394 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



of Thomas Currie, gave the following account of his 

 coming to the island. 



" My first coming to the island was in an American 

 ship called the Baltic, Captain Lovel, belonging to 

 Boston. We arrived from Rio de Janeiro 27th 

 December 1810. 



" I came under an agreement to remain one year, 

 and to have a passage found me to the Cape of Good 

 Hope, in case I shoidd not wish to remain on the 

 island. My agreement was twelve Spanish dollars 

 per month, besides the one-third of twenty per cent 

 on all produce during the time I might remain. 



" The man I agreed with was not Captain Lovel, 

 but Jonathan Lambert, an American, who intended 

 to make a settlement on the island. He remained 

 on it till the lth May 1812, when he and two other 

 Americans, under pretence of fishing and collecting 

 wreck, took the boat and left the island. I never 

 heard of them since ; but I must not omit mentioning, 

 that the said Jonathan Lambert took possession of the 

 three islands of Tristan d'Acunha in a formal manner. 



" I never received either money or any other re- 

 muneration from Lambert for all my labour. I suf- 

 fered the greatest distress from want of clothes and 

 provisions. I have been constantly robbed by the 

 Americans, whether vessels of war or merchantmen. 

 They took away my live stock, and the produce of the 

 land, which I had cleared with my own hard labour 

 and industry since my first arrival" 



