ABSTRACT
The governors of the islands, who knew their value, were the first who offered to purchase them; but the Company, dissatisfied with both MM. de Poincy and Houel, would not treat with either: in consequence of which, M. Houel employed his brother-in-law, M. de Boisseret, to purchase Guadaloupe, Desirada, Marie-Galante, and the Saints, for him, at any price. In M. de Boisseret's name the contracts were made, before MM. Oger and Morel, notaries at Paris, the 4th of September, 1649. By the first contract, the Company sold their rights1, and the islands above mentioned, for 60,000 livres tournois and six hundred pounds of sugar annually, for ever; and by the second contract, they sold all the houses, forts, vessels, machines, instruments, arms, beasts, merchandize, and generally all that belonged to them in the islands, except four brass guns, which they kept, for the sum of 11,500 livres, to be paid to the Sieur Rosci, merchant at Rouen; and 1500 livres, in lieu of the 600 pounds of sugar mentioned in the first contract; and also to pay all the salaries then due, of all persons employed by the Company up to that day.
