In 1856, the descendants of the original settlers, having increased so much as to outgrow the resources of their sea-girt home, abandoned Pitcairn's Island, and transferred themselves, with their goods and chattels, to Norfolk Island, directly west and toward New South Wales. They numbered one hundred and ninety-nine in all, the oldest man being sixty-two, and the oldest woman eighty. Charles Christian is the grandson of Christian the ringleader. Their new home contains about fourteen thousand acres, and is well watered, fertile, and healthy, the soil producing abundantly both European and tropical fruits, vegetables, grains, and spices. The history of the present colony, the offspring in the third generation of European fathers and Tahitian mothers, is as remarkable as any tale in romance or any legend in mythology.
In the year 1790,—to return to chronological order,—the British Government determined to make one more attempt to discover a channel of communication between the Atlantic and Pacific to the north of the American continent, and selected to command the expedition Lieutenant George Vancouver, who had accompanied Cook on his second and third voyages. He was raised to the rank of captain and placed at the head of an expedition consisting of the sloop-of-war Discovery and the armed tender Chatham. He left Falmouth on the 1st of April, 1791; and, as the Admiralty had designated no route by which to proceed to the Pacific, he decided to go by way of the Cape of Good Hope. He arrived here without adventure in July, and, late in September, struck the southern coast of New Holland at a cape to which he gave the name of Chatham, from the President of the Board of Admiralty.
The two vessels coasted to the eastward, surveying the indentations and giving names to all points of interest. A harbor being discovered, it received the name of King George the Third's Sound, and Vancouver took possession of the land in the name of his Gracious Majesty. A wretched hovel, three feet high, in the form of a bee-hive cut through the centre from the apex to the base, and constructed of slender twigs, here revealed the presence of inhabitants; while the singular appearance of the trees and the vegetation, which had evidently undergone the action of fire,—the shrubs being completely charred and the grass having been shrivelled by the heat,—showed that, miserable as they certainly were, they were acquainted with the uses and abuses of fire. At last they discovered a deserted village, consisting of some two dozen huts or hives, which had apparently been the residence of a considerable tribe. They gratified their curiosity by contemplating and investigating these humiliating efforts of human ingenuity.
A DESERTED VILLAGE.
Continuing to the eastward, Vancouver touched at New Zealand, and arrived at a spot where he had been with Cook eighteen years before. An inlet which Cook had been unable to explore, and which he had named in consequence "Nobody knows what," was explored by Vancouver and called by him "Somebody knows what." Running to the north, he discovered an island whose inhabitants spoke the language of the great South Sea nation and who seemed perfectly acquainted with the uses of iron, though they had little or none of that metal. A Sandwich Islander, whom Vancouver had brought from London as an interpreter, and who was named Towerezoo, was of very little assistance; for he had been so long absent that he now spoke English much better than his mother-tongue, and spoke the latter no better than Vancouver. The island appeared to go by the name of Oparo, by which Vancouver thought fit to distinguish it till it should be found more properly entitled to another. The two vessels arrived in December at Tahiti, and anchored in Matavai Bay. The chronometers were landed, in order to correct them by the known longitude of the island; the sails were unbent, the topmasts struck, for a thorough examination of the rigging. The Discovery went by accident upon a rock, and was for a while in great danger. On Sunday, the 1st of January, 1792, every one had as much fresh pork and plum-pudding as he could eat, and a double allowance of grog was served in which to drink the time-honored toast. The formula, however, was slightly altered to suit the state of the case: the gunner of the Discovery being the only married man of the party, the toast given was Sweethearts and Wife!
THE SHIP DISCOVERY ON A ROCK.
On the 24th of January, the two ships turned their head to the northward, now for the first time commencing the voyage in view of which the expedition had been equipped. They ran the two thousand five hundred miles that lay between them and the Sandwich Islands in the space of five weeks, and anchored off Owhyhee on the 1st of March. They touched the American coast, or that part of it known as New Albion, in 39° north latitude, which Vancouver now explored and surveyed. In August he entered Nootka, where, in accordance with his instructions, he was to receive from the Spanish authorities the formal cession of the colony they had established. He found his Catholic Majesty's brig Active already there, commanded by Señor Don Juan Francisco de la Rodega y Quadra. The two commanders agreed to honor each other by a mutual salute of thirteen guns, which was done; while other courtesies were cordially exchanged. The ceremony then took place. Vancouver now returned to Owhyhee, and the king, smitten by a sudden and vehement attachment for the English, proposed to make over the island to the dominion of the King of England. All the insular dignitaries assembled on the decks of the Discovery, and the surrender was made in the midst of speeches and cannonades. Vancouver did not seem to have been deeply impressed with the importance of this event. The solemnity of the transaction was not increased by the circumstance that it took place upon the spot where Cook had so recently been massacred.
Returning to the north, Vancouver continued his surveys and explorations of the American coast as far as the fifty-sixth degree of latitude. He terminated his operations on the 22d of August, at Port Conclusion, where an additional allowance of grog was served, that the day might be celebrated with proper festivity. He returned to Europe with the certitude that no passage existed from the North Pacific across the American continent into the Atlantic. His surveys remain as a monument of his activity, skill, and perseverance. The present charts of the coast of North America upon the Pacific are based upon them. More than nine thousand miles of shore, with its headlands, capes, rivers, bays, promontories, and labyrinths of islands, had been carefully explored by surveying parties in boats, in superintending which Vancouver injured his health and brought on the decline which terminated in his death, in the year 1798, at the early age of forty-eight.