SPIRIT OF DISCOVERY.
PITCAIRN'S ISLAND.
The Quarterly Review (89) last published, is, indeed, a Reform Number; for all the papers, save one, relate to some species of reform or improvement.—Thus, we have papers on Captain Beechey's recent Voyage to co-operate with the Polar Expeditions—Population and Emigration—the notable Conspiration de Babeuf—the West India Question—and last, though not least, "the Bill" itself. We have endeavoured to adopt from the first paper, some particulars of a spot which bears high interest for every lover of adventure; the reviewer's observations connecting the extracts from Captain Beechey's large work.
His Majesty's Ship Blossom, Captain F.W. Beechey, sailed from England May 19, 1825, and having looked in at the usual stopping places, Teneriffe and Rio de Janeiro, proceeded round the Horn, and touched at Conception and Valparaiso, on the coast of Chili. In a few days the Blossom reached the Easter Island, of Cook. Her next visit was to Pitcairn's Island, which the reviewer thinks "the most interesting point in the whole voyage." We do not proceed in the outline, but "look in" at "the Island." To this spot, as the public have for some years been aware, the Mutineers of the Bounty carried that ship, after they had deprived Capt. Bligh of his command, and turned him adrift in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.[5]
In the end, only one white man, old Adams, remained alive of the mutineers who had landed. Of these, only one died a natural death; another was killed by accident; six were murdered; and but one remained to tell the tale.
After the greater number of the party had been murdered off, things went on pretty smoothly, till one M'Coy, who had been employed in a distillery in Scotland, tried an experiment with the tea-root, and succeeded in producing a bottle of ardent spirits. This induced one Quintal to 'alter his kettle into a still,' and the natural consequence ensued. Like the philosopher who destroyed himself with his own gunpowder, M'Coy, intoxicated to frenzy, threw himself from a cliff and was killed; and Quintal having lost his wife by accident, demanded the lady of one of his two remaining companions. This modest request being refused, he attempted to murder his countrymen; but they, having discovered his intention, agreed, that as Quintal was no longer a safe member of their community, the sooner he was put out of the way the better. Accordingly, they split his skull with an axe.
Adams and Young were now the sole survivors out of the fifteen males that landed upon the island. Young did not live long.
Adams was thus left the only Englishman on Pitcairn's Island. Being thoroughly tired of mutiny, bloodshed, and irreligion, and deeply sensible of the extent of his own guilt, he resolutely set about the only sound course of repentance, by exhibiting an amended life, and by training up in habits of virtue those helpless beings thrown upon his care for good or for evil.
He had an arduous task to perform. Besides the children to be educated, the Otaheitan women were to be converted; and as the example of the parents had a powerful influence over their children, he resolved to make them his first care. His labours succeeded; the Otaheitans were naturally of a tractable disposition, and gave him less trouble than he anticipated. The children also acquired such a thirst after scriptural knowledge, that Adams in a short time had little else to do than to answer their interrogatories, and put them in the right way. As they grew up, they acquired fixed habits of morality and piety; their colony improved, and intermarriages occurred; and they now form a happy and well-regulated society, the merit of which, in a great degree, belongs to Adams, and tends to redeem the errors of his former life.