CHAPTER VIII.
THE LAST OF THE MUTINEERS Who by repentance is not satisfied, Is nor of heaven nor earth; for these are pleased; By penitence th' Eternal's wrath's appeased.
Twenty years had passed away, and the _Bounty_, and Fletcher Christian, and the piratical crew that he had carried off with him in that ship, had long ceased to occupy a thought in the public mind.

Throughout the whole of that eventful period, the attention of all Europe had been absorbed in the contemplation of 'enterprises of great pith and moment,'-- of the revolutions of empires--the bustle and business of warlike preparations--the movements of hostile armies--battles by sea and land, and of all 'the pomp and circumstance of glorious war.' If the subject of the _Bounty_ was accidentally mentioned, it was merely to express an opinion that this vessel, and those within her, had gone down to the bottom, or that some savage islanders had inflicted on the mutineers that measure of retribution so justly due to their crime.

It happened, however, some years before the conclusion of this war of unexampled duration, that an accidental discovery, as interesting as it was wholly unexpected, was brought to light, in consequence of an American trading vessel having by mere chance approached one of those numerous islands in the Pacific, against whose steep and iron-bound shores the surf almost everlastingly rolls with such tremendous violence, as to bid defiance to any attempt of boats to land, except at particular times and in very few places.
The first intimation of this extraordinary discovery was transmitted by Sir Sydney Smith from Rio de Janeiro, and received at the Admiralty, 14th May, 1809.

It was conveyed to him from Valparaiso by Lieutenant Fitzmaurice, and was as follows:-- 'Captain Folger, of the American ship _Topaz_, of Boston, relates that, upon landing on Pitcairn's Island, in lat.

25 deg.
2' S., long.