1840: Comte de Paris
July 11, 2020
By AHNZ
Tonight in history, 11 July, 1840, the Comte de Paris was struck by lightning off the coast of Tasmania. She almost capsized and after all those months at sea the French colonists might have all drowned so close to their final destination: New Zealand.
As far as these colonists know, they’re about to claim their rights to the future Akaroa and set up their own sovereign colony with their very own Governor on French soil. New Zealand would have been a very different place if the French had taken over its middle. Like Canada, we would have our own Montreal sandwich!
Yet the Hobson Gang, in the name of the English Crown, managed to do what the Tasmanian Thunder could not. They pulled the rug out from under the ‘Oui-oui’ tribe, as the Banks Peninsula Maoris called them…
“…the Oui-oui, a name by which we are designated, from our customary reply: “Oui-oui,” on all occasions.”- p201
“…the Oui-oui rangatira, that is to say the French chief…” (speaking of the captain of a French Whaler)
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Ref. Quotations from ‘The Whalers’; Maynard and Dumas; Reed and Andersen (1937)
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