Meantime the people in England were still in ignorance of what fate had attended the last of the mutineers. This was not revealed until 1809. An American ship, the _Topaz_, of Boston, by a mere chance approached the shores of desolate little Pitcairn Island, and on landing there to obtain water they discovered, to their astonishment, an old Englishman calling himself Alexander Smith, and the only survivor of the nine mutineers who left Tahiti in 1789 in search of a distant and desert island, accompanied by twelve Tahitian women, six men, and a number of boys. Smith stated to the captain of the _Topaz_ that the _Bounty_ was run on shore at Pitcairn and broken up in 1790, but about four years afterwards a good deal of jealousy and ill humour arising between the Tahitians and the English seamen, the former suddenly revolted and killed every Englishman, except Alexander Smith, who was severely wounded. [Alexander Smith had for some reason, then or earlier, changed his name to that of John Adams, by which he is better known in history.] The same night the Tahitian widows of the slain Englishmen rose up and put to death the whole of the Tahitian men, leaving Smith the only adult man alive on the island, together with eight or nine women, and several children who were the offspring of the English mutineers and the Tahitian women. These survivors now applied themselves sedulously to tilling the ground, so that in course of time it produced plenty of yams, coconuts and bananas, while they bred hogs and poultry in abundance. The population at the time of the _Topaz's_ visit amounted to thirty-five, who all acknowledged Smith as their chief and "father". They all spoke English, and Smith had done his best to educate them in a religious and a moral way. He died in March, 1829. The little colony had been joined before that time by a seaman from a whaling ship, named John Buffet, who deliberately settled there and constituted himself chaplain and schoolmaster. He certainly contributed a good deal in course of time to the education and good morals of this colony of handsome half-breeds, a colony which was from time to time visited by British war vessels.