114 SIR T. STAINES. 
presented himself to the officers, who soon 
reassured him by saying that he was not to 
be arrested; the time was past for that: he 
had been a quarter of a century in the 
island; and his presence was useful to the 
islanders. 
The condition of the place and people at 
that date cannot be better described than by 
Sir T. Staines in his own words, in a letter 
addressed by him to Vice- Admiral Manley 
Dixon : 
"Briton, Valparaiso, Oct. 18th, 1814. 
" SIR, I have the honour to inform you 
that on my passage from the Marquesas 
Islands to this point, on the morning of the 
17th September, I fell in with an island 
where none is laid down in the Admiralty or 
other charts, according to the several chrono- 
meters of the Briton and Tagus. I therefore 
hove to, until daylight, and then closed, to 
ascertain whether it was inhabited, which I 
soon discovered it to be, and, to my great 
astonishment, found that every individual on 
the island (forty in number) spoke very good 
English. They proved to be the descen- 
dants of the deluded crew of the Bounty, 
