130 
HISTORY OF MADAGASCAR. 
nor yet with any idea of improving the country, nor of 
refining the habits or elevating the character of its sove¬ 
reign. To accumulate wealth by the purchase of human 
beings, was their sole object; and to have introduced 
the improvements of civilized society, would have been to 
counteract their own designs. Radama was therefore found, 
at the time alluded to, in manners, dress, and supersti¬ 
tions, entirely the Malagasy, yet possessing a mind highly 
susceptible of improvement, and fired with the noble ambi¬ 
tion of becoming superior to any of his ancestors. Ambi¬ 
tion was, indeed, the master passion of his soul; and 
however unworthy of approbation this passion may be, 
when weighed in the scale of Christian morals, it was in all 
probability the most powerful stimulus in accelerating the 
progress of civilization under the immediate countenance 
of this monarch, who was at best a man but partially 
enlightened, yet whose faults were fewer, and whose excel¬ 
lences greater, than could have been anticipated amidst the 
unfavourable circumstances of his early years. 
When first known to the British agents, Radama was not 
what he afterwards became, “ the enlightened Africanhis 
mind was gradually expanded by European views, and his 
intercourse with European visitors. He was found, at 
that time, seated on his native mat upon the floor of his 
house, and clothed in his native lamba, neither chair nor 
table being then to be found in his residence. He ate only 
from silver dishes, and from these none dared to eat but 
the sovereign himself. Unmindful of the salutary restric¬ 
tions of his father, he was much addicted to the use of 
spirituous liquors; for though the law still prohibited them 
to the people, the law, of course, could not affect him who 
had the forming of all regulations for the government of his 
kingdom. For the people, such restrictions might be use- 
