At last, when he considered the time to be ripe, he began secretly to sow the seeds of discontent among the people.  It was his deliberate purpose, from the beginning, to subvert the government, but of course he kept that to himself for a time.  He used different arts with different individuals.  He awakened dissatisfaction in one quarter by calling attention to the shortness of the Sunday services; he argued that there should be three three-hour services on Sunday instead of only two.  Many had secretly held this opinion before; they now privately banded themselves into a party to work for it.  He showed certain of the women that they were not allowed sufficient voice in the prayer-meetings; thus another party was formed.  No weapon was beneath his notice; he even descended to the children, and awoke discontent in their breasts because—­as he discovered for them—­they had not enough Sunday-school.  This created a third party.

Now, as the chief of these parties, he found himself the strongest power in the community.  So he proceeded to his next move—­a no less important one than the impeachment of the chief magistrate, James Russell Nickoy; a man of character and ability, and possessed of great wealth, he being the owner of a house with a parlor to it, three acres and a half of yam-land, and the only boat in Pitcairn’s, a whaleboat; and, most unfortunately, a pretext for this impeachment offered itself at just the right time.

One of the earliest and most precious laws of the island was the law against trespass.  It was held in great reverence, and was regarded as the palladium of the people’s liberties.  About thirty years ago an important case came before the courts under this law, in this wise:  a chicken belonging to Elizabeth Young (aged, at that time, fifty-eight, a daughter of John Mills, one of the mutineers of the Bounty) trespassed upon the grounds of Thursday October Christian (aged twenty-nine, a grandson of Fletcher Christian, one of the mutineers).  Christian killed the chicken.  According to the law, Christian could keep the chicken; or, if he preferred, he could restore its remains to the owner and receive damages in “produce” to an amount equivalent to the waste and injury wrought by the trespasser.  The court records set forth that “the said Christian aforesaid did deliver the aforesaid remains to the said Eliza beth Young, and did demand one bushel of yams in satisfaction of the damage done.”  But Elizabeth Young considered the demand exorbitant; the parties could not agree; therefore Christian brought suit in the courts.  He lost his case in the justice’s court; at least, he was awarded only a half-peck of yams, which he considered insufficient, and in the nature of a defeat.  He appealed.  The case lingered several years in an ascending grade of courts, and always resulted in decrees sustaining the original verdict; and finally the thing got into the supreme court, and there it stuck for twenty years.