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 measures were his use of loans to help fund the French debt and his use of high interest rates rather than raising taxes. The collection of indirect taxes was restored to the farmers-general (1780), but Necker reduced their number by a third and subjected them to sharper scrutiny and control. The War of independence was popular with almost every Frenchman, except Necker. For the first time the king waged a war without raising the taxes. As France in the American Revolutionary War had financed its participation almost exclusively by municipal bonds, Necker warned of the consequences for the French national