Before the arrival of African captives, French officials also resorted to penal colonies in order to address the scarcity of volunteer settlers for the colony. A royal ordinance issued on 10 November 1718 allowed the deportation to the Americas of faux-sauniers and fraudeurs de tabac (salt and tobacco smugglers), deserting soldiers, so-called vagabonds, young people of all social backgrounds, and prostitutes held at the Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris. This ordinance was soon enforced, and judges were instructed to order the deportation of those sentenced to the galleys for vagrancy, including unemployed people from Paris. A special police force was created and the Company rewarded its officers for each arrest. The bandouliers du Mississippi, as they were commonly known, arrested people of all ages, including provincials who had come to Paris for business and labourers falsely accused of begging. They robbed their captives and released those who were willing to pay a ransom. The kingdom was soon shaken by major riots and mutinies during which many bandouliers were killed or injured by furious mobs. Finally, the king of France passed a law forbidding the deportation of French citizens. Within three years, the Company had sent more than 7,000 people to Louisiana, including 1,278 deportees, 2,462 indentured servants attached to the large concessions, 302 Company labourers and 977 soldiers. Most of these people died, as the January 1726 general census of the colony's population listed only 2,228 white people (Giraud, 1966, pp. 47-48, pp. 252-276). Peace was restored and the price for the stability of France and the development of the colony was paid by thousands of enslaved Africans.