ADDRESS. 59 



But it is unnecessary to dwell longer on the losses of our vessels, 

 a portion of whose crews are still surviving on the numerous islands 

 of those dangerous seas. The list might be greatly enlarged, to 



The crew of the Mentor were captured December 6, 1831, and in about two months 

 afterwards Captain Barnard and one man managed to escape in a canoe, to a vessel 

 which was in sight. This only served to render the situation of the rest more severe 

 and distressing. At no time had they food sufficient to satisfy the cravings of hunger, 

 and they were obliged to labour incessantly for their masters, naked and in the hot sun, 

 until their flesh was gone, their skin tanned and burnt, and their bones sore. The 

 survivors were held accountable for those who had run away, and were given to un- 

 derstand that their doom was sealed. Vessels frequently afterwards came in sight, 

 and the natives traded with them, but the crew of the Mentor were, at such times, 

 carefully kept out of the way. They were roused to their work at sunrise, and kept at 

 labour till night, frequently without any food until they had finished, and then not 

 enough ; and if from exhaustion the required amount of labour was not performed, they 

 were deprived of food altogether. To add to their other sufferings, they were all 

 tattooed, in spite of expostulations and entreaties. This was performed in a cruel 

 manner. They were bound down to the ground, and figures imprinted on the skin 

 with a sharp stick ; the skin was then thickly punctured with an instrument made of 

 sharpened fish bones, something like an adze in shape, but having teeth like a saw, 

 rather than a smooth edge. This instrument was held within an inch or two of the 

 skin, and struck upon with a piece of wood to drive into the flesh ; an inky substance 

 was then poured into the wounds. In this way their breasts and arms were tattooed, 

 and the narrator has the marks of it now on his body. The consequence was, of 

 course, running sores for some time. They were also obliged to pluck the hair from 

 different parts of the body, and to pluck their beards once in ten days. 



About a year after they had been on the island, William Sefton, one of the crew, 

 became so reduced and exhausted by hunger, that he was unable to walk, or even rise 

 from the ground. In this situation, he was not allowed the poor satisfaction of dying 

 among his comrades, but was placed by the savages in an old canoe, and sent adrift 

 on the ocean. This was but the commencement of the final breaking up of the little 

 remnant of the poor Mentor's crew. One after another was either starved to death, 

 or killed for some trifling offence ; and at one time, it was almost by a miracle that 

 Holden himself was saved from a similar fate. All the dead were sent adrift on the 

 ocean, as it was not the custom of the natives to deposite their dead in the earth, except 

 very young children. One other, only, was ever sent to sea alive, after having become 

 so reduced as to be unable to help himself. There was no alleviation of their wretch- 

 edness, and Nute and Holden were the last ones left, with only the Pelew chief who 

 accompanied them from Bablethoup. 



In the autumn of 1834, the two survivors had become so feeble as to be useless to 

 their masters, and, having learned sufficient of the language to talk with the natives, 

 reasoned them into a promise that they might go on board the next vessel that came 

 in sight. They were then literally turned out to die ; as they could not work, they 

 were not allowed food, and they crawled from place to place subsisting on leaves, and 

 occasionally begging a morsel of cocoa-nut, until at last an English vessel came in 

 eight. The natives were persuaded, by promises of reward, to put off for the ship, 







