If quiet and contentment followed these barbarities they were of short duration, for tragedies were in store. One of the four, named McCoy, made an ardent spirit from a root, and he and one Quintail were constantly intoxicated. McCoy threw himself from some rocks, and was killed, and Quintail became so threatening and dangerous that Young and Smith, the last of the nine, destroyed him to preserve their own lives. This was the last scene in the dreadful drama. Edward Young and Alexander Smith now experienced a complete change of life. Resort was made to a Bible and prayer-book, which Christian had brought with him, and which he himself had studied. Daily, morning and evening prayer was established, as well as a system of religious instruction. Young did not long survive, and in 1800 Alexander Smith was the sole surviving man on the island. In the meantime children had been born, and the responsibility and the direction of the affairs of the little colony rested on Smith. Nearly twenty years passed without the world knowing what had become of the _Bounty_, when information came in a curious and interesting way. In September, 1808, the attention of Mayhew Folger, captain of the American ship _Topaz_, was called to a rocky island rising abruptly from the sea. Smoke was seen, and there were other signs of habitation. A tremendous surf was beating on the shore, and the captain was doubtful about a landing place, when a canoe was seen approaching. The occupants hailed the new arrivals in good English, and cordially invited them to land. The captain declined, but a sailor volunteered to go in the canoe, provided the ship stood in near to the land, so that he might swim back, if an attack was attempted. On landing, the sailor was accosted by Smith, who told him the whole tragic story of the _Bounty_, and informed him that the birth of children had brought the population to thirty-five persons, and that he was the sole guardian and instructor. This intelligence was communicated to the captain, and he landed forthwith. Smith was anxious, after the long exile, to learn the world’s news. So the captain gave him an account of it, laying emphasis on the fact that a little man named Napoleon Bonaparte had come to the front, in France, had usurped the throne and had overrun Europe with his armies, but that England had won great victories on the sea—an announcement which was greeted by Smith with the exclamation, “Old England forever!”