Page:Tales-of-Banks-Peninsula Jacobson 2ed 1893 cropped.pdf/95

Peninsula, with the exception of the Bay of Hikuraki and Oihoa on the south, and Sandy Beach north of Port Cooper; the supposed contents 30,000 acres.’ The block included the whole of the head of the Akaroa Harbor and the site of the present town. Two deeds exist, in the French language, purporting to convey this cession of land, but they were probably not executed—but of this there is no certainty—until the return of Captain L’Anglois and M. de Belligny in 1840, after the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi; neither was there any evidence, either Native or European, that such a purchase had been completed in 1838, save that of one George Fleuret, who deposed to the belief ‘that an agreement was then made by Captain L’Anglois for the purchase of some quantity of land.’ Fleuret was desirous of remaining on the Peninsula when the Cachelot (the vessel in which he was serving) went away; but on the captain’s remonstrance with him, that he could not stay there alone, and that he (the captain) intended to return, he continued the voyage, and returned with the other immigrants in the Comte de Paris in August, 1840. On his consenting to return, on his first voyage, the captain showed him ‘a paper,’ which he said was a contract or agreement, signed by a native named Chigarry, (?) for the disposal of, or promise to dispose of, land to him (Captain L’Anglois) upon his return to New Zealand.’ He also added in his evidence that he saw the captain ‘give some pantaloons and cloaks to the Native Chigarry, and others, which he understood was on account of the payment he had promised the Natives for land.’ The full amount of the purchase money, in kind, was to have been £240, of which amount only £6 was paid by the captain, in 1838. Upon the captain’s return to France; he ceded his right and title to his reputed purchase to a company, consisting ‘of two mercantile houses at Nantz, two