of hostile armies—­battles by sea and land, and of all ‘the pomp and circumstance of glorious war.’  If the subject of the Bounty was accidentally mentioned, it was merely to express an opinion that this vessel, and those within her, had gone down to the bottom, or that some savage islanders had inflicted on the mutineers that measure of retribution so justly due to their crime.  It happened, however, some years before the conclusion of this war of unexampled duration, that an accidental discovery, as interesting as it was wholly unexpected, was brought to light, in consequence of an American trading vessel having by mere chance approached one of those numerous islands in the Pacific, against whose steep and iron-bound shores the surf almost everlastingly rolls with such tremendous violence, as to bid defiance to any attempt of boats to land, except at particular times and in very few places.

The first intimation of this extraordinary discovery was transmitted by Sir Sydney Smith from Rio de Janeiro, and received at the Admiralty, 14th May, 1809.  It was conveyed to him from Valparaiso by Lieutenant Fitzmaurice, and was as follows:—­

’Captain Folger, of the American ship Topaz, of Boston, relates that, upon landing on Pitcairn’s Island, in lat. 25 deg. 2’ S., long. 130 deg.  W., he found there an Englishman of the name of Alexander Smith, the only person remaining of nine that escaped in his Majesty’s late ship Bounty, Captain W. Bligh.  Smith relates that, after putting Captain Bligh in the boat, Christian, the leader of the mutiny, took command of the ship and went to Otaheite, where the great part of the crew left her, except Christian, Smith, and seven others, who each took wives and six Otaheitan men-servants, and shortly after arrived at the said island (Pitcairn), where they ran the ship on shore, and broke her up; this event took place in the year 1790.

’About four years after their arrival (a great jealousy existing), the Otaheitans secretly revolted, and killed every Englishman except himself whom they severely wounded in the neck with a pistol ball.  The same night, the widows of the deceased Englishmen arose and put to death the whole of the Otaheitans, leaving Smith, the only man alive upon the island, with eight or nine women and several small children.  On his recovery, he applied himself to tilling the ground, so that it now produces plenty of yams, cocoa-nuts, bananas, and plantains; hogs and poultry in abundance.  There are now some grown-up men and women, children of the mutineers, on the island, the whole population amounting to about thirty-five, who acknowledge Smith as father and commander of them all; they all speak English, and have been educated by him (as Captain Folger represents) in a religious and moral way.

’The second mate of the Topaz asserts that Christian, the ringleader, became insane shortly after their arrival on the island,