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 budget as the war continued. (The war had cost the state already ca. 1.5 billion livres.) The ministers of War and Navy were especially hostile towards him. In September 1780 Necker asked for his dismission, but the King refused to let him go. In 1781, France was suffering financially, and as director-general of the royal treasury he was blamed for the rather high debt accrued from the American Revolution. A series of pamphlets appeared. Jacques-Mathieu Augeard attacked him on his foreign origin, his faith, and economic choices. The main reason behind this was the action of Necker "cooking the books"