For a good while Hare and his rival lived there--the one tryin' to get the Dutch, the other to induce the English Government to claim possession.

Neither Dutch nor English would do so at first, but the English did it at long-last--in 1878--and annexed the islands to the Government of Ceylon.
"Long before that date, however--before 1836--Hare left and went to Singapore, where he died, leaving Ross in possession--the 'King of the Cocos Islands' as he came to be called.

In a few years--chiefly through the energy of Ross's eldest son, to whom he soon gave up the management of affairs--the Group became a prosperous settlement.

Its ships traded in cocoa-nuts (the chief produce of the islands) throughout all the Straits Settlements, and boat-buildin' became one of their most important industries.

But there was one thing that prevented it from bein' a very happy though prosperous place, an' that was the coolies who had been hired in Java, for the only men that could be got there at first were criminals who had served their time in the chain-gangs of Batavia.