On this page

• Text (1)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    They expressed great surprise on seeing a cow on board the Briton , and were in doubt whether she was a great goat or a hprned sow . The two captains of his Majesty ' s ships accompanied these young men on shore : with some difficulty and

    a good wetting , and with the assistance of their conductors , they accomplished a landing through the surf , and were soon after met bv John Adams , a man between fifty and sixty years of age , who conducted them to his house . His wife accompanied him , a very old lady , blind with age . He was at first alarmed lest the visit

    was to apprehend him ; but on being told that they were perfectly ignorant of his existence , he was relieved from his anxiety . Being once assured that this visit was of a peaceable nature , it is impossible to describe the joy

    these poor people manifested on seeing those wliom they were pleased to consider as their countrymen . Yams , cocoa-nuts , and other fruits , with fine fresh eggs , were laid before them ; and the old man would have killed

    and dressed a hog for his visitors , but time would not allow them to partake of his intended feast . This interesting new colony , it seemed , now consisted of about fortysix persons , mostly grown up young people , besides a number of infants .

    The young men all born on the island were very athletic and of the finest forms , their countenances open and pleasing , indicating much benevolence and goodness of heart : but the young women were objects of particular admiration , tall , robust , and

    beautifully formed , their faces beaming with smiles and unruffled . good humour , but wearing a degree of modesty and bashfulness that would do honour to the most virtuous nation on earth ; their teeth like ivory , were regular and beautiful , without a single exception ; and all of them , both male and female , had the most

    marked English features . The clothing of the young females consisted of a piece of linen reaching from the waist to the kness , and generally a ^ sort of mantle thrown loosely over the

    shoulders , and hanging as low as the ancles ; but this covering appeared to be intended chiefly as a protection against the sun and the weather , as it was frequently laid aside , and then

    Untitled Article

    y the upper part of the body was entirely exposed ; and it is not possible to conceive more beautiful forms than they exhibited . They sometimes wreath caps or bonnets for the head , in the most tasty manner , to protect

    the face from the rays of the sun ; and though as Captain Pipon observes , they have only had the instruction of their Otaheitan mothers , " our dressmakers in London would be delighted with the simplicity , and yet elegant taste , of these untaught females . "

    Their native modesty , assisted by a proper sense of religion and morality , instilled into their youthful minds by John Adams , has hitherto preserved these interesting people perfectly chaste and free from all kinds of debauchery . Adams assured the

    visitors , that since Christian ' s death there had not been a single instance of any young woman proving unchaste ; nor any attempt at seduction on the part of the men . They all labour while young iu the cultivation of the

    ground ; and when possessed of a sufficient quantity of cleared land and of stock to maintain a family , they are allowed to marry , but always with the ccfnsent of Adams , who unites them by a sort of marriage ceremony of his own .

    The greatest harmony prevailed in this little society ; their only quarrels , and these rarely happened , being , according to their own expression , quarrels of the mouth : they are honest in their dealings , which consist of bartering different articles for mutual accommodation .

    Their habitations are extremely neat : the little village of Pitcairn forms a pretty square , the houses at the upper end of which are occupied by the patriarch John Adams , and his family , consisting of his old blind

    wife and three daughters , from fifteen to eighteen years of age , and a boy of eleven ; a daughter of his wife by a former husband , and a son-in-law . On the opposite side is the dwelling of Thursday October Christian ; and in the centre is a smooth verdant

    lawn on which the poultry are let loose , fenced in so as to prevent the intrusion of the domestic quadrupeds . All that was done was obviously undertaken on a settled plan , unlike to any thing to be met with on the other islands . In their houses too .

    Untitled Article

    4 Account of the Mutineers in the Bounty 9 17 $ < J . .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1816, page 4, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2448/page/4/