"During the whole of this transaction Captain Bligh exerted himself to the utmost to reduce the people to a sense of their duty by haranguing and expostulating with them, which caused me to assume a degree of ferocity quite repugnant to my feelings, as I dreaded the effect which his remonstrances might produce. Hence I several times threatened him with instant death unless he desisted; but my menaces were all in vain. He continued to harangue us with so much manly eloquence, that I was fain to call in the dram-bottle to my aid, which I directed to be served round to my associates. Thus heartened and encouraged, we went through the business, though, for my own part, I must acknowledge that I suffered more than words can express from the conflict of contending passions; but I had gone too far to recede; so, putting the best face on the business, I ordered the boat to be cut adrift, wore ship, and shaped our course back for Otaheite."
In each of the books by Sir John Barrow and Lady Belcher there is the following paragraph, almost word for word:—
"About 1809 a report prevailed in Cumberland, in the neighbourhood of his native place, and was current for several years, that Fletcher Christian had returned home, made frequent visits to a relative there, and that he was living in concealment in some part of England—an assumption improbable, though not impossible. In the same year, however, a singular incident occurred. Captain Heywood, who was fitting out at Plymouth, happened one day to be passing down Fore Street,
when a man of unusual [a]1809] stature, very much muffled, and with his hat drawn close over his eyes, emerged suddenly from a small side street, and walked quickly past him. The height, athletic figure, and gait so impressed Heywood as being those of Christian, that, quickening his pace till he came up with the stranger, he said in a tone of voice only loud enough to be heard by him, 'Fletcher Christian!' The man turned quickly round, and faced his interrogator, but little of his countenance was visible; and darting up one of the small streets, he vanished from the other's sight. Captain Heywood hesitated for a moment, but decided on giving up the pursuit, and on not instituting any inquiries. Recognition would have been painful as well as dangerous to Christian if this were he; and it seemed scarcely within the bounds of probability that he should be in England. Remarkable as was the occurrence, Captain Heywood attached no importance to it, simply considering it a singular coincidence."
It is of course extremely improbable that Christian managed to leave the island before the arrival of the Topaz (Folger's ship), and if Heywood's impression that he had seen Christian had occurred to him anywhere near the date of the True Briton paragraph, one might easily account for it on the ground that the True Briton was a sensation-loving modern daily, born before its time, and Heywood had read the paragraph. But between 1796 and 1809 was a long interval;
no news had come to England of the mutineers to revive memory of the event, and the curious ignorance of the Pitcairners of the place of Christian's burial are all circumstances which leave the manner of the mutineer officer's ending by no means settled.
The Rev. Mr. Nobbs, to whom the early Pitcairners are indebted for so much, carried on the work of John Adams so well and so piously that he was sent home to England, ordained a clergyman of the Established Church, returned to Pitcairn, and then accompanied the emigrants to Norfolk Island, where he died about ten years ago.
Mr. Nobbs had a very curious history, which we reprint from the Rev. T.B. Murray's book on Pitcairn:—
"In 1811 he was entered on the books of H.M.S. Roebuck; and, through means of Rear-Admiral Murray, he was, in 1813, placed on board the Indefatigable, naval storeship, under Captain Bowles. In this vessel the young sailor visited New South Wales and Van Dieman's Land, whence he proceeded to Cape Horn and Cape of Good Hope, and thence, after a short stay at St. Helena, he returned to England. He then left the British Navy, but after remaining a short time at home he received a letter from his old commander, offering to procure him a berth on board a ship of 18 guns, designed for the assistance of the patriots in
South America. He accepted this offer, and left England early in 1816 for Valparaiso, but the Royalists having regained possession of that place, he could not enter it until 1817. He afterwards held a commission in the Chilian service, under Lord Cochrane, and was made a lieutenant in it in consequence of his gallantry in the cutting out of the Spanish frigate Esmeralda, of 40 guns, from under the batteries of Callao, and during a severe conflict with a Spanish gun brig near Arauco, a fortress in Chili. In the latter encounter Mr. Nobbs was in command of a craft which sustained a loss in killed and wounded of 48 men out of 64, and was taken prisoner with the survivors by the troops of the adventurous robber General Benevideis. The 16 captives were all shot with the exception of Lieutenant Nobbs and three English seamen; these four saw their fellow prisoners led out from time to time, and heard the reports of the muskets that disposed of them. Ever afterwards he retained a vivid memory of that dreadful fusillade. Having remained for three weeks under sentence of death, he and his countrymen were unexpectedly exchanged for four officers attached to Benevideis' army. Mr. Nobbs then left the Chilian service, and in 1822 went to Naples. In his passage from that city to Messina in a Neapolitan ship, she foundered off the Lipari Islands; and, with the loss of everything, he reached Messina in one of the ship's boats. In May, 1823, he returned to London in the Crescent; and in the same year he sailed