presence of a British man-of-war would have 
 
 * The " Trou-Fanfaron" is a basin in the harbour of 
 Port Louis, so situated as to offer the best security to 
 vessels during those months significantly denominated at 
 Mauritius the " hurricane months." Our men-of-war 
 are accordingly laid up in that spot during the season 
 in question. 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 159 
 
 saved their lives, and those of thousands of 
 other equally innocent and useful beings, who 
 have fallen victims to the bloody tyranny of 
 the Hova dynasty." 
 
 Such is a picture of one of the most 
 recent rehearsals of Malagasse atrocity, of 
 which distinct information has reached us ; 
 but which still, in comparison of many others 
 to which the reader's attention has been called 
 in this essay, may be said to be none of the 
 gravest ! and from the frequency with which 
 they were accustomed to be enacted, even at a 
 time when our missionaries might be supposed 
 to have interposed a moral check upon Rana- 
 valona, it is much to be feared that the spear 
 is seldom borne inactive at tlie present day, 
 when she has manoeuvred so successfully as to 
 berid herself of all foreign surveillance. De- 
 clamations are often heard against the passive 
 policy of ministers, in hesitating to interpose 
 their authority to put a stop to the scenes 
 of anarchy and bloodshed which are of almost 
 uninterrupted perpetration in the Punjaub, 
 even to the extent of annexing that district to 
 our Anglo-Indian possessions — an alternative 
 
160 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 to which some would have us resort on the 
 principle of policy and self-preservation, but 
 which others recommend upon arguments dic- 
 tated solely by humanity ! Yet we hold our- 
 selves entirely al(5of from the scene of action 
 now under consideration, on the principle that 
 England has no pretext, still less a legitimate 
 claim, to interpose her arm in behalf of this 
 inconveniently situated people ! We shall re- 
 turn a little later to this point in the inquiry, 
 when we do not despair of being able to sup- 
 port the views which we hold, with arguments 
 sufficiently convincing to vindicate the pro- 
 priety of English interference in the present 
 unnatural state of Madagascar. 
 
 The reader is already aware of an attack 
 upon a solitary point of Madagascar having 
 been recently effected by the co-operation of 
 a French and English armament. On this 
 account, any prior title of our own to dictate 
 to that country has become trammelled by the 
 necessity we have now fallen under of working 
 in concert with France, in as far as satisfaction 
 is demanded for the outrage perpetrated upon 
 the subjects of that power in like manner with 
 those of Great Britain. Hence the question of 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 161 
 
 English interposition has become manifestly 
 complicated by this incident, and we are not 
 without our fears that the interests of the 
 Malagasy will have undergone a serious im- 
 pairment from the same. For whilst England 
 might have felt disposed to avail herself of 
 the occasion which such conduct on the part 
 of the Hova government has afforded her to 
 remove her present majesty from the throne, 
 for the people's benefit, — or even to have pro- 
 fited in a different way by the opportunity on 
 her own account ; it cannot be doubted but 
 that she will be less anxious to take either step, 
 while a second European power enjoys similar 
 pretensions to herself, and that power noto- 
 riously actuated by motives of cupidity * in 
 connexion with the particular country before 
 us. Again, it must not be concealed, that our 
 missionaries will be less likely to avail them- 
 
 * " Des hommes eminents dans le sein de la chambre, 
 M. Dufaure, I'lllustre M. de Lamartine, sont devoues a 
 I'idee de I'expansion coloniale de la France. Des deputes 
 d'opinions diverses, MM. Alphonse Denis, Estancelin, 
 Lherbette, Lacrosse, &c., s'occupent avec un z^le parti- 
 culier de la question speciale de Madagascar. 
 
 " La politique necessaire de la France forcera tot ou 
 
162 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 selves of the opening it would, under other 
 circumstances, afford them, to urge upon the 
 British government the desirableness of insist- 
 ing upon Ranavalona's readmission of agents 
 from their body, when they reflect that France 
 will assuredly profit by the opportunity to 
 insist on similar terms for herself: at least, 
 that howsoever little the government of Louis 
 Philippe may concern itself for that object, 
 the priesthood will not be backward in seizing 
 the occasion.* 
 
 And here we think it v/ould be well to 
 devote a little space to the examination of 
 
 tard le gouvernement a coloniser Madagascar." — Colo7ii- 
 sation de Madagascar^ par D]^siRi Laverdant, p. 111. 
 And in another part of the above brochurey M. La- 
 verdant gives way to his enthusiasm in the cause of plun- 
 dering Madagascar in a strain of heroic patriotism : " A 
 Malegache ! a Malegache I " — P. 159. 
 
 * " La Presse," in a recent lugubrious diatribe upon 
 the lowering aspect of the French political horizon in 
 Tahiti, denounces Queen Pomare as " a docile and simple 
 instrument of the Protestant missionaries;" and urges, 
 furthermore, as an irresistible argument in favour of 
 carrying fire and sword into the heart of her dominions, 
 the fact that, unless France adopt a decisive policy of this 
 sort, Tahiti would be hopelessly falling into the hands of 
 the missionaries I 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 163 
 
 those pretensions which are set up by our 
 neighbours to a legitimate claim upon Mada- 
 gascar. The reader has already been fur- 
 nished with an extract from a proclamation 
 of governor Farquhar (issued shortly after 
 our conquest of Mauritius), in connexion with 
 Madagascar, wherein it is shewn that, prior 
 to our occupation of Mauritius, the French 
 government were in the habit of styling 
 Madagascar a dependency of that colony, as 
 declared in the official Gazettes discovered in 
 their archives after the surrender of the 
 island. He is aware, also, of the bitter cha- 
 grin which it caused the French Governor of 
 Bourbon to witness us arming ourselves with 
 that policy which his own country had dic- 
 tated to us, when we claimed possession of 
 Madagascar as an avowed appendage of the 
 colony to which we had just succeeded by 
 the power of our arms.* Now, on what pre- 
 
 * " La paix venue, le gouverneur de I'ile Maurice refusa 
 de livrer a radministration de Bourbon les ^tablissements 
 de la grande terre ; il pretextait que, Tile Maurice ayant 
 ete cedee avec ses dependances, le vaste pays de Malle- 
 gache devait etre considere comme une dependance de la 
 petite lie, et suivre son sort, 
 
 " La Gouvernement de la Restauration reclama avec 
 
164 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 text had France considered herself justified 
 in annexing (even though nominally only), 
 the island of Madagascar to her colony of 
 Mauritius ? We confess, that in this query 
 we encounter a political enigma which baffles 
 all our ingenuity to solve, even though we 
 seek to unravel it through the medium of her 
 own historians. 
 
 We have already remarked, that the Por- 
 tugucvse were the first Europeans who seem 
 to have had any intercourse with Madagascar. 
 It is certain, from the united testimony of all 
 historians, that it was first brought to our 
 knowledge by that then enterprising people. 
 Next in rotation we find the Dutch making 
 it a rendezvous, in their intercourse with 
 India. The former people established them- 
 selves in the island, and were ultimately 
 repaid for their curiosity by a general mas- 
 
 energie, et I'Aiigleterre dut se dessaisir de sa proie. D^ 
 lors, le gouvernement Anglais chercha a atteindre son but 
 par des voies detourn^es." — Colonisation de Madagascar^ 
 par D^siRi Laverdant, p. 67. 
 
 The above extract conveys a fair idea of the soreness 
 so generally felt amongst French politicians, that we 
 should have acquired by heart the lesson they had taught 
 us in connexion with the dependencies of Mauritius. 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 165 
 
 sacre, to which the natives of the soil reduced 
 them. 
 
 About the middle of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury, a patent v^as granted by the French 
 ministry to a body of individuals, who 
 organised themselves under the title of " The 
 French East India Company," to establish 
 a colony in Madagascar.* That island was 
 accordingly made the object of experiment ; 
 and we read that " Pronis," a person invested 
 with the responsibihty of a governor, " had 
 received orders to take possession of Mada- 
 gascar in the king's name, and to form an 
 establishment on a suitable spot, capable of 
 being fortified," &c.f The result of this 
 expedition was, that Antongil Bay on the 
 east coast, and the small island of St. Mary's 
 adjacent thereto, were invested in the name 
 of the king of France ; and a spot called 
 Lucia or Monghasia, in the province of Anosy, 
 at the opposite extremity of the island, but 
 still on the eastern coast, was selected as the 
 
 * '* Ah I la France etait une grande nation sous 
 Richelieu et sous Louis XIV." — Colonisation of Mada- 
 gascar^ par DisiR]^ Laverdant, p. 15. 
 
 t Ellis's "History of Madagascar," vol. ii. 
 
166 MADAGASCAR. 
 
 site of their principal establishment. In the 
 neighbourhood of this spot they soon after 
 erected a fort, which they denominated Fort 
 Dauphin ; and the locality of which was not 
 selected without due attention to the consi- 
 deration of a commanding position. No 
 mention is made by EUis of the degree of 
 encouragement which was given by the 
 natives to Pronis and his followers, upon 
 their first appearance in the island. At the 
 time we are speaking of, Madagascar seems 
 to have recognised, in some measure, a 
 supreme power of Arab origin, to whom all 
 the petty chiefs were tributary ; and who 
 certainly did not concede any right to the 
 French to establish themselves as conquerors 
 on the soil. The French governors trans- 
 acted their negotiations with the chiefs of 
 villages alone, and not with the supreme 
 authority alluded to ; and it is generally 
 asserted by those less interested in this view 
 of the matter, that instead of a conquest, the 
 French adopted a safer policy, and secured 
 a footing by bribing some of the numerous 
 chieftains in the vicinity of Fort Dauphin to 
 sanction their settling on the coast. But, 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 167 
 
 even could they make good their title to the 
 island by the argument of conquest, we 
 should like to be favoured with an explana- 
 tion of the grounds upon which they pre- 
 sumed to subject a free and unoffending 
 people to such a condition. In what had 
 the Malagasy nation offended them ; and 
 whence the right on the part of France to 
 make a conquest of their country ? 
 
 After the death of Pronis,* the govern- 
 
 * During the very few years that Pronis was left in 
 command of this French settlement, he distinguished him- 
 self in the eyes of the natives by a feat to which hitherto 
 they had been strangers ; and to his adoption of which 
 his country is probably indebted for the first-fruits of that 
 hatred which has ever since existed towards the French, 
 in the Malagasy breast. 
 
 " When Captain Pronis was governor, he treacherously 
 sold a great number of the natives, who had unsuspectingly 
 engaged themselves in the service of the colony, to Vander 
 Meister, the Dutch governor of the Mauritius." — Cop- 
 land's History of Madagascar^ p. 37. 
 
 Copland tells the above on the authority of Pronis's 
 own countrymen. Ellis, in relating the same story, in- 
 forms us, that " the unfortunate victims of his reckless 
 cupidity were shipped off in so crowded a state, that the 
 greater part of them died on their passage ; and the re- 
 maining few, upon arriving at the Mauritius, fled imme- 
 diately into the woods, where they subsisted ever after- 
 
168 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 ment of the so-called French colony was 
 transferred to Monsieur Flacourt, a gentle- 
 man who has written extensively on the sub- 
 ject of Madagascar. But Monsieur Flacourt 
 having sought to extend the French dominion 
 in the island by the agencies of fire and sword, 
 was not less happy in the means he adopted 
 to perpetuate the hatred of the Malagasy to 
 French interference with them.* The French 
 establishment, which seems to have been com- 
 menced about the year 1642, and which, we 
 again beg to impress upon the reader's mind, 
 
 wards in a wild state, eluding all attempts to recapture 
 them." — Vol. ii. p. 10. 
 
 Flacourt, in his " Histoire de Madagascar," thus ex- 
 presses the feelings to which this transaction gave rise 
 amongst the natives : — " Depuis ce jour, aussitot qu'un 
 navire mouillait sur la rade, toute la cote devenait deserte." 
 
 Another, and a very recent French writer on Mada- 
 gascar, accepts upon trust the villany of Monsieur Pronis 
 in its fullest extent. — Vide Colonisation de Madagascar^ 
 par DfsiR^ Laverdant. 
 
 He states, that at the first kabary which took place 
 between the immediate successor of Pronis and the native 
 chiefs, the former was assured " que jamais les Malegaches 
 n'oublieraient la vente des hommes libres livr^s a Vander 
 Meister."— P. 42. 
 
 ♦ " Flacourt etait un homme intelligent et ferme, 
 mais ne connaissant rieu que la politique du sabre." 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 169 
 
 was not only not excused by the arguments 
 of conquest, but, in all probability, was only 
 tolerated by the natives from a dread of their 
 invaders' power), after passing through the 
 hands of a succession of different governors, 
 some of whom had committed unheard-of 
 outrages upon the natural proprietors of the 
 soil, was finally rehnquished and abandoned 
 somewhere about thirty years after its first 
 formation ; the small remnant of the French 
 colonists having reaped a terrible reckoning 
 from the natives, who subjected them, like 
 their predecessors, the Portuguese, to a gene- 
 ral massacre.* During a particular epoch of 
 the period in question, it is stated by Ellis, 
 that " the French East India Company, hav- 
 ing extended their views, appointed the Mar- 
 
 * Lescallier, a Frenchman of apparently superior 
 powers of mind, as well as a man who seems to have been 
 more liberally endowed with the principle of colonial 
 humanity than the worthies of whom we have made men- 
 tion, and who was sent to Madagascar in 1792, by his 
 government, for the purpose of ascertaining if it could be 
 practicable once more to attempt the establishment of a 
 colony in that country, thus expresses himself in a memoir 
 in the " National Institutes." " The French government 
 have, at long intervals, formed, or rather attempted to 
 
 I 
 
170 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 quis de Mondevergue to the general command 
 of all the French settlements situated beyond 
 the equinoctial line. This, of course," con- 
 tinues that writer, *' included Madagascar, 
 which place was appointed the seat of his 
 government. Thither he set sail in a frigate 
 of thirty-six guns, followed by a fleet of nine 
 vessels, having on board La Fage and Caron, 
 directors of the East India trade, an attor- 
 ney-general, four companies of infantry, ten 
 chiefs of colonies, &c. The fleet arrived 
 at Fort Dauphin ; and the marquis imme- 
 diately caused himself to be acknowledged 
 admiral and governor of the French terri- 
 tories in the east." This reorganisation of 
 the French settlement of Fort Dauphin took 
 place in the early part of the year 1667 ; 
 
 form, establishments amongst these people ; but the agents 
 in these enterprises have attended exclusively to the 
 interests and emoluments of the Europeans, and particu- 
 larly their own profits ; while the interests and well-being 
 of the natives have been entirely forgotten. Some of 
 these ministerial delegates have even been dishonest ad- 
 venturers, and have committed a thousand atrocities. It 
 cannot, therefore, excite surprise, that sometimes they 
 have experienced marks of the resentment of the Mala- 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 171 
 
 and one of the first measures of the marquis, 
 after his arrival, was the reconciling the 
 natives of the locale in question to the pre- 
 sence of the French, between whom the 
 most hostile relationship had lately subsisted. 
 The consequence of this policy was, that a 
 powerful chieftain, by name Dion Monango, 
 who had waged successful warfare against his 
 (the marquis's) countrymen, was induced to 
 swear " obedience and fidelity to the governor- 
 general."* In 1670, "the East India Com- 
 pany had transferred the sovereignty of Mada- 
 gascar to the king of France ; " and the 
 marquis, being superseded in his command by 
 another governor, called La Haye, the latter 
 *' was proclaimed admiral and general, with the 
 authority of viceroy." f ''Under La Haye, 
 who possessed unlimited authority, the govern- 
 ment of the island was conducted in a totally 
 opposite spirit." This spirit was nothing less 
 than that of summoning all the neighbouring 
 chiefs to acknowledge his authority, or to 
 prepare for war. The latter alternative was 
 preferred by the natives, who repelled an 
 
 ♦ Ellis, vol. ii. p. 25. f Ibid. vol. ii. p. 2^, 
 
1 72 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 attack from their invaders, and soon after, 
 as we have explained already, drove the 
 majority of the French from their shores, 
 and put the remainder of them to the 
 svi^ord.* 
 
 Hitherto the French had confined their 
 operations exclusively to their settlement at 
 
 * In reviewing this early connexion of the French 
 with the Malagasy people, we are strongly reminded of 
 its somewhat analogous history with that of the Spaniard's 
 early tactics amongst, and subsequent retribution at the 
 hands of, the natives of St. Domingo. Columbus, on land- 
 ing in Hispaniola, proposed to be allowed to raise a fort, 
 to which the people "agreed without a murmur, and even 
 assisted in the erection of what was to be afterwards used 
 as a means of their own subjection." Columbus, returning 
 for awhile to Europe, " the garrison he had left behind 
 grew impatient of restraint, and threw off the command 
 of their newly appointed governor. Regardless of the 
 prudent instructions which had been given them, the men 
 who composed it became insolently independent, and gra- 
 tified their avaricious and licentious desires at the expense 
 of the natives, making a wasteful prey of their gold, their 
 women, and their provisions ; thus, instead of supporting 
 the estimation in which they were held, exhibiting them- 
 selves as the most depraved of human beings. At length 
 the cazique of Cibao, whose country the Spaniards chiefly 
 infested, cut off a part of the colonists, surrounded the 
 remainder, and destroyed their fort." — Rainsford's His- 
 tory cf St. Domingo. 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 173 
 
 Fort Dauphin ; and it does not appear that 
 they took any other steps in connexion with 
 Antongil Bay and St. Mary's Island than that 
 of nominally declaring their title to it. Their 
 operations upon Madagascar, as above de- 
 tailed, were limited to the single spot already 
 noticed ; notwithstanding which, they were 
 pleased, as subsequently appeared in the do- 
 cuments before alluded to, to consider the 
 entire island as an appendage of their mother 
 country. In recurring, at this point, to the 
 fact in question, we might reasonably inquire 
 to what extent the Malagasy nation were 
 acquainted with the title set up by France to 
 the possession of their country ; and, suppos 
 ing them to have been conversant with her 
 self-constituted claims, in what spirit they were 
 wont to digest the same ? or were they fobbed, 
 on the soft and easy lago philosophy ? that 
 
 " He who is robb'd, not wanting what is stolen, 
 Let him not know it, and he's not robb'd at all." 
 
 Upon the abandonment of Fort Dauphin 
 no trace of the French sway remained in any 
 part of Madagascar ; and, for many years, it 
 was known only to Europeans as a spot occa- 
 
174 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 sionally visited by ships for water and pro- 
 visions in their intercourse with India and 
 the East. A long tranquillity seems now to 
 have been enjoyed by the Malagasy, undis- 
 turbed by visions of French invasions ; and 
 it was not until about the year 1746 that 
 we find that restless people again turning their 
 eyes in its direction, when they formed a set- 
 tlement once more in the great African Island, 
 selecting St. Mary's Islet for their renewed 
 experiment ; but the ravages made amongst 
 them by the endemic fever of the coast anni- 
 hilated very soon the entire number of this 
 last body of colonizers. The Isle of France, 
 however, repeopled the spot, but again only 
 to. be devastated ; for the settlers were soon 
 afterwards massacred by the natives. Again 
 St. Mary's was invested and retaken by a 
 second expedition from Mauritius, and ap- 
 pears ever since to have remained in the pos- 
 session of, or at least intimately connected 
 with, French influence. So much confusion 
 and vagueness occurs in Ellis at this parti- 
 cular point of his history, that the reader of 
 his work is left to form his own conclusions as 
 to the particular connexion which the French 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 175 
 
 from this time held with St. Mary's Island 
 and the north-east coast of Madagascar, until 
 the arrival of the celebrated Benyowsky in 
 that country, in February 1774, whose earhest 
 " step," he tells us, " was to convene the 
 chiefs, in order to acquaint them with the 
 nature of the intended establishment, and to 
 endeavouT to conciliate them. By these 
 means," continues Ellis, " he obtained from 
 them a grant of land, but without permission 
 to erect fortresses ; and an oath of friendship 
 was entered into between him and several of 
 the neighbouring chieftains." This remark- 
 able individual made a landing in the Bay of 
 Antongil, near to the entrance of which St. 
 Mary's is situated ; and the settlement, at that 
 time formed by him, received the name of 
 Louisbourg. The year following his arrival, 
 a fort had been erected by his people, public 
 buildings and roads constructed, and a sani- 
 tarium established at the distance of nine 
 leagues from the centre of their operations. 
 " The count had also purchased a considerable 
 portion of land" at Louisbourg. 
 
 Count Benyowsky abandoned the French 
 settlement in Madagascar in 1776, and was 
 
176 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 killed, in 1786, by a small detachment of French 
 soldiers from the Isle of France, who had been 
 despatched to Louisbourg to intercept opera- 
 tions which he had begun to carry on in that 
 quarter " on his own account." 
 
 During the period now under review, Ellis 
 preserves a strict silence on the subject of 
 St. Mary's Island; whilst another creditable 
 writer (Mr. Copland), has only these few 
 words in connexion with that insignificant 
 spot: — " The French formed a settlement at 
 St. Mary's Island, about the year 1750. Ben- 
 yowsky" (who, the reader will remember, did 
 not come upon the stage for more than twenty 
 years after that date) " purchased it of Hiavi, 
 the then sovereign of Foule-Pointe ; but, in 
 consequence of the expulsion of the French 
 from Madagascar, it has now returned to its 
 former dependency." 
 
 This writer, in the introduction to his work 
 on Madagascar, informs us that, in the com- 
 pilation of it, he consulted, as his text-books, 
 the writings of Rochon, Flacourt, and other 
 French authorities on the subject ; to whom 
 we may fairly look for a trustworthy statement 
 on a question involving, not the pretensions, but 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 177 
 
 the relinquishment of their country's claims 
 to territorial possessions in Madagascar.* 
 
 * Lest the reader may deem us too circumstantial in 
 our inquiries concerning the early connexion of France 
 with this insignificant spot, we must remind him (as at 
 the outset of our task we brought particularly under his 
 notice) that St. Mary's Islet is still in the hands of, and 
 garrisoned by, the French. We have given ourselves much 
 trouble to ascertain the particulars relating to the final 
 occupation of St. Mary's by the French ; and we believe 
 we are correct in our statement, that it was ceded to that 
 people by queen Beti (the sovereign of that part of Ma- 
 dagascar, including the isle in question), who either con- 
 firmed the original sale of it made by Hiavi, or bartered it 
 again on her own account, some fifty years, or thereabouts, 
 afterwards, since which period it has continued in the 
 possession of France. A point of land, stretching out into 
 the sea immediately opposite St. Mary's on the main land, 
 was subsequently occupied by a strong native force, in 
 order to guard the. channel formed by those two sites, and 
 to keep the French within their proper limits. 
 
 We had hoped to have discovered, in the recent pamphlet 
 of Monsieur Desire Laverdant, " On the Colonisation of 
 Madagascar," something more satisfactory in the shape of 
 information upon the subject of St. Mary's Island. But 
 this writer preserves as close a silence thereon as Cop- 
 land himself; for all that he tells us in connexion with 
 France's first operations in that quarter is, that " the 
 East India Company had formed an establishment on the 
 Isle of St. Mary's in 1750," at which period he confirms 
 the statement of former writers, that a native prince en- 
 joyed the sovereignty of it. 
 
 i2 
 
178 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 For some years after the abandonment of 
 the French settlement by Benyowsky, in 1776, 
 " the French government appear to have given 
 up all idea of establishing a colony in that 
 island, confining their efforts to the main- 
 tenance of military posts and factories, for the 
 purpose of trade with the natives, to obtain 
 supplies of rice and bullocks for the Isle of 
 France. The intention of forming an extensive 
 colonial ''settlement was thus lost sight of; but 
 it was still considered desirable to make it an 
 auxiliary to the Isle of France, as an important 
 depot for those engaged in the slave-trade, 
 which continued to be carried on to a great 
 extent throughout the whole island." * 
 
 Again, — " The French Revolution, which 
 took place soon after Benyowsky had aban- 
 doned the colony, so fully engaged the atten- 
 tion of the French government, that, amidst 
 the tragical and appalling events which crowd 
 the page of history, it was scarcely possible to 
 entertain any new project relating to the occu- 
 pation of a distant island."f 
 
 The National Assembly of France, desirous, 
 
 • Ellis's " History of Madagascar," vol. ii. 
 t Ibid. 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 179 
 
 at the very close of the last century, of feeling 
 the pulse of the Malagasy nation, with a view 
 to ascertaining the favourable state of its con- 
 stitution for a little wholesome depletion at 
 the hands of their faculty of political phy- 
 sicians, sent out an emissary, in 1792, to in- 
 form himself upon the point. M. Lescallier, 
 the party selected for the inquiry, thus delivers 
 himself on an interesting point in connexion 
 with the object of his mission, in the memoir 
 which, as we have already said, he published 
 in the "National Institutes:" — 
 
 " Europeans have hardly ever visited this 
 island but to ill-treat the natives, and to exact 
 forced services from them ; to excite and 
 foment quarrels amongst them, for the purpose 
 of purchasing the slaves that are taken on 
 both sides in the consequent wars : in a word, 
 they have left no other marks of having been 
 there but the effects of their cupidity." 
 
 Ellis informs us that, '' at the desire of 
 Lescallier, the chiefs entered into a treaty of 
 alliance with the French;" but nothing ap- 
 pears to have sprung out of this attempt at 
 negociation. But, " during the short peace 
 of 1801, Bory de St. Vincent was sent" out to 
 
180 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 Madagascar, with much the same object as 
 had dictated the visit of Lescallier, but with 
 equally little success as relates to any final 
 advantage on the side of France. Finally, in 
 1807, a party of Frenchmen from the Isle of 
 France laid the foundation of a settlement at 
 Foule-Pointe(a spot, as previously stated, occu- 
 pying a site between St. Mary's Island and 
 Tamatave), where, however, they had scarcely 
 cemented their arrangements for the future 
 when disease swept them off from the spot. 
 
 In 1810, Mauritius and Bourbon were 
 ceded, by conquest, to the English, and hence 
 a sufficient explanation of the discouragement 
 which the French, from that time, experienced 
 to attempt any repetition (in the then lowering 
 state of their colonial horizon) of their origi- 
 nal experiments upon Madagascar. 
 
 Mr. Ellis (the most recent writer, if we 
 except Laverdant's pamphlet upon Mada- 
 gascar, and deservedly entitled to our highest 
 confidence, as the faithful historian of that 
 country, on whom, as such, we have princi- 
 pally depended as our authority on points 
 requiring a reference to authentic works) has 
 wound up his account of the connexion of 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 181 
 
 France with Madagascar at that point where 
 it virtually ceased, as a consequence of our 
 own increasing influence in the southern hemi- 
 sphere. But we are fortunately enabled to 
 bring down our history of their still subsisting, 
 although less conspicuous, operations upon 
 the same stage to a period much later than 
 that embraced by this writer ; as well as to 
 throw some additional light upon certain 
 points in the course of his " Narrative," which 
 are either obscurely treated of, or entirely left 
 to the reader's own conception. 
 
 We extract the following from the manu- 
 script of Dr. Bergsten, a resident at Mauritius 
 of forty years* standing, and an authority of 
 weight on the subject before us. His name 
 is honourably introduced in Laverdant's 
 pamphlet. 
 
 " M. de Rassehne, who was one of the 
 expedition that went against Benyowsky, re- 
 mained at the head of the traders, but without 
 making any pretensions to the government of 
 Madagascar, or even to that of the tribes 
 which were governed by Benyowsky. He 
 continued, under the government of the Re- 
 public, to trade with Mauritius and Bourbon, 
 
182 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 without any other power that that of being 
 the chief of the traders. 
 
 ** Under General Decaen*s* government, 
 M. Sylvain Roux was sent to Tamatave, as 
 chief of the traders, and Mr. Jumain to Foule- 
 Pointe. These both made arrangements with 
 the chiefs which they found estabhshed there 
 — *.Jean Men6* at Tamatave, and Corollere 
 at Betanimene ; and it is very sure that neither 
 of those gentlemen ever supposed that the 
 permission which they had to reside in Mada- 
 gascar constituted a right of possession. They 
 were satisfied with being allowed to trade 
 there, and were glad to do so under the coun- 
 tenance of the two chiefs whose names we 
 have mentioned. 
 
 *' The capitulation of 1810 again corro- 
 borates our reasoning, and demonstrates, in 
 the most positive and evident manner, that 
 France has no title whatever which can esta- 
 
 * General Decaen (governor of Mauritius at the time 
 mentioned in the text) was a general of division in Moreau's 
 army ; and, falling under the First Consul's suspicion 
 (together with certain other general officers belonging to 
 that army, after the peace of Amiens), he was sent out as 
 governor of the French possessions in India. 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 183 
 
 blish the pretensions raised by the Bourbon 
 journals.* By that document, we find that 
 this island" (Mauritius), "with its dependencies, 
 was ceded to the British government: this 
 cession was confirmed by the treaty of Paris, 
 and enregistered by the competent authorities 
 in France and England. No mention at all 
 is made of Madagascar, much less of any 
 right of the French government to that 
 island. 
 
 " After the taking of Paris, and the deter- 
 mination of the Allies to reinstate the Bour- 
 bons on the throne of France, the Count of 
 Provence went to London to take leave of the 
 Prince Regent, before taking possession of 
 the throne of his ancestors ; and it was then 
 that the Island of Bourbon was restored to 
 Louis XVIIL ; and Madagascar was not com- 
 prised in this restoration, for it did not belong 
 either to France or England. 
 
 * The press, at the Isle of Bourbon, every now and 
 then diverts its readers (whensoever slack of news) with 
 relays of arguments in favour of the divine right of la 
 belle France to trip up the heels of Ranavalona, and sus- 
 pend the tricoloured flag of their country upon the most 
 conspicuous point of Madagascar ! 
 
184« MADAGASCAR, 
 
 ** The governor and merchants of Bour- 
 bon, being well aware of the importance of 
 the trade of Madagascar, were naturally 
 unwilling that Mauritius should enjoy the 
 exclusive commerce of that island, which 
 would have been of serious injury to Bourbon. 
 An explanation on this head, therefore, took 
 place between the two governments, and an 
 order was sent to the governor of Mauritius 
 to admit French traders into the ports of Ma- 
 dagascar without notice. In virtue of this 
 order, M. Sylvain Roux, before mentioned, 
 returned to Tamatave.* After his death, he 
 was replaced by Mr. Dayot, as French agent 
 at Madagascar. 
 
 " He was still there during the expedition 
 of Captain Goubeyer,f when the Hova govern- 
 ment, having declared that they would not 
 
 * The reader will be pleased to remember that, upon 
 the capture of Mauritius by England, the French agents 
 were summoned, by a force we sent to Madagascar, to 
 quit Tamatave and the other ports where they had sta- 
 tioned themselves. 
 
 t Captain Goubeyer conducted an expedition to Ma- 
 dagascar in 1829; on the subject of which we shall have 
 to say a word or two a little later in our inquiry. 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 185 
 
 receive any longer, or recognise, a French 
 agent, Mr. Dayot received orders to leave the 
 island ! The government of Bourbon having 
 declared that its mother-country had ancient 
 and incontestable rights on Madagascar ,'^Gover- 
 nor Farquhar issued the following proclama- 
 tion, which we think it just to lay before our 
 readers, and which we extract from the work 
 of M. Desire Laverdant, whose article is in 
 some sort a refutation of, as well as an answer 
 to, the Bourbon journals. 
 
 " Proclamation. 
 
 *' 1. That he considered Madagascar as an 
 independent power, at present united with the 
 king of England by treaties of friendship and 
 alliance, on whose territories no nation what- 
 ever had any right of property, except such 
 as the native government might be disposed to 
 admit. 
 
 ** 2. That it had been notified by this 
 same power (that of the Hovas) to the go- 
 vernment of Mauritius, and to the commandant 
 of the British naval forces in these seas, that 
 they did not acknowledge any rights of pro- 
 
186 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 perty in the soil of Madagascar on the part of 
 any European power."* 
 
 M. Laverdant himself acknowledges that 
 Radama disallowed all title on the part of 
 France to any part of his country. *^ Radama 
 refusa bientot de reconnaitre a la France 
 aucun droit sur la grande terre, et se d^clara, 
 roi de toute Tisle."— P. 76. 
 
 * Can any thing, after this, be wanting to refute the 
 evidence attempted to be substantiated in favour of our 
 present title to Port Loquez? But we anticipate. 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 187 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Connexion between England and Madagascar — Plans de- 
 vised for an English Settlement in the Island — Com- 
 mencement of English Connexion with Madagascar — 
 Proclamation announcing the taking possession of Ma- 
 dagascar in the name of his Britannic Majesty — Per- 
 manent Residence of English Agents in the Island — 
 Effects of Climate — Notes from the Manuscripts of 
 the late Captain Le Sage — Examination of British 
 Claims — Evacuation of Port Loquez — Consequences 
 of having recognised Radama's Sovereignty — Respect- 
 ive Claims of England and France considered and dis- 
 proved — Petition from the Colonists of Bourbon to 
 Louis Philippe — Probable Manoeuvres of the French 
 unless counteracted by the British Government — In- 
 stance of French Machinations — Hostilities between 
 the French and Ranavalona. 
 
 Having furnished the reader with what we 
 beheve to be a faithful abstract of those inci- 
 dents on which the French ground their preten- 
 sions to a territorial interest in Madagascar, we 
 proceed, in the next place, briefly to notice the 
 relationship subsisting between our own coun- 
 try and that island ; when the reader will be 
 
188 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 able to form his opinion as to the side in favour 
 of which the evidence preponderates in the 
 question of priority of claim upon Madagascar. 
 
 We have stated, in a preceding part of our 
 subject, that Flacourt, in his ''History of Mada- 
 gascar," asserts, that the " English had a mili- 
 tary establishment, in 1642, at St. Augustin's 
 Bay, consisting of 200 men — a fourth part of 
 which was carried off, in the space of two 
 years, by the insalubrity of the climate." Not 
 having been able to meet with the original 
 work itself, of Flacourt, we have extracted 
 from Ellis's history the mention of this fact ; 
 but are unable either to confirm or contradict 
 it by a reference to the sources of information 
 which we have consulted in the course of this 
 undertaking. Amongst other reasons, how- 
 ever, which induce us to discredit Flacourt^s 
 statement, we may mention the fact, that in 
 Mr. Boothby*s account of the island, written in 
 1644, no sort of allusion is made to the exist- 
 ence of an English settlement in Madagascar. 
 
 It is affirmed by Mr. Boothby that, in his 
 time, the English government seriously medi- 
 tated the sending a viceroy to Madagascar, 
 and consequently, we presume, the laying vio- 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 189 
 
 lent hands upon the island ! The honour of 
 this appointment, he informs us, was carved 
 out for Prince Rupert. '' I was present," says 
 Mr. Boothby, '* when this was ordered '' (al- 
 luding to the equipment of the expedition), 
 "at the council table; but Prince Rupert, 
 going into France and Germany about his 
 weighty affairs, in the meantime it was 
 thought fit, and concluded upon, that the 
 Earl of Arundel, earl- marshal of England, 
 should go governor for Madagascar, it being 
 the most famous place in the world for a ma- 
 gazine. This noble earl," he continues, 
 "hath written a book to that purpose, and 
 allowed weekly means of subsistence to divers 
 seamen, who have good judgment and experi- 
 ence all over the Oriental Seas and at Mada- 
 gascar. This honourable earl was in such 
 resolution and readiness, that there were 
 printed bills put up on the pillars of the 
 Royal Exchange, and in other parts of the 
 city, that abundantly shewed his forwardness 
 in promoting a plantation in Madagascar ; but 
 a new parliament being called, it put a stop to 
 the design of Madagascar." 
 
 The foregoing information, if authentic 
 
190 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 (and it is difficult to account for a man's 
 motives in the production of so unintelligible 
 a piece of fiction), forces us into the necessary 
 admission, that if England has been less con- 
 spicuous in her early encroachments upon 
 Madagascar than her neighbour, it has not 
 resulted either from a want of inclination to 
 enter upon that field of action, and still less 
 from her recognising a higher standard of 
 principle ; for, according to Boothby's account, 
 we had actually planned the nucleus of an 
 English settlement in the country, and were 
 only withheld by political interruptions from 
 carrying that plan into execution ! 
 
 We pass over those settlements formed at 
 different points of Madagascar, at a period 
 subsequent to the one of which we have just 
 spoken, by hordes of English as well as French 
 freebooters, who, issuing from their strongholds 
 in the island upon their own element, drove a 
 long and successful trade at the expense of 
 European vessels trafficking to India and dif- 
 ferent parts of the East. We pass by these 
 lawless and uninvited settlers, and conduct 
 the reader to the period to which we have be- 
 fore already introduced him, when our first 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 191 
 
 substantial connexion with Madagascar com- 
 menced. This epoch in our colonial history 
 takes its date from the moment of our con- 
 quest of Bourbon and Mauritius, when, as has 
 been stated in a preceding part of these sheets. 
 Sir Robert Farquhar issued a proclamation, 
 wherein he announced his "taking possession 
 of Madagascar, as one of the dependencies of 
 the Mauritius, in the name of his Britannic 
 Majesty." " Immediately after the conquest 
 of these islands, the English sent a detachment 
 to Foule-Pointe, and another to Tamatave, to 
 take possession of the forts formerly occupied 
 by the French in Madagascar."* These forces 
 were not sent to Madagascar as mere matters 
 of form ; for a British man-of-war, the Eclipse, 
 summoned the French commandant at Tama- 
 tave, M. Sylvain Roux, to deliver up to her 
 that port, together with all the other French 
 establishments in the island over which he 
 exercised any control. This he immediately 
 did without resistance. The military force 
 which Sir Robert Farquhar sent to garrison 
 Tamatave, Foule-Pointe, &c., were so reduced 
 
 * Ellis's ** History of Madagascar," vol. ii. 
 
192 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 in number by the fatal nature of the climate, 
 that the remnant were withdrawn, and a Brit- 
 ish agent alone was left to support our pre- 
 tensions to these settlements. It has been 
 well remarked by an inhabitant of Mauritius 
 (who was a resident there at the time these 
 occurrences took place, and to whose intimate 
 acquaintance with the facts now recorded 
 we are indebted for much of the informa- 
 tion at present offered to the reader), that 
 "the permanent residence of these agents 
 proves sufficiently that our government never 
 abandoned their possessions in Madagascar!" 
 
 '' In 1815, a party of English was sent over 
 to form an establishment at Fort Loquez, with 
 the consent of the neighbouring chiefs.''^* 
 
 The whole of this party, with the exception 
 of one man, experienced, through a stupid mis- 
 understanding, not very intelligible at the pre- 
 sent day, a most tragical fate in the form of a 
 general massacre. Complete satisfaction was 
 instantly offered for this outrage, which seems 
 to have been planned, if not executed, by a 
 single disaffected chieftain ; for he was appre- 
 
 * Ellis's " History of Madagascar," vol. ii. p. 110. 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 193 
 
 bended by the natives themselves, tried, con- 
 demned, and executed on the spot where the 
 massacre was accomplished. " Governor Far- 
 quhar was so well convinced by these pro- 
 ceedings of the friendly disposition of the 
 chiefs in general, that another party was sent 
 to establish themselves at Loquez. As soon 
 as they arrived, the neighbouring chiefs came 
 forward, and tendered their friendship and 
 alliance ; and, considering that the unhappy 
 affair which had taken place required more 
 ample amends, they ceded to the settlers an 
 extensive tract of land and large herds of 
 cattle, the former being guaranteed to them 
 in a solemn kabary, in right of a previous pur- 
 chase."* 
 
 This last negotiation was conducted by 
 an individual who has resided ever since at 
 Mauritius, and only very recently been re- 
 moved from thence by the mischief his consti- 
 tution had sustained from the effects of the 
 fatal climate of Madagascar. This much- 
 respected, whilst living, and deeply-regretted 
 person. Captain Le Sage, had, shortly before 
 
 * Ellis's " History of Madagascar," vol. ii. p. 1 12. 
 
194 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 his decease, submitted his manuscripts, toge- 
 ther with the documents in his possession re- 
 lating to the negotiation in question, to the 
 notice of a party by whom we have been 
 favoured with the following transcript from 
 their contents : — 
 
 " The settlement appears to have been 
 made, in the first instance, in 1815, on the fol- 
 lowing principle laid down in Captain Le Sage's 
 instructions : that ' Madagascar was become a 
 dependency of the Mauritius by the conquest 
 of all the French possessions in that island and 
 these seas by the British/ 
 
 " The rights of the natives were, never- 
 theless, respected by* the British agents, who 
 purchased various portions of land for the 
 British government. But a further and spe- 
 cific acquisition of territory was made by 
 Great Britain. The settlement having been 
 destroyed, and the British agent and others 
 having been massacred, in violation of the 
 most solemn treaties, the British government 
 demanded, through the mission of Captain Le 
 Sage, and obtained, a satisfaction from five 
 native kings in a further extensive cession of 
 territory. 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 195 
 
 " The extent of the ceded territory is 
 variously estimated in the documents we have 
 seen : — M. Balbi* mentions 100 square miles ; 
 M. Le Sage informed us, verbally, that it was 
 as far as the eye could reach from the summit 
 of a high mountain, on which the natives were 
 assembled under their five kings, when the 
 cession was made. It appears, at least, to 
 have comprehended the entire land lying be- 
 tween Cape East and the 'extreme north point 
 of Madagascar, comprehending the peninsula 
 and splendid Bay of Diego Famen.'" 
 
 " This took place in 1816, after the peace 
 of Europe. The treaty with Radama, the 
 King of the Hovas, in Madagascar, was rati- 
 fied in 1817, and renewed about two years 
 afterwards ; but no cession of Port Loquez 
 was made in that treaty. On the contrary, 
 the British government regarded that treaty 
 
 * " Monsieur Balbi, in his celebrated work, * Abrege 
 de Geographic,' under the article ' He de Madagascar,' has 
 the following passage : — 'II parait que c'est aussi sur le 
 territoire de ce peuple que se trouve le beau Port Loquez, 
 ou d'apres de recentes notices, un territoire de 100 milles 
 carres a ete cede dernierement aux Anglais pour y former 
 un etablissement.' " — Taken from the documents referred 
 to in the text. 
 
196 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 as a means of facilitating and accelerating the 
 settlement of Madagascar by British subjects, 
 as will appear from the following quotation 
 of a proclamation of Sir Robert Farquhar, 
 extracted from the Mauritius government 
 ' Gazette' of 3d March, 1821, inviting British 
 subjects to settle in Madagascar ; the treaty 
 with Radama, to which his excellency refers, 
 being the ' means now adopted as a preliminary 
 step to a permanent and extensive settlement 
 and estabhshment of that great country/" 
 
 The author of the foregoing extract (who 
 embodies in his own language the substance 
 derived from Captain Le Sage's manuscripts) 
 is borne out, we think, by nothing he has 
 favoured us with from that source in the 
 conclusion he comes to, — that the fragment 
 quoted from Sir Robert Farquhar's proclam- 
 ation is any testimony in proof of the 
 assertion that we meditated a future colonis- 
 ation of Port Loquez, because Sir Robert 
 chose to proclaim the opinion, or (we may 
 be permitted to say) the fact, that the treaty 
 at that time entered into between himself 
 (on the part of the British government) and 
 Radama was " a preliminary step to a perma- 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 197 
 
 nent and extensive settlement and establish- 
 ment of Madagascar (not, be it observed, of 
 Port Loquez), we are not so to distort that 
 suggestion as to understand by it that it con- 
 firmed us in our claims upon Loquez. We 
 throw out this remark, by the way, as it be- 
 hoves us in an inquiry like the present to 
 be upon our guard, lest we suffer facts to be 
 sacrificed to the advancement of an interested 
 but spurious reasoning. 
 
 ** When Captain Le Sage left Loquez to 
 proceed on a mission to King Radama, he 
 left the establishment in charge of Lieutenant 
 Pye of the R. M. and a certain number of 
 soldiers under his charge : at this time Mr. 
 Doderlein was the British agent at Tamatave. 
 
 "The treaty entered into and concluded 
 with King Radama by Captain Le Sage was 
 confirmed, in October 1817, by Captain Stan- 
 fell, of his majesty's ship Phaeton. 
 
 " King Radama, with the view of giving to 
 his Britannic majesty's government a proof of 
 the sincerity of his intentions, published, in 
 October 1820, a proclamation, by which he 
 invited and encouraged the enterprises and 
 commercial intercourse of resident planters 
 
198 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 and handicraftsmen, subjects of Great Britain, 
 to visit and settle in his country, with pro^ 
 mises of his powerful assistance and protec- 
 tion. This proclamation, which was made 
 public at Mauritius in March 1821, induced 
 many British subjects, who were disposed to 
 take advantage of the king's encouragement, to 
 carry the means of their arts and industry to 
 his dominions, notwithstanding the insalubrity 
 of the climate ; and they certainly had no 
 cause either to repent or complain, during 
 the sway of that enlightened monarch, whose 
 reign, unfortunately for those British subjects 
 who had fixed themselves at Tamatave and 
 elsewhere, was decreed to be of short dura- 
 tion.* 
 
 In the preceding digest of the British con- 
 nexion with Madagascar, we have omitted 
 nothing material as relates to the interests of 
 our own country ; and, from an impartial 
 examination of that connexion, we are placed 
 
 * Extracted from the letter of a resident at Mauritius 
 (who was settled in that colony at the period of which he 
 treats, and who speaks from a personal knowledge of the 
 facts advanced), published in the "Watchman," in con- 
 nexion with " Documents Respecting British Possessions 
 in Madagascar." 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 199 
 
 in a position to judge for ourselves as to the 
 nature of the claims which it is the fashion 
 with many Englishmen, who take an interest 
 in the subject, to maintain that we possess to a 
 footing in Madagascar. The territory ceded 
 to us in 1816, in the district of Port Loquez 
 (and, which, according to all the documents 
 we have had access to, appears to have been 
 bond Jide purchased by Captain Le Sage on 
 the part of the British government), became 
 legitimately the property of England, so long 
 as England found it answer her purpose to 
 retain it. But, having fairly relinquished our 
 title thereto, by the simple fact of withdrawing 
 unconditionally from it ; and having required 
 no provision to be inserted in the treaty into 
 which we entered with Radama for its perma- 
 nent cession to England, or for our subsequent 
 resumption of it, it is preposterous now to 
 argue, after being the immediate instrument 
 of enabling Radama to proclaim himself King 
 of Madagascar, that any previous compact 
 entered into with a local chieftain can warrant 
 our unsaying what we then said (viz. that 
 we recognised Radama as King of Madagas- 
 car), and seeking to regain what we virtually 
 
200 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 gave up to him on so flimsy, nay, so dis- 
 honest, a pretence as that, we consented to 
 acknowledge him as sovereign of the entire 
 country, with the mental reservation that 
 he was to consider himself as holding that 
 part of his dominions as a vassal of the King 
 of England, to be resumed by that monarch 
 whensoever it might please him or his suc- 
 cessors to demand it 
 
 Ridiculous as such a mode of reasoning 
 cannot but appear to unprejudiced judges of 
 the matter, it is literally the only one upon 
 which we can understand the arguments of 
 those who divert themselves with speculations 
 upon *^ our possessions in the north-east of 
 Madagascar." Had Great Britain desired to 
 retain, or considered herself entitled to hold 
 it after her acknowledgment of Radama's right 
 to the sovereignty of the country, it is self- 
 evident that she would have provided for her 
 own interests in this particular, upon entering 
 into a treaty of friendship with that power. 
 
 But let us take another view of the matter, 
 and, admitting these principles to hold good, 
 and, consequently, that in evacuating Port 
 Loquez, and entering into no understanding 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 201 
 
 with Radama for its resumption, we virtually 
 surrendered our pretensions to its possession, 
 let us inquire to what extent we can consider 
 ourselves authorised to reclaim it, upon the 
 grounds that the successor of that monarch, 
 having violated the terms of the treaty, the 
 very first clause of which was framed with a 
 view " to maintain with England for ever 
 mutual confidence, friendship, and brother- 
 hood," we, on our part, can no longer be 
 bound by the conditions of that treaty ; but, 
 on the contrary, may fairly consider ourselves 
 released from all the obligations to which we 
 consented on becoming a party thereto. Here 
 we have plainly as little ground whereon to 
 take up a position as before ; and, for the 
 reason that no mention is made in that treaty 
 of our conditional relinquishment of Port 
 Loquez. With equal reason might the Por- 
 tuguese, the first discoverers of Mauritius, 
 again return to and re-claim that island, on the 
 pretence that they withdrew from it origin- 
 ally without any specific guarantee that they 
 might not thereafter reinvest it ; and that, not 
 having entered into a treaty with the rocks 
 and forests (when they quitted the spot), or 
 k2 
 
202 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 registered a deed in their own favour, to be 
 left in charge of the " Peter-botte," to the 
 purport that they relinquished the island for 
 ever, they were justly entitled to return at 
 the present day, and enter again upon its 
 possession. 
 
 But it is argued, again, by others that 
 Queen Ranavalona has usurped the throne 
 of Madagascar, and that, on that ground, we 
 might excuse ourselves from an over squeam- 
 ishness in the matter before us. In a word, 
 that there can be no valid objections to our 
 stealing from a thief; for such, in reahty, the 
 argument reduces itself to, when fashioned to 
 suit this view of the case. But a difficulty 
 no less insuperable than the foregoing encoun- 
 ters the advocates of this position also ; and 
 that is, that we did not suffer this circum- 
 stance to intrude itself upon us to her disad- 
 vantage, so long as we found it convenient 
 to preserve a good understanding with her 
 majesty. In confirmation of this truth, it is 
 only necessary to remind the reader that we 
 kept a British agent, Mr. Lyall, at her capital, 
 until, like a spy or an infected being, he was 
 chased out of her dominions, without repara- 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 203 
 
 tion for the insult even being asked for. 
 Neither did we suffer the fact of her invalid 
 title to the throne to stand in the way of 
 our receiving a deputation from her court 
 at the palace of St. James's, or of renewing 
 our exertions to obtain a readmission at her 
 hands of English missionaries into Madagas- 
 car. It is mere child's play, therefore, to 
 turn upon her now, after an interval of 
 twenty years' enjoyment of the throne, and 
 pretend that we can hold no terms with an 
 usurper; and that, unless she secedes there- 
 from, in favour of Radama's lawful successor, 
 we shall re-enter, without further ado, upon 
 our old possessions on the north-east coast of 
 the kingdom. 
 
 Thus, having afforded an impartial and 
 dispassionate examination to the claims, re- 
 spectively, of France and England, upon that 
 vast country which forms the subject of this 
 dissertation, we shall put forth the result, as 
 relates to each empire, in the following tabu- 
 lar form, whereby we trust the fullest justice 
 will be shewn to have been conceded to the 
 so-termed claims of both : — 
 
204 
 
 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 Claims of France to Terri- 
 torial Acquisitions in Ma- 
 dagascar. 
 
 1st. The seizing on, about 
 the middle of the seven- 
 teenth century, and occupa- 
 tion of the district to which 
 the settlers gave the name 
 of Fort Dauphin, towards 
 the south-east extremity of 
 the island, and from which 
 they were ultimately com- 
 pletely eradicated by mas- 
 sacre. The nominal occu- 
 pation of St. Mary's Island, 
 on the north-east coast, and 
 of AntongilBayon the same, 
 taken possession of at the 
 same time with Fort Dau- 
 phin, but apparently not 
 then colonised. 
 
 2d. The reinvesting of 
 St. Mary's Island, about a 
 hundred years after the first 
 nominal occupation of it ; 
 and, a few years afterwards, 
 the more successful attempt 
 of Count Benyowsky to im- 
 plant a French colony, in 
 the district of Antongil Bay; 
 this second settlement, how- 
 ever, undergoing, like the 
 former, a total dissolution, 
 
 Claims of England to Terri- 
 torial Acquisitions in 3Ia- 
 dagascar. 
 
 1st. Madagascar claimed 
 by England as an appen- 
 dage of Mauritius, upon the 
 conquest of that colony by 
 her arms ; this right to 
 Madagascar being entirely 
 based upon France's prior 
 assertion of right to the 
 same ; and, owing to which, 
 the ports then in the actual 
 hands of French agents were 
 demanded, and actually 
 given up to England. 
 
 The retention of an En- 
 glish agent at Tamatave up 
 to our treaty with Radama. 
 
 The cession of Port Lo- 
 quez to the English in 1815- 
 16, guaranteed in right of 
 purchase. 
 
 Upon the ratification of 
 our treaty with Radama, 
 England virtually withdrew 
 her pretensions to Tamatave 
 and other ports (amongst 
 others. Port Loquez), by 
 recalling her authorities 
 from those places, by ac- 
 knowledging Radama as 
 king of Madagascar, and, iu 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 205 
 
 and witnessing the uncon- 
 ditional abandonment, on the 
 part of France, of all re- 
 newals to engraft a colony 
 on the main land. 
 
 3d. The reoccupation 
 (apparently about the open- 
 ing of the present century), 
 of St. Mary's Island, ac- 
 quired, according to the 
 generally received opinion, 
 by purchase from Queen 
 Beti, the acknowledged 
 sovereign of that island, and 
 neighbouring part of the 
 main land. This island 
 never since relinquished by 
 France; at the same time 
 that it has received no ag- 
 grandisement from Mada- 
 gascar itself, either by right 
 of capture or secession. 
 
 4th. The residence of a 
 French agent at Tamatave 
 and Foule-Pointe, upon our 
 conquest of Bourbon and 
 Mauritius ; these indivi- 
 duals having been dismissed 
 from the country at the 
 period of our nominally 
 taking possession of Mada- 
 gascar, and only subse- 
 quently readmitted with the 
 
 a treaty with that sovereign, 
 providing by no stipula- 
 tion for our subsequent 
 resumption of the same. 
 
 These circumstances be- 
 ing plainly declaratory of 
 the surrender of all pre- 
 vious claims upon Mada- 
 gascar, added to which, 
 England has, within the last 
 half dozen years, most posi- 
 tively refused to listen to 
 the prayer of a large por- 
 tion of the commercial body 
 of Mauritius, to reoccupy 
 the territory formerly ceded 
 to us in the north-east part 
 of the island. 
 
206 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 sanction and approval of 
 Great Britain, and then 
 only for the purposes of 
 commerce.* These com- 
 mercial agents again dis- 
 missed from Madagascar in 
 1829 by the present sove- 
 reign, and never subse- 
 quently again tolerated by 
 the same, nor their read- 
 mission insisted on by 
 France. 
 
 So much for the claims of either country 
 
 to the whole, or to any portion of the Island 
 
 of Madagascar. 
 
 * At page 94 of his pamphlet on the colonising of 
 Madagascar, Monsieur Desire Laverdant has published 
 a statement in connexion with the conduct of England 
 towards France, on the subject of the pretensions of the 
 latter to territorial rights in Madagascar, which offers a 
 fair specimen of the integrity of that writer in his general 
 political observations : — 
 
 "La paix venue, le gouverneur de Maurice el^ve la 
 pretention de conserver Malegache comme une annexe de 
 rile Maurice. En meme temps il faisait une tentative 
 d'etablissement sur un point de la cote que les Fran9ais 
 n'avaient point encore occupe. Port Loquez. Le gouverne- 
 ment de la restauration proteste, fait valoir ses justes droits, 
 et I'Angleterre est obligee de se desister, et de remettre au 
 gouverneur de I'lle Bourbon les etablissements qu'elle avait 
 saisis pendant la guerre." 
 
 " Les Etablissements ! " By this expression, M. Laver- 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 207 
 
 The combined attack of the French and 
 EngHsh flotilla upon Tamatave had scarcely 
 been made known at Bourbon, when the 
 colonists of that island received a fresh spur 
 to reopen and agitate again the *' exclusive 
 rights" of France to possess herself of Mada- 
 gascar, or of as much of it as might suit her 
 viev^s to adopt. Intent upon this object, 
 they availed themselves of the occasion to 
 raise their '^most sv^reet voices" in a cause so 
 sacred, and, with no more delay than was 
 absolutely needed to rally their forces, a peti- 
 tion was concocted and hurried off to Louis- 
 
 dant would have the reader believe that France obliged us 
 to restore Tamatave and Foule-Pointe to her, as well as to 
 declare that we considered her the lawful proprietor of 
 Port Loquez : whereas, upon acknowledging Radama 
 as king of Madagascar, we withdrew our claims to 
 his ports, but continued to keep an agent at Tamatave. 
 The governor of Bourbon then sent agents to Mauritius, 
 demanding that they should be received at Madagascar ; 
 but the British governor positively refused to suffer them 
 admission until the feelings of his government were taken 
 on the point. In consequence of this reference, they were 
 suffered to enter the island again, but in no other capacity 
 than that of commercial agents ; and, as we shall presently 
 shew, they were subsequently excluded from the country 
 by Ranavalona, and have never since been readmitted. 
 
208 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 Philippe, embodying the earnest prayer that 
 his majesty would embrace the present oppor- 
 tunity of sending them a force to colonise 
 Madagascar. The petitioners manifest some 
 shyness- in coming to the point at once, of 
 reducing the island by a coup de main, for 
 they avoid in their prayer to utter the start- 
 ling dissyllable which palpably lies so near to 
 their hearts ; viz. that of conquest, coiled up 
 there, an anguis in herhd, to be called forth 
 at a later stage of their tactics. In the same 
 petition, numerous details are given as to the 
 nature, the numbers, and the operations of 
 the force required for the purpose in ques- 
 tion ; and nothing now remains for them to 
 accomplish but to make their arrangements 
 amongst themselves for a general division of 
 the prize. How this petition will be received 
 by his majesty, and in what sort of humour 
 his ministers may find themselves with regard 
 to it, it boots not to speculate upon.* But, 
 howsoever tempting to French cupidity such 
 
 * If any confidence is to be placed in the declarations 
 of statesmen, beyond the moment that policy renders them 
 inconvenient, we have a recent guarantee from the lips of 
 France's greatest statesman, that nothing will be attempted 
 
PAST a:nd present. 209 
 
 an opening (whereby the national mania for 
 possessions in the Southern Atlantic might be 
 gratified), we have very few fears that any 
 step will be undertaken in a matter of so 
 much moment, without the previous consent 
 of Great Britain. Indeed, after the recent 
 transactions at Tamatave, France can take no 
 step in relation to Madagascar without con- 
 sulting the feelings of that power, with which 
 she is in honour bound to co-operate. Should 
 such a political anomaly arise out of the offen- 
 sive operations against Madagascar, as that 
 England should disapprove of the step taken 
 therein by Captain Kelly, whilst France sees 
 nothing in it but matter of congratulation and 
 approval, it will then remain to be seen with 
 what degree of complacency Great Britain 
 will comport herself as a spectator, whilst her 
 neighbour helps herself to the prize. That 
 France will leave no argument or contrivance 
 
 in the way of colonising, on a large scale, by that power 
 at a distance from the mother-country. 
 
 " II convenait peu a la politique et au genie de la 
 France de tenter, a de grandes distances de son territoire, 
 de nouveaux et grands etablissements coloniaux." — 
 M. GuizoT, Seance, c?w 31 Mars, 1843. 
 
210 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 unattempted, which can bring her nearer to 
 the attainment of this object, no one who has 
 watched, or who has any acquaintance with, 
 her juggling of late years at a distance from 
 European surveillance, can for a moment 
 entertain a doubt. For ourselves, we feel a 
 conviction that she will so manoeuvre in the 
 present crisis as to throw the lasso over the 
 neck of Ranavalona, unless England make a 
 decided demonstration in discountenance of 
 such an attempt. 
 
 We entertain strong suspicions that the 
 presence of a British frigate at Tamatave, in 
 June 184-5, was as little matter of satisfaction 
 to the governor of Bourbon, as it has favoured 
 ulterior projects, on the part of his govern- 
 ment, in connexion with the transfer of Mada- 
 gascar to the hands of France ; for, we think, 
 there is but little room to doubt that Com- 
 modore de la Fosse had his instructions to fire 
 upon the place, should any equivocation be 
 displayed by the Malagasy authorities in a 
 compliance with his demands.* And we must 
 
 * Very opposite opinions (as stated in an early part of 
 this article) are held by Europeans on the spot, as well as 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 211 
 
 own a latent feeling of suspicion, that had 
 * Fortune ordained it so, that a British man-of- 
 war had not been available at the period under 
 review, the French diplomatists would have 
 made short work of the matter, by exagge- 
 rating the wrongs they had met with, and, by 
 
 in the mother-country, in reference to the propriety of the 
 summary step adopted by Captain Kelly at Tamatave. 
 But, in addition to what we have already advanced in 
 favour of his conduct therein, we take upon ourselves to 
 make the following further observations in justification of 
 the same. Captain Kelly went to Tamatave with a dis- 
 cretionary power to act as might seem best to his own 
 judgment : and if it be considered hereafter that that 
 judgment misled him, why, then, we consider him ex- 
 cused upon the plea that " sapere semper ipsi Jovi non 
 datur V Again, Captain Kelly appears to ourselves to 
 have been placed in a position not a little embarrassing. 
 We may represent him as obliged to choose between three 
 alternatives. 
 
 In the first place, to depart a Vinstant, and leave 
 the field to the sole occupation of the French com- 
 modore. 
 
 Secondly, to remain inactive, whilst M. De la Fosse 
 was bespattering himself with glory^ and acquiring a title 
 for his government to put Madagascar in its own pocket. 
 
 Thirdly, to join in the attack, either in consonance 
 with his own inclinations, or in order not to see his 
 country out-man ceuvered in the sequel, and deprived of 
 the power of interposing in its own, or in behalf of the 
 unhappy natives of the soil. 
 
212 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 speedily enacting a modern rehearsal of St. 
 Domingo, or, at the very least, by making the* 
 occasion a pretence to rear their " flag of pro- 
 tection" in Madagascar! That France will 
 hold herself in reserve for this line of tactics 
 on a very early opportunity (should England 
 decline to " be juggled with" at present), every 
 thing connected with her recent conduct in 
 the Southern Ocean is irresistibly calculated 
 to predict. 
 
 Every thing, we say, connected with the 
 recent conduct of France in these seas (and, 
 we may add, in other parts of the world, of 
 late years), entitles us to distrust her integrity 
 in relation to Madagascar. We shall venture 
 to be a little circumstantial in corroboration of 
 this assertion. 
 
 In the year 1829 or 1830, a French expe- 
 dition was planned in France, with the view 
 of attacking and taking possession of some of 
 the sea-ports upon the eastern coast of Mada- 
 gascar. Instructions were accordingly sent 
 to their naval commander-in-chief upon the 
 South American Station, to dispatch a force 
 from thence to the dominions of her Malagasy 
 majesty, and to carry out the benevolent inten- 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 213 
 
 tions of the French ministry. The expedition 
 made at once for Bourbon, where it was 
 strengthened by such disposable force as 
 awaited it ; and, thus complete in its arrange- 
 ments, presented itself at once in the roads of 
 Tamatave. Not to be too minute in an affair 
 of such trifling moment, suffice it to say, that, 
 after destroying the fort and massacring an 
 immense number of the inoffensive natives,* 
 the armament proceeded to Foule-Pointe, where 
 it met with a somewhat different reception. 
 In a word, the native forces visited the French 
 with a severe retribution, and drove them in 
 disgrace from their shores. The result of the 
 attack upon this latter point appears so incon- 
 sistent with what might be expected from a 
 regularly organised French force, that, lest the 
 reader might be disposed to discredit the 
 source whence we derive our information, we 
 shall give him a brief summary of the trans- 
 action from M. Laverdant's own account of it. 
 " The commandant amused himself with 
 throwing fifteen or eighteen hundred balls 
 
 * " C'avait ete une horrible boucherie, et les plaines, 
 a une grande distance, 6taient convertes de cadavres." — 
 Laverdant, p. 178. 
 
214 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 upon the huts of the abandoned village, and 
 then disembarked his troops, in order to make 
 an attack upon the fort, which stood in the 
 back-ground of the locale, beyond the reach 
 of the cannon. As the soldiery advanced, a 
 few miserable guns from the Hova fort (jnau- 
 vaises pieces du fort) discharged their contents 
 amongst the ranks of the invaders. At the 
 very first discharge, a captain cried out, 
 *^ Sauve qui peut !'' upon which 1500 French 
 soldiers took to their heels, having no more 
 than 200 native soldiers in front of them" 
 (1500 Fran9ais prirent la fuite, n'ayant pas 
 devant eux plus de 200 soldats barbares). 
 " The day after this brilhant exploit," con- 
 tinues M. Laverdant, " M. Goubeyer weighed 
 anchor, and proceeded to bombard the fort of 
 Pointe-a-Lanee, where a great number of 
 women and children lost their lives!" The 
 Queen Ranavalona, upon learning what had 
 happened in her country, took occasion to 
 exclaim, says Laverdant, *' One Goubeyer is 
 come into our island, who massacres our 
 women, but runs away from the men !" 
 
 Thus terminated an expedition projected 
 by the French nation against the lives and 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 215 
 
 liberties of an almost defenceless and semi- 
 barbarous people ! Viva la Gloire Frangaise /* 
 
 Voild, act the first. 
 
 Antecedent to the year 1841, the natives 
 of the east coast of Madagascar had been in 
 the habit of resorting to the French settlement 
 of St. Mary's Island, no less for protection 
 from the Hova officers than for manual em- 
 ployment. This step on the part of her 
 subjects could not but be displeasing to Rana- 
 valona (with whom, as we have so often 
 remarked, the feudal system rendered the 
 Malagasy people serfs of the soil), and who 
 remonstrated strongly against the conduct of 
 the French authorities in that island, and con- 
 stantly demanded that they should be sent 
 back to her. But the French treated her 
 appeals with contempt. At last her majesty, 
 agreeing with the Roman's argument, that 
 " sunt certi denique fines" &c., prepared an 
 expedition to recover them by the persuasions 
 of " vi et armis" to which end she consulted 
 the utmost resources of her kingdom. But 
 
 * Gourbeyer's expedition was immortalised, in the 
 French newspapers, as a " glorieuse campagne ! " The 
 fact is asserted by Laverdant himself. 
 
216 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 the projected invasion fell to the ground, 
 thereby strengthening the French contempt 
 for, and influence against, her. But now, 
 as if to turn the tables on Ranavalona, and to 
 punish her for a presumption so unusual, the 
 authorities of Nosibe (or Nos-Beh), an islet 
 on the north-west coast of Madagascar, which 
 (as we shall presently more particularly relate) 
 the French had a short time before contrived 
 to get into their hands, organised a force of 
 native marauders to retaliate upon her pos- 
 sessions along the east coast. This they did 
 with no little success, revenging themselves 
 upon the queen by the massacre of some of 
 her commandants, by the capture of her can- 
 non and cattle, as well as by the leading 
 away into slavery a vast number of her 
 Betsimasaraka subjects. It is positively stated 
 that the captured slaves v^ere carried off to 
 Nosib^. But the difficulty of procuring mi- 
 nute information from the natives (in the 
 absence of any agent of our own in the 
 country) must keep us much in the dark, in 
 reference to any thing beyond the outline of 
 the operations of the French in the less fre- 
 quented parts of Madagascar. 
 
 In the next place, let us turn our eyes to 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 217 
 
 Nosibe itself, when we shall meet with another 
 confirmation of what we have thrown out 
 upon the subject of France's views upon Ma- 
 dagascar. This islet, which is nearly of similar 
 extent to St. Mary's, lies but a few miles off 
 the north-western coast of the country. 
 
 Insignificant as on the map it would ap- 
 pear to be, Nosibe was of sufficient import- 
 ance in the eyes of the French government 
 to render it a desirable position for the esta- 
 blishment of a colony. Accordingly, in 1840, 
 it suddenly became a French possession. If, 
 at Mauritius, the question be started. To what 
 circumstances France is indebted for her occu- 
 pation of Nosibe ? it is replied by the few to 
 whom the subject has ever before occurred — 
 It was purcliased, we suppose, we believe, or 
 we presume, from the natives ! 
 
 Without having it in our power to present 
 the reader with any more definite information 
 upon the quomodo of their negotiations, we 
 shall give the explanation of a Frenchman 
 upon the matter. '' Les menaces de guerre 
 qui, en 1840, retentirent dans toute I'Europe, 
 deciderent M. Thiers a envoyer I'ordre de 
 prendre possession de Nosse-Be." And Nosse- 
 Be was taken possession of accordingly. 
 
 L 
 
218 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 French aggression upon Madagascar — Exposition of the 
 Policy of France — Their Encroachments on the Comoro 
 Isles— Address of the Chiefs of Mohilla to the Go- 
 vernor of Mauritius — Mayotta, a French Possession 
 — Seizure of Nosibe ordered by Thiers — Guizot's 
 opinion on French pretensions to Madagascar — French 
 Colonisation — Extracts from documents in support of 
 French Claims — Their insolidity established — British 
 Interference called for to repress the outrages of Rana- 
 valona's Government — The annexation of the Island 
 to the British Empire not necessary to this end — 
 The dethronement of Ranavalona, establishment of a 
 British Agent, and re-introduction of Christianity, 
 essential to the well-being of Madagascar — Steps to 
 be taken for the improvement of Madagascar — Good 
 effects of a Coalition between England and France — 
 Reasons for turning the attention of the British Legis- 
 lature to the present state of Madagascar. 
 
 Upon the occasion of France laying sum- 
 mary hands upon Nosibe, a very remarkable 
 proclamation was published, at Bourbon, by 
 Admiral ** de Hell," the then governor of that 
 colony. The gallant officer, after a few poli- 
 tical flourishes upon the importance of the 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 219 
 
 acquisition to France (wherein a seasonable 
 tribute was paid to the national diffidence of 
 their Alma Mater, in comparison with that 
 which characterised the grasping government 
 of Great Britain), proceeded to excuse the 
 occupation of it by an argument which, how- 
 ever based upon a truism, was, nevertheless, 
 a singular manifestation of the spirit in which 
 it was seized upon, and could not have tended 
 to raise respect in the breasts, either of his 
 own countrymen or of ours, for the power 
 which acknowledged such a calculation. " In 
 our occupation of Nosibe/' says M. le Contre- 
 Amiral de Hell in his proclamation, *^ we 
 cannot be expected to be called upon for 
 an account of our conduct therein by Great 
 Britain; nor are we likely to raise her displea- 
 sure at the act, inasmuch as that power has 
 already helped herself pretty bountifully to 
 posse^ssions at a distance." We fully concur 
 with the gallant admiral in his critique, but 
 question the sagacity which prompted him to 
 commit his government with the world, as 
 capable of perpetrating an act of dishonesty, in 
 virtue of the security which they enjoyed from 
 being interrupted in the act by Great Britain. 
 Thus secure in their possession of Nosib6, 
 
220 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 the French began to direct their eyes towards 
 the Comoro Isles, a group lying nearly midway 
 between the northern extremity of Madagas- 
 car and the neighbouring continent of Africa, 
 at the extremity of the Mozambique Channel. 
 These islands were formerly in the possession 
 of, or at least did fealty to, the Imaun of 
 Muscat ; but to this power they do not now 
 any longer appear to be tributary : they are 
 governed, however, not by African but by 
 Arab princes— a family of purely Mahometan 
 habits and descent. The Malagasse have for 
 centuries diverted and enriched themselves by 
 periodic invasions of these islands, on which 
 occasions they have been in the habit of carry- 
 ing off the natives, as slaves, to their own 
 country. Sir Robert Farquhar exerted him- 
 self, with much success, to put a stop to these 
 outrages. 
 
 Amongst this group of islands, that nearest 
 to Nosibe and Bourbon, and, consequently, 
 offering some advantages, in point of situ- 
 ation, over the rest, is " Mayotta." Mayotta, 
 accordingly, the French determined to make 
 their own. Nor were they long in putting 
 their resolution into practice ; for, at the end 
 of the very same year in which Nosib6 had 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 221 
 
 been laid violent hands upon, or early in the 
 next, we find Mayotta figuring as a French 
 colony. The following, as throwing some 
 light upon the manner of its acquisition, will 
 not be without its interest to the reader : — 
 
 ''About the close of the year 1841, infor- 
 mation of a private nature was received at 
 Mauritius, to the eiFect that a French man-of- 
 war had sailed from Nosibe to take possession 
 of Mayotta ; and the same accounts gave out 
 that the chief or king of that island (who was 
 a prince of Malagasy blood, and possessed, 
 it is said, an hereditary right to the northern 
 districts of Madagascar) had fled, in conse- 
 quence, to another of the Comoro Isles, viz. 
 Johanna. Moreover, that the French had 
 declared Mohilla (another of the same group) 
 to be under their protection, ' thereby, along 
 with their aggressive proceedings at Johanna, 
 manifesting their intention of occupying the 
 whole of the Comoro Islands.' " 
 
 With so much secrecy, and with so little 
 open manifestation of hostility, are the aggres- 
 sive proceedings of this people conducted, that 
 the oldest residents and the best-informed par- 
 ties in our adjoining colony of Mauritius upon 
 what is going on around them, acknowledge 
 
222 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 themselves hoodwinked by the insidious tac- 
 tics of the French government in those seas. 
 
 We had given ourselves some trouble to 
 ascertain (from those interested in the move- 
 ments of the French in these latitudes) by 
 what agency they had succeeded in obtaining 
 possession of Mayotta. And the most satis- 
 factory information we were able to obtain 
 elucidatory thereof, was that, like St. Mary's, 
 it had been purchased from the natives. A 
 little later, however, in our researches upon 
 this point, we were so fortunate as to obtain 
 the copy of a document which had been laid 
 before the local government of Mauritius as 
 early as in the year 1841, from which we shall 
 now proceed to extract some materials that 
 will help to dispel the mist that has hitherto 
 hung over the proceedings of France in con- 
 nexion with this their lately acquired setfle- 
 ment : — 
 
 " Her Britannic Majesty's Ship Endymio7ij 
 ''Johannay 2Ath May, 1841. 
 
 " Sir, — I have heard with much surprise 
 that a proposal has lately been made to your 
 majesty, by the captain of the French corvette 
 Trevoyante, that your majesty should surren- 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 223 
 
 der the Island of Mayotta to the French 
 nation ; and that, upon your majesty's refusal 
 to accede to this proposal, the French captain 
 declared his intention of returning, in two or 
 three weeks, to take forcible possession of this 
 island. 
 
 " Considering the intimate series of friend- 
 ship and alliance which have for so long a 
 period connected the people of Johanna with 
 the Enghsh nation, I feel assured that the 
 intelligence of such a proceeding, on the part 
 of the French captain, would not be received 
 with indifference by my august mistress, the 
 Queen of England ; and I shall not fail to 
 transmit to my government, by the earliest 
 opportunity, this information upon the sub- 
 ject. I shall, at the same time, have much 
 pleasure in reporting the earnest desire ex- 
 pressed by your majesty, that the Johannese 
 should continue to be united to England by 
 the same friendly ties as under your majesty's 
 predecessors. 
 
 " Allow me, sir, to take this opportunity 
 of thanking your majesty for the assistance 
 I have received from all your majesty's officers 
 in obtaining the supplies required for the use 
 
224 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 of her Britannic Majesty's ship under my 
 command. 
 
 " I beg to remain, 
 '* Your Majesty's most obedient, humble servant, 
 
 (Signed) "H. W. GREY, Captain/' 
 
 From the document containing the above, 
 we further extract the King of Johanna's own 
 explanation of, and feelings upon, the very 
 modest mission of the French corvette. 
 
 " She came to this island," said King 
 Salem, " to endeavour to make peace between 
 me and the Madagascar people of Mayotta 
 Island, which was not accomplished, in con- 
 sequence of my observing, ' How can I make 
 peace with a man who keeps my island (May- 
 otta) and property by unfair means, and, 
 having taken my people, sold them to Tor- 
 tigue, at a port in the northward of the Island 
 of Madagascar ?' 
 
 '' The captain of the French corvette, in 
 reply, said, ' If you will let me have the Island 
 of Mayotta, I have nothing more to say ; if 
 you resist, I shall bring a force in two or three 
 months, and take possession of it : and, recol- 
 lect, by so doing, you make war against the 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 225 
 
 French ; at the same time, it will be a good 
 thing for France if you do, as we shall then 
 take and keep possession of this island.'" 
 
 To this the king, Salem, replied, " These 
 islands are not my own, but held in trust by 
 me from my friend and ally, Victoria, the queen 
 of England ; therefore, I cannot make any ar- 
 rangement about giving up the island without 
 first consulting her." 
 
 At the close of this remarkable document, 
 we meet with the following paragraph, with its 
 accompanying signatures : — 
 
 " This conversation took place in King 
 Salem's house, at Motambao, Johanna, in pre- 
 sence of the undersigned. 
 
 rSi ned^ /" ^' TINNS, R.N. 
 
 (. ^gne ; 1^^ JAMES R. KNAPP, Surgeon, 
 
 '* Ship Proserpine." * 
 
 Whilst meditating a descent upon May- 
 ottai the French, as we have shewn from the 
 
 * We are unable to afford any explanation of the 
 circumstances which led to the above-mentioned parties 
 being present during this conversation ; or, indeed, as to 
 the character and position of those parties themselves. 
 We presume the Proserpine to have been a merchant 
 vessel. 
 
 l2 
 
226 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 letter of King Salem, were also trying to juggle 
 him out of Johanna. Nor is this all ; they had 
 irons also in the fire ready to be made use of in 
 connexion with a third of the Comoro Islands, 
 viz. Mohilla ; for, in the same year 1841, the 
 chiefs of that place addressed themselves in a 
 letter to the governor of Mauritius, entreating 
 protection from him against the same marau- 
 ders. The letter is so characteristic of the 
 simplicity and mildness of character of the 
 Comoro Islanders, that we subjoin a transla- 
 tion of it for the reader's perusal ; — 
 
 *' To the Governor of Mauritius. 
 
 " Boana Somary, governor of Mohilla, 
 sends salutation, with all the people of Mohilla, 
 to your excellency, and informs you that Ra- 
 manetaka* is dead. Now, we declare that he 
 
 * The history of this Ramanetaka is at once interest- 
 ing and eventful. He was a Malagasy prince, and own- 
 cousin to Radama ; and, at the time of his kinsman's death, 
 was enjoying the governorship of an important port on 
 the western shores of the island. It has already been 
 remarked, that one of Ranavalona's earliest steps, on as- 
 cending the throne of Madagascar, was to remove all and 
 every connexion of her predecessor's whose presence in 
 her kingdom might be an eye-sore, or, by possibility, an 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 227 
 
 governed Mohilla, and did not govern it 
 harshly, and did not love war ; nor did he hire 
 us out for money to increase his own wealth ; 
 but, when he arrived in our country, he pro- 
 moted the welfare of us and of our wives and 
 children ; and, on that account, we made him 
 king ; for such is the custom in our country, 
 Mohilla, to make king of him who defends our 
 wives and children, and, therefore, we made 
 him king. And when the time came that God 
 took him, and he was gone, we then caused 
 
 inconvenience to her majesty. Ramanetaka, on this ac- 
 count, was one of the first upon whom Ranavalona turned 
 her attention, with a view to his removal. He was sum- 
 moned (under pretence of taking the oath of allegiance) 
 to the capital ; and, having had timely warning of what 
 was about to befal him, he at once complied with the 
 warrant of the soldiers who came to apprehend him. Ra- 
 manetaka had bargained with an Arab sloop to be at his 
 command, and he found no difficulty in prevailing on the 
 guard to embark with him therein, under pretence of 
 shortening the land-journey before them. The chief also 
 succeeded in recommending them to remain in the boat at 
 the sloop's stern, as a preferable mode of escaping sea- 
 sickness ! Thus far favoured in his plans, Ramanetaka 
 divided the rope which attached the latter to the vessel, 
 and exclaimed, "Life is sweetl — I am ofFI" He then 
 sailed for Mohilla, where he was well received, and placed 
 in authority over that island. 
 
 For this anecdote, vide " Narrative of Persecutions 
 in Madagascar," by Messrs. Freeman and Johns, pp. 16, 17. 
 
228 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 his child, Safisody, to reign of our free will, 
 over all the people of Mohilla. 
 
 " Now, with regard to our state in our 
 island, we do not desire war with any people ; 
 but it is they that hasten to fight against us. 
 It is God that is our defender. But as for the 
 people of Mohilla, our practice is to work, that 
 we may thereby support our wives and chil- 
 dren, for we have no quarrel with any people, 
 
 " Say the Governor of Mohilla and all 
 the Chief People of Mohilla. 
 
 " And, respecting the affair of Monsieur 
 Douronvalle, his statennents are altogether 
 false, for we owe him nothing at all,* f 
 
 *• Say the Governor," &c. 
 
 Mohilla and Johanna, however, for the 
 moment escaped ; but Mayotta speedily be- 
 came a French possession, and has ever since 
 sparkled amongst the other gems of Louis- 
 Philippe's diadem. No matter as to the diplo- 
 
 * Probably alluding to the French captain of the 
 corvette Trevoyante, or to some other such individual 
 who may have been at Mohilla on a similar errand. 
 
 t The document containing the foregoing letters upon 
 the subject of the French encroachments on the Comoro 
 Isles, was transmitted by the Rev. Mr. Johns (the last of 
 the Protestant missionaries in Madagascar) to a friend in 
 Mauritius, who had also laboured in the same field with 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 229 
 
 matic finesse employed in the acquirement 
 of it, the world is told that his majesty pur- 
 chased it, and the world troubles its head no 
 further in the matter. 
 
 Monsieur Laverdant, speaking of the po- 
 licy of France in these seas, observes, in con- 
 nexion with Nosibe and Mayotta, that " the 
 government of the French Island of Bourbon 
 hinted to that of the mother-country that it 
 was necessary to find a substitute for Mau- 
 ritius in the track of the vast English com- 
 merce, and to estabUsh there a military post, 
 as well as a rendezvous for our men-of-war 
 and privateers ;" and, for the attainment of this 
 united object, it suggested that, on the north- 
 west of Madagascar, the most befitting site 
 would be found. After stating, then (as we 
 have given in his own words), that Monsieur 
 Thiers had ordered Nosibe to be seized, La- 
 verdant thus remarks upon the occupation of 
 
 himself. Mr. Johns had returned to Madagascar, with the 
 hope of extending the Gospel in the north-western districts 
 of the island, where his position enabled him to gain much 
 information relative to the operations of the French at 
 Nosibe. These letters, &c. were laid before the local 
 government of Mauritius by the party to whom they were 
 transmitted ; but her majesty's ministers decided upon 
 non-interference in the affairs of the Comoro Islands. 
 
230 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 Mayotta. " The impulse was given " (allud- 
 ing to the capture of Nosibe), *' and, in seizing 
 Mayotta the same year" (en s'emparant cette 
 ann6e de Mayotta), " the minister of the 29th 
 October enriched France with a military sta- 
 tion, and a magazine of the very first im- 
 portance."— P. 108. 
 
 Thus have we given the reader some in- 
 sight into the modern tactics of the French in 
 that portion of the southern hemisphere which 
 falls more immediately within the scope of our 
 present subject to deal with. Already have 
 they opened an active commerce along the 
 Mozambique and Zanguebar coasts, and have 
 located a resident, or envoy, in Abyssinia; and 
 that their occupation of Nosibe and Mayotta 
 are but preparatory measures to their pos- 
 sessing themselves of " la grande ile Africaine" 
 — Madagascar, appears to have been openly as- 
 serted by more than one of the French mi- 
 nistry itself,* and strongly advanced, besides, 
 
 • " A very categorical declaration to this effect was 
 last year made by the Minister of Marine, and the Director 
 of the Colonies. " France," say they, " has taken up a 
 position on its north-west coast, in order to extend her 
 sovereign sway over the great island itself, in order to sub- 
 jugate the country, in order to be in a posture to enforce 
 our incontestable rights." — D^sini Laverdant, p. 109. 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 231 
 
 by the most recent French writer upon Ma- 
 dagascar.* 
 
 But, so long as Monsieur Guizot continues 
 to exercise so great an influence over the 
 poh'cy of the French government, we may ex- 
 pect to see these flattering castles still floating 
 awhile longer in thin air. We have already, 
 in a preceding page, observed upon a remark 
 he has the credit of having made on the sub- 
 ject of France's pretensions to Madagascar. 
 " Je suis convaincu," says this statesman, 
 " que la France ferait, passez moi le mot, une 
 folic en essayant de renouveler de grands ^ta- 
 blissements coloniaux a Madagascar. Nous 
 n*avons aucun dessein de nous servir de Nosse- 
 B6 pour rentrer dans I'ile de Madagascar. 
 Certainement, tant qu'il me sera donne d'avoir 
 quelque influence dans les conseils de la cou- 
 ronne et de mon pays, je m'opposerai, pour 
 mon compte, a ce que nous laissions attirer 
 
 * " Within these last two years, two acts, — the occu- 
 pation of Nosse-Be and that of Mayotta, — indicate that the 
 attention of government is directed afresh to the great 
 African island." — D^sir^ Laverdant, p. 108. 
 
 " Mayotta and Nosse-Be possess, then, a real import- 
 ance ; but of what avail would be these two points with- 
 out the great island (la grande terre)?" — Ibid. p. 109. 
 
232 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 et compromettre dans les affaires et les luttes 
 de la grande ile elle-meme." 
 
 M. Laverdant's chagrin at the views of 
 M. Guizot (and somewhat similar ones on 
 the part of M. Thiers), in connexion with 
 Madagascar, is truly deserving of our com- 
 passion. 
 
 '' Par malheur," he writes, '* I'esprit public 
 semble aujourd'hui ferm6 a I'id^e de la colo- 
 nisation, et nous voyons avec douleur des 
 hommes 6minents encourager le prejuge du 
 vulgaire." — P. 14. 
 
 " Est-il vrai que le g^nie de la France soit 
 contraire a I'ceuvre colonisatrice ? Est-il vrai 
 qu'aux Fran9ais soient interdites la fonction et 
 la gloire de donner la vie aux contr^es sau- 
 vages, et d'initier les peuples barbares a la 
 civilisation ? L'histoire du passe suffit pour 
 r^pondre victorieusement a cette accusation." 
 
 The history of the past does, indeed, re- 
 spond to the accusation! St. Domingo, for 
 instance, and Madagascar in former, Algeria 
 and Tahiti, in later years ! 
 
 And then, as an exposition of the argu- 
 ments which call upon France to possess her- 
 self of Madagascar, M. Laverdant has the 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 233 
 
 following, amongst a host of similar ones, each 
 more redolent of French modesty than the 
 preceding : — 
 
 " II est de principe, dans le droit des gens, 
 que, lorsqu'un peuple a plante son pavilion 
 sur une terre nouvelle, et lorsque par des 
 actes nombreux il a t^moigne de sa volonte 
 d'etendre, de continuer sa domination, il est 
 de principe que cette terre ne pent plus etre 
 saisie par un autre peuple. 
 
 "Avons-nous plante a Malegache notre 
 pavilion souverain, et avons-nous temoign^ 
 Tintention de conserver et de developper cette 
 conquete ?"— P, 87. 
 
 " Malegache est sur la route de tons les 
 vastes empires orientaux de I'Angleterre. En 
 cas de guerre, c'est la plus formidable position 
 qui puisse menacer la puissance Anglaise." — 
 P. 20. 
 
 " Ce point du globe est done, pour un 
 peuple qui pent avoir encore a lutter avec 
 I'Angleterre, le post militaire le plus important. 
 L*Ile de France, que tant de beaux souvenirs 
 guerriers et htt^raires attachaient a la France, 
 est devenue Maurice, et le pavilion rouge fiotte 
 sur les vastes citadelles construites au bord de 
 
234 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 ses rades par I'Angleterre. II faut done rem- 
 placer cette position perdue." — P. 21. 
 
 Again : 
 
 " Malegache nous offre ses baies et ses 
 golfes magnifiques : de la, si la guerre revenait, 
 nous couperions tons les courants commer- 
 ciaux de I'Angleterre, du Cap de Bonne Esp6- 
 rance aux mers Arabiques, aux mers de I'lnde 
 et de la Chine ; et nos croiseurs, descendant le 
 canal, poursuivraient encore toutes les exp6di- 
 tions de I'Australie et New-Zelande. Male- 
 gache paralyserait Maurice, Malegache affa- 
 merait Maurice ; car cette colonic tire des 
 ports de la cote orientale une partie des appro- 
 visionnements, et notamment toute sa viande 
 de bouchiere. Malegache conquise par la 
 France est aisenient defendue ; elle se nourrit 
 elle-merae. Maurice demande aujourd'hui 
 toute sa subsistance a I'ext^rieur ; en temps 
 de guerre, cette ile, qui ne produit plus de 
 vires, serait surprise et ruinee." — Pp. 22, 23. 
 
 These latter hints are thrown out with but 
 too much truth. Already, in Mauritius, have 
 many of the necessaries of life been trebled 
 in cost since Madagascar closed her ports 
 against us. 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 235 
 
 " Que risthme de Suez soit ouvert, riotre 
 lie ne perd rien de sa grande importance ! 
 C'est toujours le foyer d'ou rayonne la vie sur 
 le vaste continent d'Afrique ; c'est toujours le 
 lier entre cette partie du continent et I'Eu- 
 rope; c'est toujours I'escale entre I'Europe et 
 les vastes possessions Anglaises du Cap ; c'est 
 toujours un poste d'observation d*ou la France 
 pent etendre sa main sur la grande route du 
 commerce entre I'occident et Torient." — P. 22. 
 
 Again : 
 
 " En vue des ^venements qui peuvent s'ac- 
 complir dans le Levant, tout le monde a com- 
 pris quelle preponderance nous donnait notre 
 colonic du Nord d'Afrique. Dans la provision 
 de la lutte qui pent s'engager un jour au centre 
 de I'Asie, entre les deux colosses Anglais et 
 Russe, il faut se preparer line autre position 
 plus avancee, d'ou la France puisse surveiller 
 les mouvements du monde Asiatique. Que 
 I'Angleterre et la Russie se disputent I'Asie : 
 I'Algerie et Malegache donnent TAfrique a la 
 France. Quand la route overland par Tlsthme 
 de Suez viendra a etre ouverte, les riches pos- 
 sessions Anglaises du Cap n'ont plus aucune 
 valeur politique. Malegache et I'Algerie nous 
 donnent alors une supr6matie qu'aucune puis- 
 
236 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 sance etablie a Constantinople et jusqu'en 
 Syrie ne peut combattre ; et ces deux postes, 
 ces deux empires, nous permettent de main- 
 tenir la neutralite de TEgypte et du grand 
 passage."— Pp. 22, 23. 
 
 M. Laverdant then quotes the following 
 from the " Voyage du Sieur Dubois," under- 
 taken soon after the first early occupation of 
 Fort Dauphin : — '* Le mesme jour. Monsieur 
 TAmiral prist possession de I'isle au nom du 
 roy ;" upon which he makes the following con- 
 clusive remark, — 
 
 " Ainsi, le fait de prise de possession par la 
 France, non pas seulement de quelques points 
 sur la cote orientale, mais de l'ile enti^ire est 
 unfait Evident, iND]fcNiABLE."— P. 92. 
 
 Evident and undeniable indeed ! even, we 
 should think, to 'the understanding of " an 
 English government," which, M. Laverdant 
 informs us, " would refuse to acknowledge the 
 sun when shining, if thereby they could inter- 
 rupt the colonial developement of all other 
 countries !" 
 
 We shall wind up our extracts from this 
 modest brochure with the following unan- 
 swerable appeal in support of France's title to 
 possess herself of Madagascar : — 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 237 
 
 " Les droits que nous pretendons sur Ma- 
 dagascar impliquent des devoirs ; ils nous im- 
 posent Tobligation d'initier a notre civilisation 
 les peuples Malegaches. Remplissons cette 
 mission sacree" (the devil can quote Scrip- 
 ture, &c.) " si nous voulons encore etre un 
 grand peuple devant le monde." — Pp. 159, 160. 
 
 " C'est une guerre sainte, car il s'agit de 
 secourir des hommes asservis sous un joug in- 
 fame et d'arracher toute une race aux tortures 
 de Tempoisonnement ; c'est une guerre utile et 
 glorieuse, car il y a a Malegache une source 
 immense de richesses a ouvrir, un magnifique 
 empire k conquerir pour la France." — P. 160. 
 
 In reviewing that important part of the 
 present sketch which relates to the connexion 
 with, and the views of France towards, Mada- 
 gascar, we have felt it our duty to enter some- 
 what at length into an examination of the 
 pamphlet before us, inasmuch as it has been 
 received with much attention and indulgence 
 in France ; and, from embracing a period in 
 politics (in connexion with the southern hemi- 
 sphere), the most recent that has been given 
 to the world, it claims a natural title to be 
 heard on the subject of which it treats. 
 
 In a preceding part of this inquiry, we have 
 
238 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 expressed the opinion that England would find 
 herself called upon to interfere in the affairs 
 of Madagascar, if only with the view to inter- 
 rupting those shocking outrages on human- 
 ity which compose a natural element in the 
 scheme of Ranavalona's government, and with 
 some idea of which we have endeavoured, in 
 the preceding pages, to familiarise the reader. 
 That it is unnecessary to annex Madagascar 
 to the British empire for the attainment of 
 this end, we need not take up the time of the 
 reader by attempting to make apparent. Nei- 
 ther do we insist on the necessity of England's 
 renewing a commercial intercourse with the 
 country for the accomplishment of this first of 
 objects ; for the latter will follow as an almost 
 certain consequence upon any success we 
 might meet with in softening the minds of the 
 people by the reintroduction of Christianity 
 amongst them.* 
 
 * " I am convinced that the first step towards a nation's 
 temporal and social elevation is to place amongst them the 
 tree of life, when civilisation and commerce will entwine 
 their tendrils around its trunk, and derive support from its 
 strength. Until the people are brought under the influ- 
 ence of religion, they have no desire for the arts and 
 usages of civilised life ; but that invariably creates it. 
 The missionaries were at Tahiti many years, during which 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 239 
 
 No more fitting opportunity can ever await 
 the mother-country to insist upon an interfe- 
 rence in the present scheme of government in 
 Madagascar than now presents itself. Whilst 
 we refuse to suffer France to aggrandise her- 
 self by the occupation of that island, let us 
 meet her more than half way in endeavouring 
 to remove Ranavalona and her chiefs from the 
 authority which they have usurped, and in 
 substituting such an one in her place as shall 
 be a guarantee for the future interests and 
 protection of the people ; and which, above 
 all, shall engage to receive an accredited Brit- 
 ish agent at the capital, together with a mis- 
 
 they built and furnished a house in the European style. 
 The natives saw this, but not an individual imitated their 
 example. 
 
 " In the South Sea Islands alone, many thousands of 
 persons are at this moment wearing and using articles of 
 European manufacture ; in the more advanced stations, 
 there is scarcely an individual who is not attired in Eng- 
 lish clothing, which has been obtained in exchange for 
 native produce. The natives in a barbarous state possess 
 not the knowledge requisite for turning the capabilities 
 and productions of their islands to good account. The 
 sugar-cane was indigenous to Tahiti ; but it is only since 
 the inhabitants have been Christianised and taught by the 
 missionaries, that they have manufactured sugar, and thus 
 converted the cane into a valuable article of commerce." — 
 Vide Williams's Narrative of Missionary Enterprise. 
 
240 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 sionary body proportioned in extent to the 
 capabilities of the island. Whether the Brit- 
 ish government will be ready to avail itself of 
 the present opening to render this measure of 
 good to the country, we have yet to learn ; 
 and, whether in the case of her willingness to 
 do so, that of France will consent to sink 
 those pretensions so speciously set forth by 
 Laverdant, for an object so praiseworthy, is a 
 question of still greater moment to determine. 
 But, be the issue of the present crisis what it 
 may, no indirect interference in the affairs of 
 Madagascar can be productive of any benefit 
 beyond the moment, unless it be based on the 
 primary removal of Ranavalona and her party 
 from power. 
 
 In proof of this position, it is only neces- 
 sary for the reader to revert to the recent 
 letter of her Malagasy majesty to the gover- 
 nor of Mauritius. During the whole of our 
 intercourse with her she has adopted the same 
 tone. A late governor of the Isle of France 
 (Sir William Nicolay) had frequent occasion 
 to despatch British men-of-war to her coast, 
 for the purpose of protesting against her 
 tyrannical proceedings towards British sub- 
 jects, who had settled in Madagascar upon the 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 241 
 
 faith of the treaty we had entered into with 
 Radama; upon some of which occasions her 
 majesty adopted gracious expressions of regret, 
 &c. &c., but more generally excused herself 
 with the argument, that " Madagascar and its 
 productions are mine ; and I am as much the 
 sovereign of that island as Victoria is of Eng- 
 land. I do not interfere with what the queen 
 of England chooses to do in her country ; 
 and, on the same principle, I will not suffer 
 any foreign interference with my policy or 
 actions ! " 
 
 The avowal of such a spirit towards 
 foreigners, together with the recent practical 
 proofs* she has afforded us, that she will lose 
 no opportunity of acting up to her word, is 
 assurance sufficient that we can hope for 
 nothing less than treachery and falsehood from 
 Ranavalona, should the attempt even be made 
 to ^^ open a fresh account" with this woman 
 upon a more promising footing than hereto- 
 
 * In addition to the recent ill-usage of Mr. Heppick 
 and the subsequent treatment of the traders in Madagascar 
 the reader will not forget the massacre, a few months ago 
 on her coast, of a lieutenant and boat's crew of her 
 majesty's ship Cleopatra, for which no sort of retribution 
 was afforded by her majesty's government. 
 
 M 
 
24'2 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 fore. '' Let no such " one " be trusted !" If 
 it were her ignorance alone that we had to 
 combat, something might be hoped for by 
 yielding awhile longer to her exactions and 
 injustice ; but we have reason to fear that her 
 knavery is far more conspicuous than her 
 want of knowledge ; and her pride, perhaps, 
 than either : of which her contemptuous treat- 
 ment alike of French and English, for the last 
 sixteen years, is a prominent illustration.* 
 
 ♦ This quality is remarkably conspicuous in the cha- 
 racter of the higher orders in Madagascar. One incident, 
 corroborative of it, has already been alluded to, upon the 
 occasion of Captain Kelly's first conference with the 
 authorities at Tamatave. In addition thereto, we may 
 mention the following anecdote, which strongly illustrates 
 the shrewdness as well as pride of the higher classes of 
 this people. When the Conway was despatched, in June 
 1845, from Mauritius, with a view to protecting the Eng- 
 lish residents at Tamatave, the demands of the Mauritian 
 government upon Ranavalona were drawn up, extraordi- 
 nary as it may seem, under the signature of the colonial 
 secretary, George Dick. The governor of Tamatave, at 
 once struck with the fact, exclaimed, '* What! Who is 
 this George Dick? Does the governor of Mauritius deem 
 the governor of Tamatave a less important person than 
 himself, that he deputes a subordinate to communicate 
 with him ? " Whereupon he declined to receive the said 
 despatch at all I 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 243 
 
 If, then. Great Britain should now feel 
 determined to enter in earnest upon the task 
 of rescuing the Malagasy people from their 
 present deplorable condition, the first step of 
 such a policy must be the removal of Rana- 
 valona and her satellites from power, and the 
 reorganisation of authority upon a new and 
 more natural basis. That such an undertaking 
 would be attended by no extraordinary diffi- 
 culties, may, we think, be presumed from the 
 fact, that many thousands of her subjects 
 prefer to drag on a precarious existence in the 
 forests (to which they have fled, with a view 
 to escaping the terrible feudal service she has 
 imposed upon them), rather than continue to 
 live under her yoke ; and who would hail 
 the appearance of any foreign power which 
 offered them protection and support. To 
 this fact may be added another, that the 
 extensive Sakalave tribes, which people the 
 western coast of the island, are at open war 
 with the Hova power; and, it is generally 
 believed, would welcome an European arma- 
 ment — if only that it afforded them the means 
 of beridding themselves of the presence of such 
 an enemy : a fact suflBciently proved by the 
 
244 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 good understanding they have always kept up 
 with the French at Nos-Beh and St. Mary's 
 Island.* 
 
 Let France only drop her tinsel preten- 
 sions to the possession of Madagascar, and 
 co-operate, on principles of humanity alone, 
 with Great Britain for the realisation of this 
 great end, and the attainment of the object 
 before us will not be difficult. On the other 
 hand, should M. Guizot be overruled in the 
 line of policy to which he has hitherto ex- 
 pressed himself determined to adhere in con- 
 nexion with Madagascar, and have to witness 
 France's appropriation of what, in the French 
 Chambers, has been well defined as " une 
 Alg^rie a quatre mille lieues ;" adieu, then, to 
 the prospects of Madagascar, for the present 
 
 * We must qualify this remark by explaining that, as 
 far as we can procure information to be relied on, the 
 Sakalaves have manifested, at all times, a good disposition 
 towards the French at St. Mary's and Nos-Beh, so long as 
 the latter have refrained from oppressing them. But the 
 native Sakalaves in those islands have, of late, been en- 
 rolled, by their French employers, into the feudal system 
 of slavery, whence has since arisen, we understand, towards 
 the latter a very different feeling on the part of the tribe in 
 question, who have become fully alive to the interested 
 policy of their foreign neighbours. 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 245 
 
 century at least ; although the exchange from 
 a native to a French government v^^ould, at 
 least, give them the advantage of a greater 
 security to life, whilst their present feudal 
 servitude would probably undergo an amelio- 
 ration by passing into the form of Gallic 
 slavery.* 
 
 * Dr. Keith, in his introduction to the '* Evidence of 
 Prophecy," has committed a strange error in the following 
 passage : — *' Slavery, which prevailed in every state, is 
 now unknown in every Christian country throughout 
 Europe." — P. 13. If the remark be intended to be re- 
 ceived literally, the writer of it is certainly Jwrect; but 
 if, on the contrary, it has reference to those countries also 
 where European governments exist and the Christian reli- 
 gion is in general operation, nothing can be more erroneous 
 — videlicet, the French and Spanish colonies. 
 
 If one might form an opinion of the probably salutary 
 operations of the Catholic religion in Madagascar, from 
 the destructive consequences of another (in every respect 
 its converse in spirit and practice), amongst the native 
 inhabitants of the Sandwich Islands, it behoves every 
 zealous Christian to wish for its introduction ! After a 
 few general expressions of horror (" quant aux Protestants, 
 aux rigides Methodistes, leur action, il faut le dire, est 
 souvent funeste sur les terres nouvelles") at the fatal ten- 
 dency of our Protestant missionary labours amongst the 
 South Sea Islanders, M. Desire Laverdanl opens the 
 following disastrous chapter of events to oar notice. — 
 *' Des documents certaines etablissent que depuis ces der- 
 nier temps une mortalite effrayante decime la population 
 
246 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 Should the Malagasy people be fortunate 
 enough to excite in Europe an active and 
 disinterested sympathy in their future condi- 
 tion, we earnestly hope that the feeling will 
 not be allowed to cool before a demonstration 
 
 des Sandwich : c'est la le fruit de Taction des Europeens, 
 et particuli^rement des Methodistes. La regime puritain, 
 vigoureusement impost, a attriste ces pauvres sauvages ; 
 le bouleverseraent jete brusquement dans leur habitudes a 
 porte atteinte a la sante generale. Au moment oii les 
 matelots Chretiens leur defendaient le bain et affublaient 
 leur nudite d'habits lourds et genants. Ainsi emprison- 
 nes dans dtfe haillons et eloignes de I'eau, ou ils se plon- 
 geaint chaque jour enjouant, la malproprete a developpe, 
 entretenu et exaspere chez eux des maladies de peau ter- 
 ribles. Ces pauvres gens, qui apparaissaient tout misselants 
 et lustres, dans leur nudite naive et saine, a I'Europeen 
 surpris, et le salvaient de si doux sourires, aujourd'hui 
 passent tremblants et honteur, deguenilles, puants et fletris, 
 sous le regard du missionaire ; et lui, pour un tel succ^s, 
 eleve stupidement vers Dieji ses actions de graces. Allez I 
 Dieu detourne sa face de votre ceuvre maudite, et il prend 
 en pitie vos miserables folies ! 
 
 ** Le gouvernement de France ne permettra pas que 
 de telles cruantes soient commises dans le pays ou flotte 
 notre pavilion. S'il y avait chez nous de pareils fanatiques, 
 on ne leur laisserait pas la liberte de faire le mal. 
 
 " Pretres Chretiens, comprenez mieux votre sublime 
 et sainte mission. Et vous, nos fr^res Catholiques, ob- 
 servez avec soin les faits, et voyez que votre superiorite 
 sur les Protestants vous I'avez due a la satisfaction que 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 247 
 
 be made by England or France, or by both, 
 in their favour. We do not pretend to dic- 
 tate to those powers the Hne of conduct to be 
 pursued towards Ranavalona and her sup- 
 porters ; but we may venture to intrude an 
 
 votre eglise donne a I'element humain, a la tolerance, au 
 luxe."— Pp. 152, 3. 
 
 Notwithstanding the above very flattering testimony in 
 favour of the Protestant missionary labours, and the fre- 
 quent expression of such sentiments as " Heureux encore 
 lorsque les missionaires appartiennent a la religion Catho- 
 lique," it is surprising how much M. Laverdant's own 
 pamphlet gives the lie to the very favourable opinion he 
 affects to entertain towards the French disseminators of 
 our Saviour's religion ! Thus, in one place, he repeats 
 (what, indeed, is matter of history) the scandalous story 
 of a French Catholic church dignitary, who attempting, by 
 every species of violence and fraud, to force Romanism 
 upon the native Malagasy, was himself murdered for his 
 pains, and the entire French expedition (of which he w^as 
 an illustrious member) summarily removed from their 
 country, partly through the agency of the sword, and 
 partly by a timely flight from the island ! 
 
 This Romanist, adventuring to speak upon a subject 
 of which he is palpably most ignorant (namely, the reli- 
 gion of Protestants), presumes to say, — " Les Catholiques 
 sement I'evangille; les Protestants opposent la Bible au 
 Nouveau Testament, qu'ils bruleraient volontiers." — P. 149. 
 Such perversions of the truth as this almost excuse our 
 violation of the command, — " Be gentle unto all men, 
 
248 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 opinion, that the marching an army to the seat 
 of government, although perhaps the most 
 expeditious, would by no means constitute a 
 necessary step for the accomplishment of the 
 object they had in view. By occupying Ta- 
 matave and Foule-Pointe ourselves, or by 
 
 in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves.** 
 M. Laverdant cannot be ignorant that, if the pastors of 
 his creed " sow the gospel," they do not allow it to be 
 reaped in its native purity ! Sowing, as they do, a most 
 corrupt, dishonest, and distorted translation of the original, 
 they take care that the fruit shall not be reaped unless 
 accompanied with the chaff of their translation from the 
 Latin Vulgate. " When the popes discovered that they 
 could hold the sceptre without the writings of apostle or 
 prophet, they hurled them into the deepest darkness, 
 until they seemed to perish from the memory of man. 
 When the Inquisition was executing its direst cruelties on 
 the human family, the Edict of the Council of Toulouse 
 was published, which forbade the laity to read the Bible. 
 The most remarkable era of papal activity and craft was 
 when a Bull was issued, confirming the terrible law of 
 Philip II., which made it death to sell, buy, keep, or read 
 the Bible I In every country where the papacy obtained 
 influence, it invariably succeeded in extinguishing the use 
 of the Bible. The infidel and profane Louis XIV. openly 
 exulted that his persecutions had cleared his nation of 
 every man who read the Bible. In the bloody scenes of 
 1793, in which Robespierre enacted chief-fiend, the Holy 
 Bible was fastened to the tales of apes and dragged through 
 the streets 1 " — Extractcdfrom " The Spirit of the Vatican^" 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 249 
 
 replacing the present Hova authorities at 
 those ports by such other native officers as 
 would consent to govern the people (under 
 European influence) with equity and kindness, 
 we should strike a serious blow at the very 
 spring of Ranavalona's resources;, whilst these 
 ports themselves might be held by a compa- 
 ratively insignificant land force, provided they 
 were supported by a man-of-war, so situated 
 as to command the shore. In addition to the 
 above, it would be necessary to blockade the 
 few remaining points on the coast at which sup- 
 plies are occasionally received from without. 
 
 By organising, in the next place, a native 
 soldiery for the protection of the several 
 points we might decide upon occupying, we 
 should be enabled to withdraw our European 
 land forces, and leave them after awhile to 
 the protection of their own hearths, with the 
 strongest incentives by which men can be 
 actuated to defend themselves, viz. the pre- 
 servation of liberty and life. By such a line 
 of policy (cementing it yet more strongly by 
 an offer of protection and employment to all 
 who might resort to us with a view to escape 
 the iron yoke of Ranavalona), the Hova power 
 
250 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 would quickly, we are convinced, decline ; 
 and if her sceptre were not speedily torn 
 from her by such united agency, it would fall 
 of itself at length from her enervated grasp, 
 and await the occupation of such power as 
 we might determine to invest with it. 
 
 Such is a rapid outline of the extent of 
 operations in which England and France, if 
 uniting for such a work, would, in the writer's 
 opinion, be called upon to engage, for the 
 immediate amelioration of the Malagasy peo- 
 ple, and the ultimate security to them of a 
 form of government, by the displacement of 
 the present one, upon which a lasting pro- 
 sperity and happiness might be insured to 
 them. 
 
 The attainment of such an order of things 
 we deem infinitely preferable to the con- 
 joint annexation of Madagascar to England 
 and France, and eminently so to its occu- 
 pation by the latter power alone.* As in 
 
 * Monsieur Laverdant evinces a pride in congratulat- 
 ing his countrymen upon the very favourable nature of 
 the Malegasse disposition for the engrafting thereon of 
 the French character: — *' The Malegasse," says he, 'Move 
 the French ; they possess natural affinities with us, which 
 
PAST AND PRESENT. 251 
 
 St. Domingo, some Malegasy Toussaint might 
 arise in the country, in all respects more 
 palatable to the people's own tastes as a 
 governor, and, under proper tuition, more 
 calculated to enlist the services as well as the 
 sympathies of the people. 
 
 That Great Britain is called upon, on her 
 own account, to do something for the renewal 
 
 render the English character distasteful to them ; their 
 tendency to artifice and trickery causes them to feel- more 
 at home with us " (M. Laverdant's countrymen must feel 
 obliged to him), than with the English, who are a calcu- 
 lating people, ever on their guard ; they are passionately 
 fond of pleasure, and the English Puritanism ennuyees 
 them to death."— Pp. 125, 126. 
 
 We shall borrow from M. Laverdant himself, an 
 illustration or two of the pains which his countrymen, at 
 different times, have been at to infuse a taste into the 
 Malegasse bosom for " artifice and trickery." He tells us, 
 on the authority of " un chroniqueur," that " the natives 
 asked us" (the French) '' how we contrived to possess 
 ourselves of such large bars of iron as we brought with 
 us? To which we replied, that we were in the habit of 
 planting pins and needles in France, which in a certain 
 time became such as excited their curiosity. Immediately 
 poultry and eggs poured in upon us ; for a pin they would 
 give us eight eggs, and four or five fowls for a needle, and 
 off they would then set to sow them, with the point in the 
 air, as we told them was indispensable." 
 
 Again, from the same: — 
 
252 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 of her late colonial commerce with Madagas- 
 car, the serious evils already felt at Mauritius 
 sufficiently attest. The loss of "the great 
 African island/' as a market from which to 
 draw our supplies of cattle for the purposes 
 of draught and consumption, has already 
 involved the people of that colony in an 
 almost insupportable increase in the expense 
 
 " The natives are very subject to complaints in the 
 head. During our early intercourse with them, we made 
 them believe that they depended on an unhealthy vapour, 
 which had become generated in the brain, and that in 
 order to dissipate the same it was necessary to make an 
 outlet for it in the head. They were fools enough, in 
 consequence of this suggestion, to bore the necessary holes 
 in their head ; a sign" (observes our author)*" that the 
 amount of suffering they laboured under was not incon- 
 siderable." — Laverdant, pp. 42, 43. 
 
 It is, indeed, not to be wondered at, that the native 
 character should have acquired so great an affinity to that 
 of a people manifesting such anxiety to form it after their 
 own standard, and considering how imitative a species we 
 belong to, a satisfactory exposition is afforded us of those 
 " natural affinities" with the French character, which the 
 natives of Madagascar are said, by M. Laverdant, to 
 develope. 
 
 There is one point of view in which the affinity of the 
 present sovereign of Madagascar with the character of the 
 celebrated French monarch alluded to in the note of a 
 preceding page, is eminently evinced. We allude to her 
 
PAST AND PllESENT. 253 
 
 of the necessaries of life, — an evil which can 
 only acquire additional weight in proportion 
 as it is suffered to be kept up by the continu- 
 ance of the present line of policy in Mada- 
 gascar. From thus much experience of the 
 disadvantages accruing to Mauritius from the 
 loss of our commercial relationship with 
 Madagascar, some idea may be formed of the 
 truth of Monsieur Laverdant's assertion, that 
 
 respect for ihe Holy Scriptures. As soon as she had 
 berid herself of the missionaries, she ordered her officers of 
 state to collect all the books they had left behind them in 
 the hands of the native Christians. " As the Bible was 
 the largest book among the lot, it was fixed on by the 
 officers to be read first. The beginning of the 1st chapter 
 of Genesis came first in course. The officers found no 
 fault with the first verse, but in the second, the word 
 " darkness " occurred ; and as the queen, it was argued, 
 did not like darkness or anything being said about it, the 
 whole book was at once condemned as improper to be 
 used in the schools, or circulated in the country. They 
 next took up a hymn-book, and a hymn was read, in 
 which the word "Jehovah" happened to occur; the whole 
 book was therefore immediately condemned. Then several 
 of the Tracts and Catechisms, &c. were read, but there 
 were either the words "Jesus Christ," or "Jehovah," or 
 " darkness," or '' hell," or " Satan," or " resurrection," &c. 
 in all of them, and therefore they were all condemned." — 
 Narrative of Persecutions in Madagascar, p. 1 44. 
 
254 MADAGASCAR, 
 
 ** Maligache paralyserait Maurice — Maligache 
 affamerait Maurice." 
 
 But there is another point of view in 
 which the establishment of Madagascar upon 
 a new footing must be regarded with great 
 advantage to our neighbouring colony of 
 Mauritius, — we allude to the admirable faci- 
 lities it would offer us for the introduction 
 of labourers therein from that quarter. In 
 addition to the fact, that the expense of im- 
 porting workmen from Madagascar, as com- 
 pared with that now incurred by bringing 
 them from India, would undergo a reduction 
 of at least one half (whilst their return pas- 
 sage would not involve more than one fourth 
 of the present outlay) : in addition to this, by 
 no means immaterial consideration, the native 
 Malegasy will be allowed by all who have had 
 an opportunity of comparing the merits of 
 both, to be capable of performing the work 
 of two Indian coolies, whilst they are, by no 
 comparison, a more hardy as well as indus- 
 trious people, and eminently superior to them 
 in those qualities which unceasingly incline 
 the latter to vagrancy, or, to use an In- 
 dian mode of expression, to " marooning." 
 
PAST AND PRESEiNT. 255 
 
 At the present time, not only do we not 
 avail ourselves of the labourers which might 
 easily be procured from the coast of Mada- 
 gascar, but, by a most cruel policy of the 
 local government of Mauritius, a positive 
 interdiction was laid, some months prior to 
 the attack upon Tamatave, against the land- 
 ing of natives from Madagascar at our colony, 
 even though flying for their lives from the 
 pursuit of the sanguinary authorities of their 
 country. 
 
 We shall conclude with the opinion of an 
 authority well versed, from a long acquaint- 
 ance both with Mauritius and Madagascar, in 
 that part of tlie subject which we are now 
 reviewing, and who, in alluding to the desir- 
 ableness of British interference in the affairs 
 of Madagascar, remarks : — * 
 
 ** I am persuaded, that not only will im- 
 mense benefit be thus conferred on Mada- 
 
 * Mr. Baker. We shall take this opportunity of sug- 
 gesting, that should it be determined upon by the British 
 governraent to negotiate with the Malegasy, and to renew 
 such an understanding with them for the future as shall 
 be some guarantee for the preservation of British interests 
 in that quarter, the services of this gentleman would be 
 
256 MADAGASCAR, PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 gascar, but an indefinitely long period of 
 increasing prosperity and augmented com- 
 merce will be secured for the Mauritius, since 
 Madagascar can at once and immediately sup- 
 ply us with labour and many other things that 
 we want, and will receive from us in exchange 
 the merchandise and manufactures which we 
 are so able and willing to furnish. Thus our 
 currency would be made to continually circu- 
 late within the limits of our own territory, 
 or within the reach of its influence, and not 
 be carried off, as it is liable to be, by 
 our Chinese and other labourers, to fields 
 whither the British manufacturers cannot 
 follow it." 
 
 invaluable to us as resident or agent in Madagascar. A 
 raan of sincere and unobtrusive piety, and of the highest 
 sense of honour, Mr. Baker combines also a rare amount 
 of natural shrewdness, sagacity, and knowledge of the 
 world. To which qualifications we have already added, a 
 perfect acquaintance with the language and character of 
 the people. 
 
 Printed by George Barclay, Castle Street, Leicester Squa'-e. 
 
 £56 ft r