person. I am decidedly against the use of ardent spirits (malt liquor may do for those who like it), tobacco, etc. And as for wine, that only at dinner; it even then ought to be good, if not the very best, as the gourmet would have it, when speaking of Clos-vaugeaut and Romance, etc. I have had a fine band of music on board my ship, and my four kinds of wine on my table. (I am not sleeping on a bed of roses' now, but in an humble hut or cabin.) After all, what does the foregoing amount to? Vanity of vanities. I will merely add that I have had a year in the Church of Christ, and that I am a life-member in the Bible Society. That I am looking, with the blessed Lord's help, to something of far more intrinsic worth and consideration, 'the prize of our high calling '—the life to come. I am now in my sixty-second year of age, and, of course, it is high time that I should look upon this world as nearly to close on me. I might perhaps say much more, but must stop.* .* I am now an humble teacher upon Pitcairn Isle for the time being.

The letters of Mr. Nobbs, Mr. Buffett, and John Evans, and other documents relative to the self-constituted authority of Mr. Hill, having been sent home to the Admiralty, was the occasion of a correspondence with Lord James Townshend, who had forwarded copies of it to Captain Mason, and his reply is as follows:

(COPY.)

"H.M.S. Blonde, Callao, June 2d, 1836. "SIR,-I had the honor to receive, on the 28th of May, your letter of the 3d of October, 1835, inclosing copies of

* I have had a member of Parliament, an East Indian director, call on me to ask a favor, which, indeed, no one else could grant. I have his note thus still. And I have had a beautiful Egyptian lady write to me (I have her note also still), the wife of one of Bonaparte's generals.

letters from the Secretary of the Admiralty and Mr. Hay, with other documents relative to the Pitcairn Islanders, and desiring me to go or send a vessel there to investigate the conduct of Mr. Hill, and to undeceive the people as to his authority, etc. In reply, I beg to inform you that I have always felt a strong interest in that most exemplary and Christian society, and that nothing but the revolutionary state of Peru since February last, and a foreign war since June, which has placed the persons and property of His Majesty's subjects, in common with other foreign merchants, in great hazard, together with the loss of the Challenger, has prevented my going or sending; but in consequence of various letters which I received as far back as December, 1834, I wrote at various times to the victims of Mr. Hill's tyranny and oppression, and to Mr. Pritchard at Tahiti, informing them of my firm conviction that he had no right to assume any authority on the island, much less to use corporal punishment, or to send any of the inhabitants away, I will, however, take the earliest opportunity of going or sending a vessel there, and hope to hear that the letters I wrote produced the desired effect of releasing the inhabitants from Mr. Hill's tyranny and oppression, and of restoring to the isl and those whom he had driven away. I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant,

"(Signed)

"LORD JAMES TOWNSHEND,

FRANCIS MASON.

"Commander-in-chief, etc., West Coast, South America."

Captain Mason, in another letter, says, "I regret that that once interesting and exemplary colony should be under the influence of such a man."

Happily, this reign of terror on Pitcairn Island was drawing to a close, and in a manner calculated to undeceive the credulous islanders as to the unfounded pretensions of Joshua Hill. He had asserted, in addition to other absurd declarations, that he was a near relative of the Duke of Bedford; and it was a remarkable circumstance

that the next ship of war which touched at Pitcairn after the visit of Captain Seymour in the Challenger was the Actæon, commanded by Lord Edward Russell, in 1837. No one was more astonished than Hill himself at this unexpected arrival of a member of the Bedford family; and had Lord Edward's orders authorized such a proceeding, he would have removed Hill from the island, feeling justly indignant at his tyrannical conduct and his falsehoods.

In the following year, 1838, this measure was carried out by the Honorable Captain H. W. Bruce, commanding H.M.S. Imogene, who was ordered to proceed to Pitcairn, to remove Joshua Hill, and land him at Valparaiso.

From this period no further account has been received of this aged impostor, who, no doubt, has sunk into the contempt and oblivion he merited by his disgraceful conduct. No one, singular to say, seemed to know who he was, or what were his occupations previous to his making this raid upon the poor Pitcairn Islanders.

Immediately on his removal, the islanders sent to Mr. Nobbs and his companions in exile to return, and also of fered to pay all the expenses of their voyage from the Gambier Islands. On their arrival at Pitcairn their reception was so enthusiastic and affectionate that it proved it was not by the wish of the community generally that the three families had been dismissed. The following document, which had been written some years previously, was then forwarded to the Admiralty, and testifies to the good feeling which had existed between Mr. Nobbs and his flock until the arrival of Hill:

66

"Pitcairn Island, December, 1832. We, the undersigned heads of families at Pitcairn's Island, do hereby certify that Mr. George Nobbs has conducted himself to our satisfaction ever since he has been on this island; also, we have no fault to find with his

manner of keeping school for the space of four years; and the reason why Mr. Nobbs is dismissed from teaching and school-keeping is in consequence of a disagreement between Mr. Nobbs and Mr. Joshua Hill, who has lately come to reside on this island among us.

CHAPTER IV.

Ships of War visit Pitcairn.-Letter of Captain Wood, R. N.-Arrival of Baron Thierry and others.-Aboriginal Inhabitants of Pitcairn Island. DURING the next few years Pitcairn Island was visited by a ship of war, by a missionary vessel, having on board the Rev. Mr. Heath, of London, and several traders and American whalers in want of water and vegetables. Many of these had previously touched at the island for the same purpose, and so strictly honest were the islanders in their dealings, that their word was a sufficient guaranty for the correctness of the settled amount of supplies bartered, such as soap, oil, and other commodities. Even in times of privation and scarcity after a bad season, there was no diminution in amount or increased payment demanded by the islanders for the supplies sent to the ships. The respect which these rough merchantmen and whalers felt for the Pitcairners was such that one sailor declared, "That if any insult were to be offered to any of them, and especially to the female part of the community, a man would not be long alive after he came on board."

H.M.'s ship Curaçoa, Captain Jenkin Jones, arrived most opportunely in August, 1841, when influenza prevailed among the inhabitants of so severe a character as almost to decimate their numbers. Their stock of medicine was expended, and Mr. Nobbs's efforts to arrest the course of the malady seemed unavailing. The surgeon of the ship was sent on shore immediately with all necessary supplies and remedies for the sick, and in the course of a few days many of the sufferers were pronounced convalescent.