LETTER FROM SIR T. STAINES. 127 
chronometer is an object of exceeding interest 
to those who view it with reference to its history, 
in connexion with the Resolution and the Bounty. 
The author will, therefore, be forgiven for his 
minuteness on the subject of this relic. 
No further notice was taken of Pitcaim's 
island, nor of its inhabitants, until 1814, when 
his Majesty's ships Briton and Tac/us, Captain 
Sir Thomas Staines, and Captain ripon, being 
in search of an American ship of war, the Essex, 
which had been seizing some of our whaling 
vessels, arrived at the spot. Adams, upon 
this,' supposed that his time was come, and that 
he should be carried away. Although much 
alarmed,' he did not attempt concealment, but 
presented himself to the officers, who soon re- 
assured him, by saying that he was not to be 
arrested; the time was past for that; he had 
been a quarter of a century on 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. 18, 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 Septem- 
ber, I fell in with an island where none is laid 
down in the Admiralty or other charts, accord- 
ing to the several chronometers of the Briton 
I 
