These islands are said to have been visited by Soares in 1506, and were known vaguely to the Portuguese navigators of the 16th century as the Seven Brothers (Os sete Irmanos or Hermanos), sometimes Seven Sisters (Sete Irmanas), whilst in Delisle's Map of Asia (1700) we have both "les Sept Frères" and "les Sept Sœurs." Adjoining these on the W. or S.W. we find also on the old maps a group called the Almirantes, and this group has retained that name to the present day, constituting now an appendage of the Seychelles.
The islands remained uninhabited, and apparently unvisited, till near the middle of the 18th century. In 1742 the celebrated Mahé de la Bourdonnais, who was then Governor of Mauritius and the Isle of Bourbon, despatched two small vessels to explore the islands of this little archipelago, an expedition which was renewed by Lazare Picault, the commander of one of the two vessels, in 1774, who gave to the principal island the name of Mahé, and to the group the name of Iles de Bourdonnais, for which Iles Mahé (which is the name given in the Neptune Orientale of D'Apres de Manneville, 1775, pp. 29-38, and the charts), seems to have been substituted. Whatever may have been La Bourdonnais' plans with respect to these islands, they were interrupted by his engagement in the Indian campaigns of 1745-46, and his government of Mauritius was never resumed. In 1756 the Sieur Morphey (Murphy?), commander of the frigate Le Cerf, was sent by M. Magon, Governor of Mauritius and Bourbon, to take possession of the Island of Mahé. But it seems doubtful if any actual settlement of the islands by the French occurred till after 1769. [See the account of the islands in Owen's Narrative, ii. 158 seqq.]
A question naturally has suggested itself to us as to how the group came by the name of the Seychelles Islands; and it is one to which no trustworthy answer will be easily found in English, if at all. Even French works of pretension (e.g. the Dictionnaire de la Rousse) are found to state that the islands were named after the "Minister of Marine, Herault de Séchelles, who was eminent for his services and his able administration. He was the first to establish a French settlement there." This is quoted from La Rousse; but the fact is that the only man of the name known to fame is the Jacobin and friend of Danton, along with whom he perished by the guillotine. There never was a Minister of Marine so called! The name Séchelles first (so far as we can learn) appears in the Hydrographie Française of Belin, 1767, where in a map entitled Carte réduite du Canal de Mozambique the islands are given as Les Iles Sécheyles, with two enlarged plans en cartouche of the Port de Sécheyles. In 1767 also Chev. de Grenier, commanding the Heure du Berger, visited the Islands, and in his narrative states that he had with him the chart of Picault, "envoyé par La Bourdonnais pour reconnoître les isles des Sept Frères, lesquelles ont été depuis nommée iles Mahé et ensuite iles Séchelles." We have not been able to learn by whom the latter name was given, but it was probably by Morphey of the Cerf; for among Dalrymple's Charts (pub. 1771), there is a "Plan of the Harbour adjacent to Bat River on the Island Seychelles, from a French plan made in 1756, published by Bellin." And there can be no doubt that the name was bestowed in honour of Moreau de Séchelles, who was Contrôleur-Général des Finances in France in 1754-56, i.e. at the very time when Governor Magon sent Capt. Morphey to take possession. One of the islands again is called Silhouette, the name of an official who had been Commissaire du roi près la Compagnie des Indes, and succeeded Moreau de Séchelles as Controller of Finance; and another is called Praslin, apparently after the Duc de Choiseul Praslin who was Minister of Marine from 1766 to 1770.
The exact date of the settlement of the islands we have not traced. We can only say that it must have been between 1769 and 1772. The quotation below from the Abbé Rochon shows that the islands were not settled when he visited them in 1769; whilst that from Capt. Neale shows that they were settled before his visit in 1772. It will be seen that both Rochon and Neale speak of Mahé as "the island Seychelles, or Sécheyles," as in Belin's chart of 1767. It seems probable that the cloud under which La Bourdonnais fell, on his return to France, must have led to the suppression of his name in connection with the group.
The islands surrendered to the English Commodore Newcome in 1794, and were formally ceded to England with Mauritius in 1815. Seychelles appears to be an erroneous English spelling, now however become established. (For valuable assistance in the preceding article we are indebted to the courteous communications of M. James Jackson, Librarian of the Société de Géographie at Paris, and of M. G. Marcel of the Bibliothèque Nationale. And see, besides the works quoted here, a paper by M. Elie Pujot, in L'Explorateur, vol. iii. (1876) pp. 523-526).
The following passage of Pyrard probably refers to the Seychelles:
c. 1610.—"Le Roy (des Maldives) enuoya par deux foys vn très expert pilote pour aller descouvrir vne certaine isle nommée pollouoys, qui leur est presque inconnuë.... Ils disent aussi que le diable les y tourmentoit visiblement, et que pour l'isle elle est fertile en toutes sortes de fruicts, et mesme ils ont opinion que ces gros Cocos medicinaux qui sont si chers-là en viennent.... Elle est sous la hauteur de dix degrés au delà de la ligne et enuiron six vingt lieuës des Maldiues...."—(see [COCO-DE-MER]).—Pyrard de Laval, i. 212. [Also see Mr. Gray's note in Hak. Soc. ed. i. 296, where he explains the word pollouoys in the above quotation as the Malay pulo, 'an island,' Malé Fólávahi.]
1769.—"The principal places, the situation of which I determined, are the Secheyles islands, the flat of Cargados, the Salha da Maha, the island of Diego Garcia, and the Adu isles. The island Secheyles has an exceedingly good harbour.... This island is covered with wood to the very summit of the mountains.... In 1769 when I spent a month here in order to determine its position with the utmost exactness, Secheyles and the adjacent isles were inhabited only by monstrous crocodiles; but a small establishment has since been formed on it for the cultivation of cloves and nutmegs."—Voyage to Madagascar and the E. Indies by the Abbé Rochon, E.T., London, 1792, p. liii.
1772.—"The island named Seychelles is inhabited by the French, and has a good harbour.... I shall here deliver my opinion that these islands, where we now are, are the Three Brothers and the adjacent islands ... as there are no islands to the eastward of them in these latitudes, and many to the westward."—Capt. Neale's Passage from Bencoolen to the Seychelles Islands in the Swift Grab. In Dunn's Directory, ed. 1780, pp. 225, 232.
[1901.—"For a man of energy, perseverance, and temperate habits, Seychelles affords as good an opening as any tropical colony."—Report of Administrator, in Times, Oct. 2.]