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Mayhew Folger's 1808 Discovery of the Settlement on Pitcairn's Island as it First Appeared in the American Press:
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MUTINY OF THE BOUNTY.
Extract of a letter from Buenos Ayres,
to a merchant in Cork, dated June
19, 1809,
"The American ship Topaz, captain Matthew Folger, in the latter end of the year 1807, on a trading voyage to the South Seas, fell in with Pitcairn's Island, in lat 26, S. long. 23, 7. He put out his boat to go on shore, when he was met by some men, apparently Indians in a boat, who hailed him in good English. They told him that a man of the name of Smith was waiting for him at one of their houses to which he was conducted, and from him he learned the following particulars: – "That he (Smith) had been a mariner, and one of the mutineers on board the Bounty; and after they parted with capt. Bligh, they put back to Otaheite. A few days after, Christian, the chief of the mutineers, called some of his most confidential men together, and told them that it would be unsafe to remain there any longer, as it was certain that the British government would send after them, and it was better to go as soon as possible from that place; – upon which they agreed to leave the island, and take with them their wives and servants, and every thing that was necessary for their maintenance, to some uninhabited island. Nine of the mutineers, with their servants and women, accordingly embarked and brought the ship to Pitcairn's Island, when, after stripping her, she was burnt. He further says, that in the course of some time, the servants rose on their masters, and killed all but himself (Smith,) he having escaped with a pistol shot in his neck. He was in a few days afterwards found in this state in the woods by the women, who by a well concerted plan, had killed all the servants, so that of the mutineers, Smith now only was alive – ever since he (Smith) had continued to live with them. The children which these women had, and those they were pregnant with, at the time their husbands were killed, had encreased, and those he had instructed in the English language and protestant religion. During the seventeen years he had been on the island, he had seen but one ship pass, and that at a great distance. Capt. Folger says, their houses and domestic effairs were conducted in the same manner as tbe peasantry in England – that the girls and boys were very handsome and well proportioned, and that he never met with better conducted people in his life; that the women were rigidly virtuous, and that no clergyman could have a better conducted flock than Smith had. He declared that he never would quit the island, and if ever a king's ship touched there he would secrete himself, as he never expected the English government would pardon him. On capt. Folger's telling him of the victories of the English navy over France, he wept for joy like a child." |
SOURCE & NOTES:This transcription was taken from the following newspaper article: "Mutiny of the Bounty", Independent American (Georgetown, District of Columbia), November 9, 1809, page [1]. Readex: America's Historical Newspapers. Web. 30 Nov. 2016. Nearly identical articles were printed in the following American newspapers:
Last updated by Tom Tyler, Denver, CO, USA, Dec 3 2021.
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