4 VISITS TO MADAGASCAR. en at. i. 



In 1835 the profession of the Christian religion by any of the 

 Malagasy was prohibited ; it was also required that all Chris- 

 tian books should be given up to the government, and in 

 1836 the missionaries and their excellent coadjutors, the 

 Christian artisans, departed from the island. 



Eight or nine years afterwards the evasion of the queen's 

 orders, prohibiting the removal of natives from the island, 

 greatly irritated the Malagasy government ; and the applica- 

 tion of the native laws to Europeans residing in Madagascar, 

 as a means of maintaining native authority, gave great offence 

 to the foreign traders at Tamatave. The latter appealed 

 for assistance to the English Governor at Mauritius and to 

 the French Grovernor at Bourbon; and in June, 1845, one 

 English and two French vessels of war went to Tamatave to 

 endeavour to adjust the differences and disputes existing there. 

 Failing to effect this by amicable conference, they employed 

 force, fired on the peoj)le, burned the town, and landed and 

 attacked the fort. But though they killed and wounded a 

 number of the natives, they were ultimately obliged to retire 

 to their ships, leaving in the hands of the natives thirteen of 

 their number, whose skulls, according to the Malagasy practice, 

 were afterwards fixed on poles in front of the fortification 

 which they had assailed. 



This aggression, so deeply to be deplored, produced long 

 and serious evils. The government prohibited the exporta- 

 tion of every article of native produce ; and the trade in rice 

 and cattle — the latter so important to Mauritius and the 

 Isle of Bourbon — was thus destroyed ; and notwithstanding 

 the efforts of the English Admiral Dacres, in 1848, and the 

 French Admiral Cecile, to restore friendly relations between 

 those nations and the Malagasy, all amicable intercourse en- 

 tirely ceased for a period of eight years. 



Long before this interruption of commercial intercourse 

 between the natives and foreigners, which it was the interest 



