Revised Jun 21 2021
This interesting settlement then consisted of about forty-six persons, mostly grown-up young people, besides a number of infants. The young men (all born on the island) were very athletic, and of fine 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 well-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 following pleasing account appeared in the Quarterly Review:—
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, had hitherto preserved these interesting people pure and uncorrupted.