P.S.--Just as this last sheet came from the press, the editor has
noticed, with a feeling of deep and sincere regret, a paragraph in the
newspapers, said to be extracted from an American paper, stating that a
vessel sent to Pitcairn's Island by the missionaries of Otaheite has
carried off the whole of the settlers to the latter island. If this be
true--and the mention of the name of Nott gives a colour to the
transaction--the 'cherubim' must have slept, the 'flaming sword' have
been sheathed, and another Eden has been lost: and, what is worse than
all, that native simplicity of manners, that purity of morals, and that
singleness of heart, which so peculiarly distinguished this little
interesting society, are all lost. They will now be dispersed among the
missionary stations as humble dependents, where Kitty Quintal and the
rest of them may get 'food for their souls,' such as it is, in exchange
for the substantial blessings they enjoyed on Pitcairn's Island.
ADDITIONAL NOTE
In reference to the subject of extraordinary passages made in open boats
on the wide ocean, and the note thereon at page 127, the following may
be added as another instance, the most painfully interesting, and the
most calamitous, perhaps, ever recorded. It was related to Mr. Bennet, a
gentleman deputed by the Missionary Society of London, together with the
Rev. Daniel Tyerman, to visit their several stations in the South Sea
Islands, by Captain George Pollard, the unfortunate sufferer, whom these
gentlemen met with at Raiatea, then a passenger in an American vessel,
having a second time lost his ship near the Sandwich Islands. The
narrative is extracted from _The Journal of Voyages and Travels_, just
published, of the two gentlemen above-mentioned, and is as follows:--
'My first shipwreck was in open sea, on the 20th of November, 1820, near
the equator, about 118 degrees W. long. The vessel, a South Sea whaler,
was called the _Essex_. On that day, as we were on the look-out for
sperm whales, and had actually struck two, which the boats' crews were
following to secure, I perceived a very large one--it might be eighty
or ninety feet long--rushing with great swiftness through the water,
right towards the ship. We hoped that she would turn aside, and dive
under, when she perceived such a baulk in her way. But no! the animal
came full force against our stern-post: had any quarter less firm been
struck, the vessel must have been burst; as it was, every plank and
timber trembled, throughout her whole bulk.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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