Page:Tales-of-Banks-Peninsula Jacobson 2ed 1893 cropped.pdf/96

at Bordeaux, and three gentlemen of Paris, who formed a company called the Nanto-Bordelaise Compagnie, reserving to himself an interest to the amount of one-fifth in the said company, and giving up the deed of sale from the Natives, as his subscription of 6000 francs to become a partner to the amount of one-fifth in the company.’ There is a certified copy of this deed, which is of some length, to be found in the proceedings of the New Zealand Company, but it carries no native signature or mark, as would have been the case had it been completed. We are told by M. S. de Belligny, who styled himself the company’s agent, that the object of the expedition was ‘the colonisation of the Middle Island of New Zealand, and for fishing upon its coasts, and that the company was formed before it possessed the slightest knowledge of the intention of the English Government to take possession of the said island.’ A similar amount of ignorance, however, was not manifested on the English side of the Channel, as the New Zealand Journal in February of the same year, prior to the departure of Captain L’Anglois on his second voyage, remarks: ‘If the French Government should send her political prisoners to British New Zealand, let it be clearly understood that they are free the instant they set foot on British land. France can exercise no jurisdiction over them there, and supposing the projet should ever ripen into action, which is very improbable—should the sons of France accept the hand of friendship, which we are quite sure will be held out to them, the New Zealand community will be the better of their peculiar intelligence and skill.” This, it should be remembered, was a comment on en article in the Journal du Harve on the question whether the Middle Island was a suitable place for the deportation of criminals, the company having agreed to cede to the Government a portion of their