wish Lord Normanby may be as kindly disposed, but more conservative as respects the lot of our inheritance. I am again busily engaged in the school, but I have my youngest son Sidney as the principal. He receives forty pounds a year, myself twenty-five pounds, and a lad of sixteen, of good abilities, twelve pounds; so that we now have our college in full working order for seventy-seven pounds per annum, but I doubt whether we should be able to collect that regularly, as there is little or no demand for our exports in the colonies, and ships rarely visit us. If the whaling fails this season, our people will be embarrassed, as most of the requisites for the occasion are purchased on credit; but if successful, they will be all right for a time. "I am not complaining; we have enough to eat of meat, potatoes, and maize, and comfortable houses to live in, but beyond this the community generally are in scanty plight. But times will mend, I doubt not. Believe me, my dear admiral, yours ever faithfully, G. NOBBS." SIR JOHN YOUNG to the DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM. "Government-house, Sydney, 23d November, 1867. "Having reference to the request on the part of the Norfolk Island community in Mr. Bates's favor, communicated to me by Mr. F. Nobbs, I have issued a grant to Mr. Bates of an allotment, and received payment from him at the rate of two pounds an acre, which sum will be duly carried to the account of the principal now about to be invested for the benefit of the islanders. Mr. Bates is an American. He owned a small trading schooner. The islanders adopted and pressed him to remain with them, and trade on his and their joint account from Norfolk Island to the different adjacent ports. On the ground of their adoption, he applied to me for a grant of land. This I refused, as free grants of land were reserved for the Pitcairners, but I allowed him to buy an allotment at the rate of two pounds an acre. The money has been added to the capital accumulated to supply a public revenue, and for the benefit of the people. Under present circumstances the money is of more advantage to the community than the land. From this statement of facts, Your Grace will see that Mr. Bates's residence in the island is not of my causing, but of the deliberate choice of the islanders more than once communicated to me. He is an active man of good character, and I think well of him, as stated in my dispatch to Mr. Cardwell of 18th of November, 1864. He is at the present time engaged in navigating a small trading vessel on shares with a crew of the islanders, his own craft having been unfortunately wrecked. "When, some years ago, the chief magistrate of the day applied to me with the request that I would look out for husbands for several young damsels, who were growing up without a proper supply of the article, I found it beyond my power to meet the demand—I could not get a single eligible offer. Steady industrious young men would not give up the certainty of good wages, and the chances of rising in life in the Australian colonies, for all the charms of 'some soft savage and her island cave,' great though their charms undoubtedly are in youth, and enhanced in this instance not merely by a cave, but by a well-built cottage, and an allotment of fifty acres of as fertile land as can anywhere be found. I failed entirely in providing the husbands wanted. No applicant that I could approve presented himself. Several of a different stamp applied from time to time for leave to proceed to the island, but in no case did I accede to the application. "And now to sum up. How does the case stand? What are the conclusions to be stated after the twelve years' trial? Excepting the school-master, Rossiter, whose location on the island was suggested by the Duke of Newcastle, the tradesmen who were sent by Sir William Denison to teach trades, and the Melanesian mission, whose settlement appeared to me a paramount advantage, not to say necessity, for the good of the islanders, not a single immigrant has been introduced by authority. The peculiar social polity, on which so much stress is laid, has not been tampered with or altered in the slightest degree. Bishop Patteson has given ample assurances that he will not interfere with it, nor assume any part whatever in the government of the island. He will confine himself within the wire fences that inclose the cultivation-paddocks of the Melanesian missionaries. Outside these fences there is ample space left for carrying on the Pitcairn polity, as well as for supporting the community, even if increased tenfold, in abundance; inasmuch as, out of the eight thousand acres that remain, the members of the community have never in one year cultivated so much as forty. Isolation, it is true, such as was practicable at Pitcairn, does not and can not exist at Norfolk Island; neither do the people seem to desire it. The contact with the world exposes them to temptation, as Sir William Denison predicted. Against temptation I have suggested such safeguards as I deemed available, and, for some of the requirements. of the people, such provision as was within my reach. I am persuaded that as time rolls on, and the results develop themselves, the friends of the Pitcairners will remember with gratitude that during my administration every obligation on the part of Her Majesty's Government has been scrupulously observed. A fund, small indeed, but sufficient if judiciously administered, has been provided for various public needs, and a good example has been placed before the people's eyes-an example which they can not ignore, and which they have only to follow in order to insure comfort and independence." The following extract from a letter to Admiral Sir F. Moresby gives a lady's view of the policy of isolation : 66 You will not, I trust, my dearest papa, give yourself any more blame respecting the islanders, as they have intermarried with strangers, against what would have been your consent. You can not now expect to keep them isolated, and if the husband of this young woman, or women, chooses to have his friends come to visit him for a month or months, who is to deny him, or prevent other girls from marrying? One interloper allowed, and the thin end of the wedge is driven home. This they undoubtedly have permitted, and it will be vain for you or any one else, even Mr. Nobbs himself, to try and stop the small gap through which, ere long, the full tide will presently find room to sweep. Besides, is it not natural the young girls should be drawn towards the white race and strangers? It seems almost a pity to prevent it. They naturally think less of those among whom they have spent their whole life, and they yearn for novelty. Mr. Nobbs and Adams may think it wiser and more prudent, but I doubt, if a show of hands were taken on the island, that the majority would be for isolation. And if there had been some lawyer friend to inspect the Articles of Cession before they went out, we should have known how they stood with respect to unlimited possession. It is "You are indeed dealing unjustly by yourself in self-accusations. What we understood and what Government really meant are two widely differing points. And, as I before said, I shall never think the young people will consider their views fairly represented by the old ones. not natural, and time will make it plain even to you. They are virtually prisoners, poor girls, and may not marry except among their own people, and that alone is enough to make them rebel. Your loving daughter, M. W." CHAPTER IX. UNIVERSITY Of Californis Privations of the Pitcairn Colony.—Remarkable Whaling-adventure.— COMMUNICATION with Norfolk Island had now been uncertain for several years, causing the islanders to suffer both privation and anxiety. The American war had prevented many of the whalers from prosecuting the fishery in the South Seas, and touching at Norfolk for their usual supplies of vegetables; and in the year 1865 not more than thirty pounds' worth of produce had been exported. Under these circumstances the islanders were reduced to great difficulties, as will be seen by the extract from a letter written by Mr. Nobbs, and dated "Norfolk Island, September 12th, 1865. "Your box arrived most opportunely, and you may thoroughly admit the assertion, for never during the last thirty years have my own family, or the community generally, been so badly off for wearing-apparel. I do not include myself, for, thanks to the admiral, Sir Thomas Acland, and other friends, my rigging is still pretty good; but for the rest of the community-especially the women and children—a great want of clothing has been experienced for more than two years. Window-curtains, and other vestiges of improving civilization, have been converted into wearing-apparel during the winter just gone by. Another reason why such destitution prevails is, that the plant which produces the material for manufacturing the tappa, or island cloth, will not thrive here, so that the women can not manufacture the comfortable |