[The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure by Sir John Barrow]@TWC D-Link book
The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure

CHAPTER VIII
2/86

130 deg.

W., he found there an Englishman of the name of Alexander Smith, the only person remaining of nine that escaped in his Majesty's late ship _Bounty_, Captain W.Bligh.
Smith relates that, after putting Captain Bligh in the boat, Christian, the leader of the mutiny, took command of the ship and went to Otaheite, where the great part of the crew left her, except Christian, Smith, and seven others, who each took wives and six Otaheitan men-servants, and shortly after arrived at the said island (Pitcairn), where they ran the ship on shore, and broke her up; this event took place in the year 1790.
'About four years after their arrival (a great jealousy existing), the Otaheitans secretly revolted, and killed every Englishman except himself whom they severely wounded in the neck with a pistol ball.

The same night, the widows of the deceased Englishmen arose and put to death the whole of the Otaheitans, leaving Smith, the only man alive upon the island, with eight or nine women and several small children.

On his recovery, he applied himself to tilling the ground, so that it now produces plenty of yams, cocoa-nuts, bananas, and plantains; hogs and poultry in abundance.

There are now some grown-up men and women, children of the mutineers, on the island, the whole population amounting to about thirty-five, who acknowledge Smith as father and commander of them all; they all speak English, and have been educated by him (as Captain Folger represents) in a religious and moral way.
'The second mate of the _Topaz_ asserts that Christian, the ringleader, became insane shortly after their arrival on the island, and threw himself off the rocks into the sea; another died of a fever before the massacre of the remaining six took place.


<<Back  Index  Next>>

D-Link book Top

TWC mobile books