John Adams used to relate that it was through the influence of a dream that he was first led seriously to consider the condition of the helpless and ignorant youths who were so suddenly and unexpectedly left on his hands, and to arouse himself to the heavy responsibility that rested on him, as the only instructor that could be had for them, totally unfit for the task though he might be. It was a late beginning, but he engaged in the work with all his heart. A Bible and prayer book saved from the _Bounty_ were the only means at his command in teaching the young people to read. But, with the blessing of God upon his humble efforts, John Adams had the satisfaction of seeing the children of such disreputable parentage growing up around him, quiet, peaceable, industrious, and happy, and with an increasing love of virtue and strict morality. A beautiful feature of the whole was the love that united them as one family under the fatherly control of John Adams. Such was the condition of life on Pitcairn Island when, in 1808, Captain Mayhew Folger, of the American ship _Topaz_, accidentally discovered that the island was inhabited. Following is part of a letter received by the writer from Mr. Robert Folger (a son of the captain above named), who kindly gave permission to make use of it. The letter was dated Massillon, Stark County, Ohio, August 4, 1882. After giving his reasons for writing, the letter proceeds as follows:— “My brother, sister, and myself are the only surviving children of Captain Mayhew Folger, of the ship _Topaz_, of Boston, the discoverer, in February, 1808, of the colony on Pitcairn’s Island. I do not like to refer to the survivor of the _Bounty_ crew on the island as a mutineer, for I cannot help feeling that the cruelty of Bligh to his men was such as to justify almost anything on the part of the people on board.... I may now say that I have been for nearly twenty-five years gathering facts in regard to Pitcairn’s Island. “I have Bligh’s own account of the mutiny, ‘Delano’s Voyages,’ my father’s logbook, with his entry therein in his own handwriting, dated, as I now remember, February 8, 1808—Lady Belcher’s book, ‘The Mutineers of the _Bounty_’—and numerous letters and newspaper publications. “If you would like a copy of my father’s journal entry, I shall have great pleasure in transcribing it, and sending it to you. I may as well say in advance that he, as a shipmaster, shared in the general feeling of the world, and shipmasters especially, against the ‘arch-mutineer,’ Christian.