A Spurious Utopia. 
259 
of them determined to return to their beloved 
isle, that “ lonely mid-Pacific rock, hung with 
an arras of green creeping plants, passion 
flowers, and trumpet vines ; and breasting back 
the foaming surf of a mighty ocean.” But 
the paternal British Government did not take 
kindly to the idea, and instead of sixty only 
seventeen people were allowed to return to 
Pitcairn. These were families of the Youngs, 
descendants of Edward Young, the comrade 
of the ill-fated Fletcher Christian. The 
seceders consisted of two men, their wives, 
ten girls, and three boys ; and to this day 
they and their descendants, augmented by an 
occasional dissatisfied McCoy, or Adams, or 
Quinta] from Norfolk Island, dwell in peace 
and comfort on their old island home three 
thousand miles away from the rest of the 
Bounty stock. Sometimes a wandering trading 
vessel brings news of them, but, even in 
Australia, Pitcairn is all but forgotten. Not 
so, however, with the Norfolk Island people— 
who, by the way, are all Youngs and McCoys, 
and Quintals and Adamses, and Nobbses and 
Buffets (the first four being family names of 
their Bounty progenitors). They always were 
