The next mention of Tristan d’Acunha, as related in the printed chronicle Fritz read, was in the year after the American captain’s sojourn there, when two British ships of war, the Lion and Hindostan, which were probably East Indiamen, with the English embassy to China on board, anchored off the north side of the island under the cliff of the mountain peak; but, a sudden squall coming on, these vessels had to leave without investigating the place thoroughly, although their commanders described it as being uninhabited at that time.
Nine years later, the captain of another ship that called there found three Americans settled on the island, preparing sealskins and boiling down oil. Goats and pigs had been set adrift by some of the earlier visitors, as well as vegetables planted, and these colonists appeared to be in a very flourishing condition, declaring themselves perfectly contented to pass their lives there. One of the men, indeed, had drawn up a proclamation, stating that he was the king of the country, a title which the others acknowledged; and the three, the monarch and his two subjects, had cleared about fifty acres of land, which they had sown with various things, including coffee-trees and sugar-canes; but, whether this plantation turned out unsuccessful, or from some other notion, the “king” and his colleagues abandoned the settlement—the place remaining deserted until the year 1817, when, during Napoleon Buonaparte’s captivity at Saint Helena, the island was formally taken possession of by the English Government, a guard of soldiers being especially drafted thither for its protection, selected from the Cape of Good Hope garrison.
This was, undoubtedly, the foundation of the present colony; for, although the military picket was withdrawn in the following year, a corporal of artillery with his wife and two brother soldiers, who expressed a desire to remain on the island, stayed behind. Since then, Tristan has always been inhabited—the original little colony of four souls having formed the nucleus of the present settlement of over eighty, men joining it at various times from passing whalers, while women were imported from the Cape when wives were wanted. From the fact of these latter being mostly Hottentots, the complexion of the younger men, Fritz noticed, was somewhat darker than that of Europeans. This explained what the skipper meant, on first telling him about the island, when he said the inhabitants were “mulattoes”; although Fritz thought them only of a brunette tinge, for they were of much lighter hue than many Spaniards and Italians whom he had met on the Continent.
Glass, the ex-artilleryman and original founder of the English settlement, was a Scotchman, born at Kelso. He seems to have been a man of great principle and energy, these qualities gaining for him the complete confidence of the little community over which his authority was quite of a patriarchal character. For thirty-seven years he maintained his position as leader, representing the colony in all its transactions with passing ships and showing himself just and honest in his dealings. The islanders had always been English-speaking, and having strong British sympathies, “Governor Glass,” as he was styled, received permission from one of the naval officers visiting the island to hoist the red ensign, as a signal to vessels going by. This slight official recognition was all the notice that the settlement has received from England ever since its establishment—that is, beyond the sending out of a chaplain there by the “Religious Tract Society,” who remained for five years and when leaving spoke of the members of the little settlement as being so highly moral that they did not require any spiritual ministration, “there not being a vice in the colony to contend with!”
To this latter statement, Fritz found the skipper had appended an eccentric footnote:— “’Cos why, there ain’t no rum handier than the Cape, the little to be got from the whalers visiting the spot—an’ they have little enough from me, you bet!—being speedily guzzled down by the old birds, an’ the young uns never gettin’ a taste o’ the pizen!”
On Glass’s death, he was succeeded in the leadership of the colony by Green, the next oldest man, who now lived in the house of the late founder of the settlement and hoisted the English ensign in his turn. Green was a venerable-looking man, with a long white beard, and seemed, from what Fritz could gather in his different conversations with the islanders, to have successfully followed in his predecessor’s footsteps.
Since the Duke of Edinburgh’s visit in the Galatea, many other stray men-of-war have occasionally called to see how the islanders were getting on; but the principal trading communication they have has always been with American whalers, some round dozen of which call at Tristan yearly for the purposes of barter.
“An’ I guess it’s a downright shame,” said Captain Brown, when mentioning this latter fact to Fritz, “thet they don’t fly the star-spangled banner instead o’ thet there rag of a British ensign! If it weren’t for us whalers, they’d starve fur want of wood to warm themselves in winter; an’, who’d buy their beef an’ mutton an’ fixins, if we didn’t call in, hey?”
“That’s a conundrum, and I give it up,” answered Fritz with a laugh.
“Ah, you’re a sly coon,” said the skipper, sailing away to his cabin. “I guess it’s ’bout time to bunk in, mister, so I’m off. Good-night!”