Hobson took the alarm, and promptly dispatched the _Britomart_ to hoist the English flag at Akaroa.

Thanks to bad weather, the _Britomart_ only reached the threatened port a few days before the Frenchmen.

Then it was found that an emigrant ship, with a number of French settlers, was coming with all the constituent parts of a small colony.

The captain of _L'Aube_, finding himself forestalled, good-humouredly made the best of it.

A number of the immigrants did indeed land.