The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle. — 1886-08-14 (Stourbridge, West Midlands, England)

THE NEW HEBRIDES.  Writing from Paris, on Aug. 8, the Times correspondent says: According to a correspondence addressed from Port Havannah on the 6th of June to the Independant, of New Caledonia, the occupation of Port Vila and Port Havannah passed off quietly. The English gunboat, the Undine, was at the latter place on the arrival of the despatch boat Dives, of the French navy, under the command of Lieutenant Legrand. The Undine put to sea and did not return to the anchorage until the French marines had disembarked. The correspondent says that Lieutenant Legrand acted with a decision and ability which do him infinite honour. On the 6th of June the marines were landed and drawn up. the French flag was hoisted, a cannon was fired, and an official notice read by Lieutenant Legrand, stating that by orders of the Governor of New Caledonia be had disembarked the troops at Port Havannah, in the Sandwich Islands, to establish aTrench military post there, and that at half-past six o'clock on the morning of that day the French flag had been hoisted over the establishment destined for the provisional cantonment of troops which had been landed. On the same day intimation was sent to the residents of all nationalities established in the New Hebrides that a French military post had been established at Port Havannah. All the colonists are said to have signed with enthusiasm the official report of what had been done. The only exception was that of the Rev. M. Mackenzie, who is settled at the lagoon of Aracore, near Port Vila. He stated that he could not take the responsibilitT of signing the paper, but that if France took possession of the island he should use every effort to secure the respect of the natives for the French proprietors and the French flag. As regards the Canaquas, they received the news with real demonstrations of joy. On the following day a similar ceremony was performed at Port Sandwich in the Island of Malicob. The troops were installed in the buildings belensing to the Company of the New Hebrides, the detachment from the Dives in tho how:6 of the director, over which the flag floated, and that from the Magellan in a shed near the beach. Every precaution was taken by Captain Polliard, of the Marines, with the aid of the medical men belonging to the detachment, to enforce proper sanitary rules. It wa; mOre difficult to effect a settlement at Malicolo. The ground had to be cleared of brushwood to erect barracks, but the Canaquas came forward very willingly to give their help. At first they were afraid of reprisals similar to those of the German gunboat Albatross at Abbod, south of Malicolo and the island of Pentecost, to avenge the murder of two Germans. The natives had besides been frightened at the sight of the Magellan. "When they saw, however," says the correspondence, "that our intervention- was`voite Vacific.,they manifested their joy and came for‘vard to. taii. themselves at the disposal of/anr,spldiers." The Temps appends to this correspondence the despatch sent by Mr. E. L. Layard. the English coasul at Noumea, dated the 31st of May and published in the Australian papers, with reference to the departure of the Dives and Magellan from Noumea for the New Hebrides, stating that the former had been armed before her departure because the German gunboat Albatross was then in the islands. With reference to this statement the Temps remarks that the English Consul knew that the Dives had* been armed for a long time, and that in order to pro. ceed to the New Hebrides, she had not had one cannon added to her armament.