. The Danish West Indies under company rule (1671-1754) . st not be turned away en-tirely, for there was no telling when French support might be-come very desirable for Denmark. The Danish king. Chris-tian VI, managed to draw out the negotiations until March 27,1734, when he definitely refused the French offer of alliance; ^but meantime the island of St. Croix had been purchased fromFrance for the Danish West India and Guinea Company. Thisenabled France to secure needed funds for carrying on her warin Poland, and the Danish company to gain a new and fertileisland. The ten or twelve years follo
. The Danish West Indies under company rule (1671-1754) . st not be turned away en-tirely, for there was no telling when French support might be-come very desirable for Denmark. The Danish king. Chris-tian VI, managed to draw out the negotiations until March 27,1734, when he definitely refused the French offer of alliance; ^but meantime the island of St. Croix had been purchased fromFrance for the Danish West India and Guinea Company. Thisenabled France to secure needed funds for carrying on her warin Poland, and the Danish company to gain a new and fertileisland. The ten or twelve years following the collapse of the Missis-sippi and South Sea companies were years when money went * Louis Robert Hypolite de Brehan, Comte de Plelo. ^ It was during P161os stay in Copenhagen that Ludwig (Louis) Holberg,Denmark-Norways great dramatist and historian, was laying the foundationsof a national drama in the Danish capital. * For conditions preceding the purchase of St. Croix, see L. Koch, Christianden Sjettes Histone (Kjobenhavn, 1886), pp. 257 ei >- T^ —. >^ - • I- >/ i THE ACQUISITION OP ST. CROIX 201 into hiding and was exceedingly difficult to coax out. A timewhen it was common to resort to paper money to carry on theminimum of necessary trade was not favorable to the prosperityof commercial companies. Under the successors of GovernorBredal,^ the Danish West India and Guinea Company, unableto pursue an aggressive commercial policy, gradually relin-quished its monopoly in favor of private traders and proceededto collect as many as possible of its outstanding debts. Evenin the slave trade, its one remaining source of profit, headwaywas very difficult. A number of poor crops, due to drought andother causes, left the planters with little surplus to invest inslaves. The East India Company too was practically at a low estate was ascribed mainly to the Northern War andto the plague in Copenhagen in 1711. In the course of an in-vestigation Frederi
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