THE FRENCH AT AKAROA

Press, Volume LXXV, Issue 22663, 18 March 1939, Page 8

THE FRENCH AT AKAROA

* TO TH£ ZDITOR OF THE PRESS Sir,—Two points in Miss E. M. Jacobson’s comments on my article on the French at Akaroa need a reply. There can be no question of any information that "leaked out” at the famous ball at the Bay of Islands on the evening of July 22, 1840, having decided Governor Hobson to send the Britomart to Akaroa, for we have written evidence that he had made up his mind before this. Hobson's instructions to the magistrates, both Robinson and Murphy, were dated July 21, the day before the ball. We also have Lavaud’s own evidence, m a letter to the French Government, dated July 19, that he had told Hobson he was going to Akaroa to supervise the establishment of French colonists there. It was this information, gained from Lavaud direct, that caused Hobson to send the Britomart to Akaroa. , , . But, as I thought I had made plain in my article, Hobson, a sick man, just recovering from a paralytic stroke, apparently did not trust Lavaud’s assurances that he would not proclaim French sovereignty at Akaroa, and that until this point was decided between the two governments he would limit himself to protecting the rights of French purchasers of land and looking after French whaling interests. Whether Hobson’s action in sending the Britomart post-haste to Akaroa was really necessary or not, I agree with Miss Jacobson that the important fact is that he was thoroughly alarmed. The evidence is that Hobson’s instructions told Stanley to forestall the French at all costa. So, although in one sense there was actually no “race” between Lavaud’s Aube and Stanley’s Britomart, for the Aube was not trying (she left the bay five days after the Britomart), the Britomart was none the less racing —racing against a bogy, a French bogy that had a real existence in the mind of Hobson and everybody else at the Bay of Islands. Her purpose was to make assurance doubly sure by adding to the proclamations of sovereignty an act of effective occupation by the holding of March 17, 1939.