MURDER OF JOHN NORTON. 37 
of releasing the boat. This brave man fell a 
sacrifice, in preserving the lives of his com- 
panions. In doing this, he was surrounded by 
the natives, who barbarously murdered him, and 
afterwards beat him about the head with stones. 
Poor Norton, who had been on a former 
voyage with Bligh as a quarter-master, was a 
man of worthy character, and supported an 
aged parent out of his wages. They killed 
him on the beach, and dragged the body up the 
country to one of their malais, or lawns, and 
there left it exposed for two or three days before 
they buried it. This story was related by the 
islanders to Mr. William Mariner, when he 
visited Tofoa eighteen years afterwards; and 
they added that no grass had since grown on 
the line along which they had dragged the 
corpse, nor upon the spot where it had lain 
unburied. Such a tale induced him to make 
further examination ; and he found a bare line, 
as they had stated, in a place where it would 
seem there was no frequency of passers-by ; and 
at the termination of the track was seen a bare 
spot, extending transversely, about the length 
and breadth of a man. 
To this anecdote, which is found in Mariner's 
" Account of the Natives of the Tonga Islands," 
it is not intended to give much weight ; there 
being many ways of explaining the seeming 
wonder. But a matter connected with one of 
the Bounty men, so heroic a character too, 
deserves to be recorded in this place. Those 
who related the marvellous part of the story 
were of such a treacherous and deceitful race, 
