HISTORY OF MADAGASCAR. 
17 
the native converts and French settlers, was extremely lax, 
and afforded to the inhabitants of the island very unfavour¬ 
able specimens of the influence of the new religion. A 
Malagasy catechism on some of the doctrines and duties 
of the Christian religion, was composed and published for 
the use of the young converts, and especially in their pre¬ 
paration for baptism. Some copies remain to the present 
time, interlined with French and Latin. A few other 
small introductory works were prepared by the Catholic 
missionaries, and published at the isles of France and 
Bourbon. Vocabularies were also composed at the same 
period, not, however, affording by any means a correct 
view of the language. It is said that some of the colonists 
composed other vocabularies, which were never printed. 
Of these, some are preserved in the archives of Bourbon, 
and others by private individuals in that colony and the 
Mauritius. There exists also a rude sketch of a grammar 
in a very imperfect state. 
Amongst the Roman Catholic missionaries who were 
most active in the propagation of their faith, was Father 
Stephen, an ecclesiastic of the order of St. Lazarus, and 
superior of the mission to Madagascar. To this man, 
Andrian Monango, the sovereign of the province of Man- 
draney, a high-spirited and powerful chief, and a faithful 
ally of the French, had given a most distinguished and 
cordial reception at his own residence. 
According to the testimony of Rochon, the amiable 
qualities and good disposition of this chieftain encouraged 
Father Stephen to entertain the most sanguine hopes of 
success in a resolution he had formed of converting this 
powerful native to the Catholic faith. But Manango, 
who had treated Father Stephen with much kindness, 
frankly told him, that all his efforts to induce him to 
ii. 
c 
