Necker Island (British Virgin Islands) would survive their castaway adventure for at least three weeks, but as McCullin later recounted, "because of our gathering weakness ... out of temper, and out of water, we hoisted the red flag and were taken off in the early hours of the fifteenth day". According to McCullin, there was nothing idyllic about the desert island: "The mosquitos and other insects were more venomous and persistent than any I had encountered in Vietnam or the Congo." Richard Branson's "Extreme Tech Challenge" has been hosted annually at Necker Island since 2015. Described as one of the largest technology competitions in the
Jacques Necker concentrated in and around Paris early July. Necker proved to be powerless as tax-revenue dropped quickly. A first loan of thirty millions (1,200,000 livres), voted the 9th of August, had not succeeded; a subsequent loan of eighty millions (3,200,000 livres), voted the 27th of the same month, had been insufficient. Credit was wrecked, according to Talleyrand; for Mirabeau "the deficit was the treasure of the nation" as it had made many changes possible. In September the treasury was empty. Talleyrand, the bishop of Autun proposed “national goods” should be given back to the nation. In November 1789 ecclesiastical possessions were