Page:Tales-of-Banks-Peninsula Jacobson 2ed 1893 cropped.pdf/97

acquired territory for this purpose—it being in ‘an excellent position for defence as well as climate.’ The company had a capital of one million francs (£42,000), a sixth of which was only paid up, but the Company had agreed to cede to the French Government one-fifth of its territory ‘to establish a penal settlement.’ Accordingly the ship Comte de Paris sailed from Rochefort, commanded by Captain L’Anglois. Louis Philippe was an interested party in the company, and gave ‘a grant of money and picked men from the Royal Navy as a subsidy to the expedition. The emigrants, who were 63 in number, although stated in the Journal des Debats to number 100, comprising 30 men, 11 women, and 22 children, complained while on board, and after arrival, of the treatment they received on their passage—as other immigrants have since that early date so frequently done. But those French pioneers had certainly a considerable reason for thus murmuring, for although the good ship Comte de Paris had a complete whaling crew—men enough to man four six-oared boats and work the ship at the same time,—the captain made the emigrants work in the same manner as the crew, with the exception of their not being compelled to go aloft and furl or make sail. The immigrants on landing were to have been ‘furnished with the necessaries required by the climate, and the implements necessary for the carrying out the mission they were commissioned to fulfil, and to have provisions to serve for twelve months, counting from the time of landing, and five acres of land per adult.’ Those conditions, it appears, were not carried out in their integrity.

“Five days previous to the arrival of the Comte de Paris, H.M.S. Britomart arrived at the Peninsula, and took possession of the island in the name of the Crown: whether legally or otherwise is a moot point, as the French flag had been planted on the Penin-