HISTORY OF MAURITIUS. 
73 
persons, and some of them distinguished for their birth. They could not imagine 
that an officer would debase himself so far as to receive orders from a man who had 
formerly been a clerk in an accompting-house, though he might condescend to 
receive their pay. Nor did they like the sailors, who are rather too peremptory in 
their manners. On becoming inhabitants, they retained their original disposition, 
and consequently did not advance their fortunes. 
Some of the King’s regiments put in here and made some stay; while several 
of the officers, allured by the beauty of the climate and the love of repose, were 
induced to establish themselves in the island : but every thing was at the disposition, 
and submitted to the power of the Company. 
The inhabitants were also increased by the arrival of some missionaries of the 
order of St. Lazarus. 
To complete the settlement of this island, some merchants with small capitals 
arrived, and found it without commerce. These people augmented the abuses of 
money jobbing, which they found already established, and employed themselves in, 
forming petty monopolies: they soon became obnoxious, and acquired the name of 
Banians , or Jews. On the other hand, they affected to despise any particular dis¬ 
tinctions of the inhabitants, and were fond of propagating the opinion, that, after 
having passed the line, a general equality prevailed. 
Such was the situation of this colony when it was ceded to the King in the year 
1765. 
One part of the inhabitants, who were attached to the Company from gratitude, 
beheld, with pain, a royal administration; while the other part, who had so long 
looked for the favour from a new government, seeing it principally occupied in 
plans of economy, were proportionably chagrined and disappointed. 
The soldiers furnish a considerable number of workmen, as the moderate beat per¬ 
mits the white people to work in the open air; though they have not been rendered 
so beneficial to the colony as they might have been, in a more enlarged disposition 
of their capacities. 
Though the seafaring people are always going and coming, they have, nevertheless, 
a considerable influence on the manners of the colony. Their policy is to complain 
alike of the places which they left, and of those at which they arrive: they have 
always bought too dear and sold too cheap, and think they are ruined if they do not 
gain an hundred and fifty per cent. 
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