JOHN ADAMS. 117 
shores, and landing in boats at all times dif- 
ficult, although safe to approach within a 
short distance in a ship. 
(Signed) " T. STAINES." 
It is rather remarkable, that in this letter 
John Adams should have been styled a 
" venerable old man," as he was then only 
fifty years of age. But he had suffered much 
anxiety ; for a long period of his life he had 
been a stranger to security ; and his weather- 
beaten face bore marks of a more advanced 
age than that which he had attained. He 
is mentioned in Bligh's description, as very 
much pitted with the small-pox, and " tat- 
towed on his body, legs, arms, and feet." 
As the real position of the island was 
ascertained to be far distant from that in 
which it had been usually laid down in the 
charts, and as Sir T. Staines and Captain 
Pipon seem to have still considered it as 
uninhabited, they were not a little surprised, 
on approaching its shores, to behold planta- 
tions regularly laid out, and huts or houses, 
more neatly constructed than those of the 
Marquesas Islands. When about two miles 
