A French expedition from Mauritius reaches the Seychelles in 1742, and during a second expedition in 1756 the French make a formal claim to them.

The name "Seychelles" honors the French minister of finance under King Louis XV.

Settlement begins in 1778 under a French military administration but barely survives its first decade.

Although the settlers are supposed to plant crops only to provision the garrison and passing French ships, they also find it lucrative to exploit the islands' natural resources.

Between 1784 and 1789, an estimated thirteen thousand giant tortoises are shipped from Mahé.

The settlers also quickly devastate the hardwood forests—selling them to passing ships for repairs or to shipyards on Mauritius.

In spite of reforms to control the rapid elimination of trees, exploitation of the forest continues for shipbuilding and house building and later for firing cinnamon kilns, ultimately destroying much of the original ecology.

Possession of the islands alternates between France and Britain several times during the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars.

France ceded Seychelles—which at this time includes the granitic group and three coral islands—to Britain in 1814 in the Treaty of Paris after rejecting a British offer to take French holdings in India in place of Seychelles.

Because Britain's interest in the islands has centered mainly on halting their use as a base for French privateering, its main concern is to keep the islands from becoming burdens.

Britain administers Seychelles as a dependency of Mauritius, from which they receive little attention and few services.