Mr. Laborde.--Prince Rakoto.--Anecdote of his Life.--The
Sambas-Sambas.--Mary.--Review on the Field of Mars.--The Nobility
in Madagascar.--The Secret Treaty.--The English Missionary Society
and Mr. Lambert.
Our host, Mr. Laborde, favored us with the following account of his
life.
He was born in France, and is the son of a well-to-do saddler. In his
youth he served for several years as a cavalry soldier in the French
army, but, being always prompted by a desire to see something of the
world, he gave up the service after his father’s death, found a
substitute, and embarked for the East Indies. In Bombay he established
several workshops, repaired steam-engines, manufactured weapons, set up
a saddlery, and did very good business; but his restless spirit would
not let him remain long in one place, so he gave up his workshops to a
friend, and in the year 1831 shipped himself off to the Indian
Archipelago. The ship, driven out of its course by a storm, was wrecked
on the coast of Madagascar. Mr. Laborde not only lost all he possessed,
but his liberty into the bargain; for, as is well known, all shipwrecked
men are made slaves of in this hospitable island. Mr. Laborde was taken,
with a few of his companions in misfortune, to Tananariva to be sold.
Fortunately, tidings of his skill in manufacturing weapons and other
articles reached the queen’s ears. She sent for him to court, and
promised him his freedom if he would serve her faithfully for five
years. Mr. Laborde did this. He established a workshop, and furnished
the queen with all kinds of weapons, even to little cannons, and also
with powder and other articles. In spite of her general hatred toward
Europeans, he gained the queen’s confidence, and she soon got to value
him so highly that she took his advice in several important affairs, and
he succeeded, not unfrequently, in dissuading her from pronouncing
sentences of death.
But it is not only in the queen’s estimation that Mr. Laborde stands
high. The people and the nobility also set great store by him; for his
many good qualities have made him popular every where, and all who need
counsel or help come to him, and never come in vain. He is physician,
confidential friend, and helper to them all.
The five years Mr. Laborde was to pass in the queen’s service extended
to ten. His patroness gave him house and home, lands and slaves; and as
he is married to a native woman, and has a son by this marriage, he will
probably remain here to the end of his life, though he has long been
free and independent, and may leave the island whenever he chooses to do
so.
Besides his manufactories for arms and powder, this industrious man has
also established works for glass-blowing, indigo-dyeing, soap and tallow
boiling, and a distillery for rum. He wished also to stock the island
with European fruits and vegetables, and most of those he planted
flourished wonderfully, but his example remained unfollowed. The natives
preferred to live on in their pristine indolence, and to continue eating
nothing but rice, with the addition of a piece of beef now and then.
If Mr. Laborde, however, did not succeed in producing all the results he
expected from his undertakings, they have at least done good service in
showing the capability of this beautiful land for cultivation.
It was toward four o’clock in the afternoon when we arrived in Mr.
Laborde’s house.
Our friendly host immediately introduced two Europeans to us, the only
ones then staying at Tananariva. The two gentlemen were clergymen; one
of them had been living for two years, the other for seven months, in
Mr. Laborde’s house. It was not the time to appear as missionaries, and
they concealed the fact of their belonging to a mission very carefully,
the prince and the Europeans being the only persons admitted into the
secret. One passes as a physician, the other as tutor to Mr. Laborde’s
son, who had come back two years since from Paris, where he had been
sent by his father to be educated.
We were soon assembled at a good dinner round our host’s table. Every
thing was arranged in European style, with the exception that the dishes
and plates were all of massive silver, and silver goblets supplied the
place of drinking-glasses. I observed jokingly to Mr. Laborde that I had
never met with such luxury at any table, and that Tananariva was the
last place in the world where I should have expected to find it. He
replied that similar luxury prevailed in all the houses of the rich, but
that there were certainly not many houses of this description. He said
he had himself introduced the fashion, but not from ostentation, but, on
the contrary, on economical grounds. He found that china-ware had
continually to be replaced, as the slaves were perfect adepts in the art
of breaking any given number of articles in the shortest possible time,
so that the use of china became very expensive.
Before we had nearly concluded our pleasant meal, while Champagne was
being handed round, and the toasts were beginning, a slave came running
up in hot haste to announce the approach of Prince Rakoto. We rose
hastily from table, but had little time to go and meet the prince, for,
in his impatience to see Mr. Lambert, he had followed close at the
slave’s heels. The two men held each other in a long embrace, but for
some time neither of them could find a word to express his joy. It was
easy to see that a deep and true friendship existed between them, and
we who stood round could not view the scene without feelings of
pleasurable emotion.
Prince Rakoto, or, to call him by his full name, Rako-dond-Radama, is a
young man twenty-seven years of age. Contrary to my expectation, his
appearance was far from disagreeable. He is short and slim in stature,
and his face does not betray a likeness, in form or color, to any of the
four races who inhabit Madagascar. His features have quite the type of
the Moldavian Greeks. His black hair is curly, but not woolly; he has
dark eyes, full of life and fire; a well-shaped mouth, and handsome
teeth. His features wear an expression of such childlike goodness that
one feels drawn toward him from the first moment of seeing him. He often
goes about in European costume.
The prince is honored and beloved alike by high and low; and I was
assured by Mr. Laborde that he fully deserved all this affection and
honor. The son is, in fact, as kind-hearted as the mother is cruel; he
is just as averse to the shedding of blood as his mother is addicted to
it, and his chief efforts are directed toward mitigating the severe
punishments the queen is continually inflicting, and obtaining a
reversal of the sentences of death which she is always too ready to
pronounce upon her subjects.
He is always ready to listen to the unfortunate, and to help them; and
has strictly forbidden his slaves to turn any applicant away on the
score that he is sleeping or engaged at his meals. Well aware of this,
people often come in the middle of the night and wake the prince from
his sleep, with petitions for their relations who are to be executed
early next morning. If he can not obtain a pardon from his mother, he
manages to pass as if by accident along the road by which the poor
culprits are led, bound with cords, to meet their fate. Then he cuts
their bonds asunder, and either tells them to flee, or to go quietly
home, according as their offenses have been grave or venial. When the
queen is informed of what her son has done, she never makes any remark,
but only tries to keep the next sentences she pronounces as secret as
possible, and to hasten their execution. Condemnation and punishment
thus often succeed each other so rapidly, that if the prince is absent
from the town when sentence is passed, the application to him for
assistance is almost sure to come too late.
It is strange, considering how radically different their dispositions
are, that mother and son should love each other so tenderly. The prince
is devoted to the queen with the utmost affection; he tries to excuse
her deeds of severity by every conceivable argument, and it is a bitter
reflection to him that she can be neither loved nor respected by the
nation.
The prince’s character is the more remarkable, inasmuch as he has had
his mother’s bad example before his eyes from his earliest youth, and
can not escape from her influence; moreover, not the slightest care has
been taken of his education. In most similar cases, the son would
certainly have imbibed the prejudices and acquired the vices of the
mother.
No one has attempted to teach him any thing, with the exception of a few
words of the English language; what he knows, and what he is, he owes
entirely to himself. What might this prince not have been had a
judicious education opened his mind and developed his talents? I had
frequent opportunities of seeing and observing him, for a day seldom
passed without his paying Mr. Lambert a visit. I found no fault in him
except a certain want of independence and a distrust of his own
abilities; and the only thing I fear, should the government one day fall
into his hands, is, that he will not come forward with sufficient
energy, and may fail in thoroughly carrying out his good intentions.
A few of the actions of this man will sufficiently prove the nobility of
his mind.
It frequently happens that the queen orders hundreds of her subjects to
perform the heaviest labor for months together for some favored
personage--such work, for instance, as hewing timber for building, and
then dragging it thirty miles along the road; hewing stone, and kindred
occupations; for all which the poor people get not the slightest reward
of any kind. When the prince hears of a case of this kind, he manages to
pass by the neighborhood where the people are at work, meets them as if
by chance, and asks for whom they are laboring thus. On receiving their
reply, he farther inquires if they are properly fed, for wages are of
course out of the question. Then it generally turns out that they not
only have no food provided for them, but frequently have consumed all
the provisions they have brought with them, and are trying to satisfy
their hunger with herbs and roots. The prince then has one or two oxen
killed, according to the number of the laborers, and this meat, with a
good supply of rice, is by his command distributed among them. If the
owner should come forward in surprise at this order, and attempt to
remonstrate, the prince sends him away with this assurance: “Whoever
works for you has a just claim to be supported by you; and if you will
not make the arrangement yourself, your steward must.”
A few years ago, a ship was wrecked on the coast of Madagascar, and the
majority of the crew perished. Five sailors who had escaped from the
wreck were sent, according to the usual custom, to the capital, to be
sold there as slaves. The prince met them during an excursion he was
making, about a day’s journey from Tananariva, and noticing that one of
the sailors had no shoes, and was limping painfully after the rest, he
drew off his own and gave them to him. He also took care that the poor
men were well fed. Mr. Laborde bought these five sailors, clothed them,
gave them money and letters of recommendation, and helped them to get
back to their own country. The prince is seldom in a position to carry
out his benevolent designs, for he has no money, or, at any rate, very
little; his whole wealth consisting in slaves, rice-fields, and oxen
given to him by his mother.
Another time the prince saw a European being led as a prisoner to the
capital by several natives. The poor wretch was being urged on like a
brute beast by his guards with blows and pushes; he was so exhausted and
weak from the long journey and the bad roads that he could drag himself
no farther. The prince reproved the guards for their cruelty, himself
alighted from his tacon, or sedan-chair, and told the captive to take
his place.
The prince, moreover, found an opportunity of showing his generosity
toward one of our bearers. True to the habits of his country, this poor
wretch had stolen an ox in the vicinity of the capital, driven it to one
of the markets, and tried to dispose of it; but he was caught in the
fact, and brought to the capital. In cases of this kind, justice in
Madagascar is very quick in taking its course; on the same day sentence
of death was passed upon him, and toward evening he was to be executed
in the manner of the country, with the lance or gagaya. Mr. Laborde
heard of this, and sent in all directions in search of the prince to
obtain his mediation. Luckily, the prince was found in time, scarcely
half an hour before the execution was to have taken place. He proceeded
at once to the prison, opened the door for the captive, and recommended
him to flee to his own home as fast as he could.
Many similar traits were told me of the prince, and seldom, it is said,
do many days elapse without his saving lives or performing some generous
action. He often gives away his last dollar, distributes all his stores
of rice and other provisions, and is doubly glad when he can help some
unfortunate being without letting the recipient of his bounty know who
is his benefactor.
The following words, which I heard from his own mouth, speak more
eloquently than my weak pen could do the praises of this really noble
man. He declared it to be a matter of indifference to him whether the
French or the English, or any other nation, took possession of the
island, if only the people were properly governed. For himself, he
wished neither for the throne nor for the regal title, and would at any
time be ready to give a written abdication of his claims, and retire and
live as a private man, if he could by such a course insure the
prosperity of the people.
I must confess that this declaration moved me deeply, and inspired me
with a high respect for this prince--such respect as I feel for very few
human beings. To my mind, a man of such sentiments is greater than the
most prominent among the ambitious and egotistical monarchs of Europe.
May 31. This morning the queen sent one of the grandees of the empire to
inquire after our health, and to invite us to take the _sambas-sambas_
next day in the house of the Lady Rasoaray.
On this occasion she sent Mr. Lambert a present as a mark of her favor.
The gift consisted of a magnificent fatted ox, of proportions I had
rarely seen equaled even in Europe, besides some very fine poultry and a
basket of eggs. The presents of the queen never consist of any other
articles, and are generally confined to poultry and eggs; oxen are only
added when she wishes to confer on the recipient a mark of peculiar
distinction.
The sambas-sambas is a dish made of fine strips of beef broiled in fat,
and of rice. It is customary, in the first month of the new year, to
regale friends and relations who come to visit you with this dish. Every
one takes a pinch of it, rises from his seat, turns to the right and to
the left, and says, “May the queen live a thousand years.” After this he
may eat as much as he likes of the preparation, or may leave it
untouched, as he pleases. This ceremony is somewhat equivalent to
wishing a happy new-year among us.
As we happened to arrive in the first month of the new year, and the
queen wished to show Mr. Lambert all kinds of attention, she invited him
to this feast, and my humble self and the other Europeans were included
in the honor as friends of Mr. Lambert.
All the banquets to which friends are invited are not held in the royal
palace, but at the house of the Lady Rasoaray, who is of very high
birth, and whose spacious, richly-furnished dwelling is well adapted for
such purposes. To eat in the palace of the queen, or, still more, in her
company, would be considered too great an honor for a stranger; so far
the condescension of this haughty, self-opinioned potentate extendeth
not.
I made use of this day to visit the town, of which, however, I can say
nothing more than that it is very bustling, and extends over a large
space of ground, especially if the suburbs be taken as part of it. It is
said, with its immediate environs, to contain 50,000 houses, or “roofs,”
as they are called here, and 100,000 inhabitants. This estimate is
probably much exaggerated; but certainly the proportion of dwellings is
unusually great, from the simple reason that the houses themselves are
particularly small, consisting of no more than one room, or at most but
two. If the family is large, two or three additional little houses are
built up around the original dwelling; all who have any pretensions to
wealth have their kitchen under a separate roof; and, of course, the
slaves are also quartered in various small houses. Still, I do not think
Tananariva can contain many more than 15,000, or, at the most, 20,000
houses.
Mr. Laborde, for instance, is the owner of nine small dwellings,
tenanted by seven free men and thirty slaves; here, then, the proportion
of inhabitants to houses would be as four to one. But Mr. Laborde is a
European, and does not live with his people in such a crowded manner as
the natives affect--with them six, or certainly at least five,
inhabitants may be reckoned to every roof.
June 1. At two o’clock in the afternoon we betook ourselves to the house
of the Lady Rasoaray, and were conducted to a large hall, the walls
papered in European fashion, and the floor covered with handsome mats.
In the middle of the room stood a table, elegantly spread, in a style of
which no prince in Europe need have been ashamed. The other arrangements
in the room were simple, but tasteful. Many an English lady would have
been exceedingly scandalized by the fact that in the room in which we
were to dine stood two beds--two very handsome beds, with heavy curtains
of rich silk. As I am, however, not an Englishwoman, but only a simple
German, I took no notice of the circumstance, and the presence of the
two beds did not prevent me from eating my share of beef and rice in all
peace and quietness of spirit. These two dishes are the only ones
admitted at the sambas-sambas, and water is the only beverage allowed on
these occasions.
I particularly admired two silver vases, with carving on them in relief,
which stood on the table; and my wonder rose considerably when I was
informed that they had been executed by native artificers. They would
certainly have met with high approval even in Europe. Like the Chinese,
the natives are gifted in a high degree with the faculty of imitation,
but they lack originality.
Among the high personages invited with ourselves to the feast were many
who spoke either French or English, English being the more common. The
knowledge of this language dates from the time of King Radama, in whose
reign English missionaries came to Madagascar, and a certain number of
young men were sent to the Mauritius or to England for their education.
The ceremony of the sambas-sambas was very soon ended, and we returned
home early; in the evening we were surprised by a visit from Prince
Rakoto. He brought with him the mother of his little five-year-old son,
to introduce her to me. As I have already mentioned, the prince can not,
according to the laws that prevail here, marry this woman, because she
is a slave, and her son has, therefore, not the smallest claim to his
father’s rank; nevertheless, they are both honored with the princely
title. It may certainly be said that in this country the laws are of
little importance in so far as they affect the ruler; they depend solely
and entirely upon the will of the reigning sovereign; and as soon as
Prince Rakoto comes to the throne, he can alter them at his pleasure,
and make his former slave his queen and her son heir-apparent.
I have spoken of the character of this woman. As regards her beauty, if
it is to be discovered, it must certainly not be judged of by European
eyes, or the beholder should have lived long enough among the natives to
have become accustomed to their ugly features, and to consider the least
hideous among them as handsome.
June 2. To-day we were present at a great review on the Field of Mars, a
beautiful meadow spreading out at the foot of the hill in front of the
town. It is asserted that from ten to twelve thousand soldiers are
always assembled at Tananariva; but, like the estimate of the houses,
this number must probably be reduced about one half. The military who
appeared on this occasion did not certainly exceed 4500 or 5000 men. The
soldiers formed a great double square, with the officers and band in the
centre.
A review of this kind is held every fortnight--namely, on the third day
of every second week; its object is to ascertain that the soldiers who
should be on duty are present; that they are in health, and their
weapons and clothes in proper condition. Their names are called over,
and if in a company only a few are missing, the captain merely receives
a reprimand; but if the list of absentees is a long one, the commanding
officer is punished on the spot with a dozen blows or more. The latter
incident is reported to be of frequent occurrence; for among such a
large number of soldiers, there are many whose homes are several days’
journey from the capital, so that they can hardly find time, between one
review and another, to go thither, cultivate their fields, provide
themselves with food, and return punctually.
No military manœuvres were undertaken, and I was told that war is
carried on entirely without system, as among the wildest tribes.
Especially when a company thinks itself lost, all subordination ceases,
and the men take to flight on every side.
Horrible is the fate of the sick and wounded soldiers, not only during a
flight, when, of course, no one cares about them, but even during
ordinary marches. Their comrades are bound to take care of them, and to
carry and feed them; but how can people be expected to do this who are
themselves in want of every thing, and often so much weakened by hunger
and toil of every kind that they can scarcely drag themselves along and
carry their weapons? It frequently happens that efforts are made by the
soldiers to rid themselves of these poor wretches. They are not killed
outright, which would be rather a benefit to them, under the
circumstances; but their comrades drag them along the ground, without
giving them any food, or even a refreshing draught from the nearest
spring. When they have ceased to give any sign of life, they are left by
the wayside, no one caring to ascertain whether they are dead or not.
On these marches a fearful number of lives are sacrificed. In the last
war, for instance, which the queen waged against the Seklaves two years
ago, ten thousand men were sent into the field. More than half died on
the march for want of food; many deserted; and when the army reached
the scene of action, its force is said to have scarcely exceeded three
thousand men.
The prisoners are much better off, for care is taken of them, as a
profit is derived from their sale; and even as slaves they are not in
nearly so unhappy a condition as the soldiers and peasants. Their owners
feed, clothe, and lodge them; nor are they overworked; for, by
transgressing in this respect, the owner runs the risk of losing his
bondman, for his slave runs away; and fugitive slaves are seldom
captured, there being no police or similar institution in the country.
The master certainly has the power of beating his slave to death; the
government will not interfere with him; but his own interest will deter
him from any extreme measures. Many slaves pay their owners a small
yearly tax in money, and live like free men; others even keep slaves
themselves, who work for their master-bondmen.
After the review, the officers and music marched past our house to
welcome Mr. Lambert.
The officers were mostly clothed, like their brethren at Tamatavé, in
European garb, and looked ridiculous and comical enough. One wore a
dress-coat, the tails of which reached almost to his heels; another had
a coat of flowered chintz; a third, a faded red jacket, which had once
done duty as part of a marine’s uniform. Their hats were just as diverse
in character. There were straw hats and felt hats, of all sizes and
shapes, caps and head-coverings of fearful and wonderful forms. The
generals wore the regulation cocked hat of Europe, and were mounted.
The military grades are modeled quite on the European plan; there are
thirteen gradations from the private soldier up to the field-marshal.
I succeeded also in finding European titles in Madagascar; there were
crowds of barons, counts, and princes, as at the most aristocratic
European courts.
The whole population of Madagascar is divided into eleven castes. The
eleventh caste consists of the regal personage; the tenth of the
descendants of the royal family. In this caste alone brothers and
sisters may intermarry, probably in order to prevent there being too
many scions of the blood royal. The six following castes, from the ninth
to the fourth inclusive, comprise the nobles of higher and lower rank;
the people belong to the third caste, the “white” slaves to the
second--a class including all who were once free, and have been sold as
prisoners of war or as a punishment for crimes; and the first, or lowest
caste, consists of the “black” slaves, namely, those who have been born
in that condition of life.
A noble may take a wife not only out of his own caste, but out of the
two immediately below him, but never from a higher one. On no account
may he marry a slave-woman; and the law does not even allow any other
kind of connection between a noble and a slave. In this respect, by the
way, Madagascar might serve as a model to those countries governed by
white men where slavery exists; for the morality of the entire community
would be greatly benefited if this custom were observed. This law was in
former times very stringently enforced, and on the discovery of a
connection of the kind alluded to the noble was sold as a slave, and the
slave-woman beheaded. If the woman in the case was a noble and the man a
slave, both were beheaded. In these latter days, however, this
strictness has been much relaxed. Indeed, in the universally low state
of morality prevailing here at the present time, the greater number of
the nobles and officials would have to lose their heads or their
freedom; and what would then become of the court? Some amount of good
is, however, still effected by the law; for when such an affair between
a nobleman and his slave is suspected, he is compelled to set her free
to escape punishment.
As polygamy has been introduced here, every man may have as many wives
as he pleases; but among the nobles only a certain number of these women
have a claim to the actual title of wife, and the first wife always
keeps precedence over those taken subsequently. She alone lives in her
husband’s house, and great respect is shown to her; her children, too,
have privileges beyond those of the other wives. The other children,
like the subsequent wives, live in little separate houses. The king may
take twelve lawful wives, but they must be all members of the highest
families. The ruling queen and her sisters and daughters have the right
of sending away their husbands and taking new ones as often as they
choose so to do.
Our breakfast was just over, and I had retired to my room, when Mr.
Lambert came to announce that the queen had summoned us to an
introduction or audience. This honor is generally accorded to strangers
eight or ten days after their arrival; but her majesty seemed desirous
of showing distinction to Mr. Lambert above all Europeans who had ever
visited her court, and so, not later than the fourth day, we had the
happiness of appearing before that exalted personage.
All these tokens of honor and consideration astonished Mr. Lambert not a
little. He had already told me in the Mauritius that he had very many
good friends at the queen’s court, and dangerous enemies also, who might
have taken advantage of his absence to slander him in the vilest manner,
not only in her eyes, but in Prince Rakoto’s too. But a circumstance
that Mr. Lambert now confided to me for the first time was, that
attempts had been made in another quarter to prejudice the queen against
him, and that he expected not exactly to be coldly received, but to be
looked upon with some degree of suspicion.
And now, for the first time, I got an insight into Mr. Lambert’s real
plans and intentions, which were certainly not calculated to prepossess
the queen in his favor.
When Mr. Lambert came to Tananariva for the first time in the year 1855,
and saw with what cruelty the queen ruled, a wish arose in his mind to
free the unhappy people from this tyrant. He succeeded in gaining the
friendship of Prince Rakoto, who was also deeply moved by the people’s
misery, and who at that period told Mr. Lambert that he cared not who
ruled over the nation so long as the government was good and just. They
soon came to an understanding, and Mr. Lambert made a treaty with Prince
Rakoto, and conceived the design of seeking help from either the French
or English government.
In the year 1856 he went to Paris, and in a private interview with the
emperor he made him acquainted with the boundless misery of the people
of Madagascar, and tried to induce the French autocrat to come to the
assistance of that unhappy country. But it is difficult to enlist the
sympathy of a European government where philanthropy and not state
interest is in question. This audience had no result, and an interview
of Mr. Lambert with the English minister, Lord Clarendon, also led to
nothing; nay, instead of any advantage accruing from this step, it was
productive of difficulty and discomfiture, for every thing Mr. Lambert
had done in reference to Madagascar came to the ears of a great
missionary society in England. The society feared that, in the event of
the French occupation of the island, the Roman Catholic religion might
be the only form of worship introduced and licensed, which, in their
opinion, would be, of course, a much greater misfortune for the
inhabitants than the mere fact of their being ruled by an utterly cruel
woman, like Queen Ranavola, who plays with human lives and sacrifices
them at her pleasure! The society accordingly formed the notable
resolution of opposing Mr. Lambert in every possible way, and
immediately dispatched a chosen member, a missionary, to Tananariva to
acquaint the queen with Mr. Lambert’s design against her.
To judge from what occurred, as it was reported to me, it would appear
that even an English missionary is capable of abandoning truth and
sincerity in order to effect a purpose, and, upon occasion, to employ
arts of a Jesuitical kind.
In the Mauritius, where the missionary made some stay before proceeding
to Madagascar, he ventured to assert that Queen Ranavola had summoned
him to Madagascar!
On his arrival at Tananariva he took care to impress upon the queen that
he had been dispatched to her by the English government for the purpose
of assuring her that England desired nothing more than to continue the
same friendly relations with her country which had existed in the time
of George the Fourth. He farther informed the queen of every thing that
Mr. Lambert had undertaken against her in France and England;
represented that gentleman as a very dangerous person, and a spy in the
employ of the French government; and predicted that Mr. Lambert would
speedily make his appearance, accompanied by a body of French troops, to
depose her in favor of her son.
If even these misrepresentations had been made to effect some noble
purpose, they could only have been justified by the very Jesuitical
axiom that “the end sanctifies the means.” But the object sought here
was to impede, or perhaps altogether to frustrate, a truly Christian and
philanthropic work, an undertaking calculated to promote the well-being
of the entire nation. A missionary society ought surely to understand
the principles of brotherly love better than this, and keep in view the
maxims of religion, and especially to remember that they are not to be
made subservient to political views.
The missionary’s calling is the most exalted of any, for to few men are
vouchsafed the opportunities of doing good that fall to his lot; but the
misfortune is, that the majority of missionaries busy themselves more in
worldly intrigues than in the amelioration of the human race, and that,
instead of inculcating charity, union, and toleration, they excite their
followers by their preachings to hate, contemn, and, if possible, to
persecute every sect but their own. I can only refer my readers to what
I have written on this subject in my former works, particularly
concerning the English and American missionaries.
So the missionary from England came to Tananariva bearing the sword
instead of the olive-branch. He not only unfolded Mr. Lambert’s alarming
schemes to the queen, but gave Prince Rakoto a long lecture on the
exceeding turpitude of his conduct toward his royal mother in meditating
revolt, declaring, moreover, that the English court had been so shocked
by the news as verily to have _put on mourning_!
The prince condescended to excuse himself by asserting, in reply, that,
had he meditated removing his mother from the throne to place himself
upon it, he should have merited the reproach; but that such was not the
case, as he merely wished to deprive the queen of the power of
perpetrating cruelties; every other privilege he wished her to retain,
and for himself he had asked nothing at all.
At Tananariva, and also in the Mauritius, a report was circulated that
Mr. Lambert had obtained the prince’s signature to the contract by
fraud; that the prince had not been at all inclined to enter into a
private treaty with Mr. Lambert, but that the latter had invited him to
a banquet, intoxicated him, and prevailed on him to sign while in that
condition. It was farther stated that when, on the following day, Prince
Rakoto heard what he had done, he was so incensed against Mr. Lambert
that he had banished him from his presence forever. Mr. Lambert was
therefore very considerately advised never to return to Madagascar, as
he might fear the worst from the hatred and contempt alike of the queen
and of Prince Rakoto.
At Tananariva the prince himself told me the story of the signing of the
treaty. He let me read the document, and assured me that the tale of the
intoxication was a fiction; that he had perfectly understood what he was
doing, and that he never repented this step at all. I much wish the
author of this scandalous report could have seen with what contemptuous
anger he was spoken of on this occasion.
I must also contradict a statement that the English missionary spread
abroad in the Mauritius on his return from Madagascar. He boasted every
where of the favorable reception he had met with at Tananariva, and of
the great favor he enjoyed at the hands of the queen and of Prince
Rakoto. This favor was so great, in fact, that after a stay of scarcely
four weeks at Tananariva he received a peremptory order to depart. He
applied for permission to remain longer, alleging as a reason that the
fever season was not yet past, and disease was still rife in the
lowlands. He begged the queen to take this into consideration, and not
to expose him to mortal danger. But all was in vain; he was compelled to
quit Tananariva. The queen was highly exasperated against him because he
had distributed some Bibles, while Prince Rakoto resented his behavior
toward Mr. Lambert.