"Behr's (special diplomatic agent to Guatemala Baron de Behr) general impression of the colony was devastating. He wrote Brouckére (Belgian Foreign Minister) that the Belgian government had been ignobly deceived and misled by all reports. The colony was only a miserable village whose inhabitants lived for the most part from fishing. The actions of the Company agents had generated disgust everywhere and had disgraced the name of Belgium. All of the public works—roads, wharves, canals, municipal buildings were a mere fiction. The Company had squandered 3,200,000 francs without a trace. Any money put up by the Belgian government would disappear in the same fashion. The stocks backed by land lots in portfolio which the Company offered as guarantee against monies borrowed, were, in Behr's opinion, worthless. He thought that the Company courted Belgian government intervention in a speculator's venture which had miscarried."