It was hardly to be wondered at, that it was almost impossible for the French people, the French officers, and colonists to believe that the British missionaries were not agents of the British government--even permanent officials of the French Foreign Office believed it!--and that their missions were not political agencies, under the guise of religion, as that of the Jesuits had been. At one time the Jesuits received a large sum yearly, afterwards reduced to 15,000 f., for services rendered to the French government. The Jesuits are banished from France, but supported abroad. When M. Laroche freed the slaves, they took the credit of the measure, though they had less to do with it than the British missionaries had; for they were consulted, and the Jesuits were not. By deception they imposed on the people, and induced a large number of the freed slaves and poorer people to attend their chapels, and an immense number of their children to enter their schools. The freed slaves were told that the Jesuits had secured their freedom, and the common people were informed that France was a Roman Catholic power, and that if they did not become Roman Catholics they would certainly be regarded with the greatest suspicion, and might be shot as suspects. In some cases they were told that all the Protestants would ultimately be shot. While their chapels were filled and their schools crammed by this and other means, they drew up and sent to France their claims on the government for educational grants. Even for the children they really had in their hands, the grants would have been large; but according to their returns they made claim for more children than there were in _all_ the schools--Roman Catholic and Protestant--in the island. How they made out these long lists can never be understood, unless they included the ignorant adults along with the children as their scholars.