JACK ADAMS, THE MUTINEER. BY CAPTAIN CHAMIER, R. N. AUTHOR OF "THE LIFE OF A SAILOR," "BEN BRACE," &c. &c. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. LONDON: HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER, GREAT MARIBOROUGH STREET. 1838. ADVERTISEMENT. IT is scarcely necessary to premise-for the title indicates the fact that the following work is founded on that interesting event in our Naval Annals, the mutiny on board the Bounty, in 1789, and the results of that event which subsequently offered themselves to public notice and curiosity, on the discovery of Adams and his progeny on Pitcairn's Island. The leading circumstances of the story, and the dates assigned to them, are strictly conformable to history. For the minor details, and the human passions and characters they are intended to illustrate, the writer is of course answerable: but even in these he has followed historical records, so far as was con sistent with the nature and scope of his design -which was that of weaving into one unbroken and consistent narrative the substance of various disjointed relations from different hands, and of shedding the attractive colours of fiction over the bare forms of truth. JACK ADAM S. CHAPTER I. JACK ADAMS was born in the year 1761, and, according to the general rule whereby good seamen are made, he was in reality born under a gun, and educated in the galley. Never did a better seaman tread the forecastle of any of his Majesty's ships than the father of the hero of our tale. He stood to his gun when the shot of the Dutchman rattled against the side of the ship. He had been, from a boy to a quartermaster, the pet of the whole crew. He had VOL. I. B |