16 
HISTORY OF MADAGASCAR, 
entreated by all but the governor to prolong their stay. 
No sooner had they departed, than Chamargou sent a 
detachment of two hundred, to levy considerable imposts 
in the province of Anossy, and to subject them to laws 
never heard of in that country before. This occasioned a 
fresh war; the consequences of which were rendered more 
fatal and permanent by circumstances which may be briefly 
noticed. 
It has been already mentioned, that some attempts were 
made by the Portuguese to introduce the Roman Catholic re¬ 
ligion into the island of Madagascar, and that these attempts 
were followed with but little success. The French were 
much more assiduous and persevering in their endeavours, 
but no encouraging measure of success attended their zealous 
exertions. It is not known in the island at what precise 
time these labours commenced among the natives, but it 
is supposed to have been about the year 1642, during the 
time that Pronis, and his successor, Flacourt, were gover¬ 
nors at Fort Dauphin. The zeal of the Catholic mission¬ 
aries at the station was liberally encouraged by the patro¬ 
nage of the French government, both in the mother country 
and the colonies, and the religious establishment was 
formed on a large scale, at least in regard to the number 
of its labourers. 
In the year 1647, when Navarette, a superior of the 
order of St. Dominic, touched at Madagascar on his way 
to the Indian islands, he found a bishop, three missionaries, 
and two lay brethren, with a chapel, monastery, and library 
They had also made several converts, so far as the initiatory 
rite of baptism constituted them such. Many hundreds 
of the natives, it is said, had submitted to that ordinance, 
although few were known to exhibit any of the important 
signs of conversion. The state of morals, both amongst 
