Small, but not insignificant

On this day in 1770 (249 years ago) an item appeared in the London Chronicle stating:

"Advice has been received of a dreadful earthquake at St Helena, which has entirely sunk the same in the sea.”

This was, of course, a hoax - not uncommon in British newspapers of the time, but it does raise a few questions about how history might have developed differently if the story had been true.

Firstly, of course, this posting and the entire Saint Helena Island Info (http://sainthelenaisland.info/) website would not have existed, but that aside:

1)            Where would they have put Napoleon?  Might they have instead sent him, as he wished, to America (always assuming recently-independent America would have accepted him)?  Might he have consolidated his power base and had a third attempt at leading France?  Maybe France and America would have allied, taken over from Britain as the predominant Empire and we would now all be speaking French?

2)            Where would the Liberated African slaves have been taken?  Indeed could the Royal Navy have operated a successful slave-trade interception operation from only Ascension Island?  Might the history of slavery have been different?  Maybe Napoleon would have sided with the slave-owners and the American Civil War turned out quite differently?

3)            What about the Boer Prisoners and the various other exiles placed here since Napoleon (http://sainthelenaisland.info/exiles.htm). Putting all of them somewhere else would probably not have dramatically changed world history, but where else would have been so conveniently isolated?

4)            And lastly, from where would the Falklands and Ascension Island have got their skilled and willing labour forces? (And Swindon would have been a lot smaller too!)

On the whole St Helena has made quite a significant contribution to world history, so it’s probably just as well it didn’t disappear into the sea around 250 years ago.