146 EMIGRATION. 
loved island, that their friends in this country 
felt serious misgivings on hearing of the probable 
necessity of the removal of the community from 
Pitcairn, on the score of necessity. Captain 
Fanshawe, who visited the islanders in 1849, had 
written as follows : — " I could not trace in any of 
them the slightest desire to remove elsewhere. 
On the contrary, they expressed the greatest 
repugnance to do so, whilst a sweet potato re- 
mained to them ; a repugnance much enhanced 
by their emigration to Otaheite about eighteen 
years ago." George Adams, the son of the 
original John Adams, had declared subsequently 
that he should prefer remaining, that he might, 
when his time should come, die on his native 
island, and be buried in the grave of his father. 
Mr. Nobbs had said, in the hearing of the 
author, in November, 1852, that as long as two 
families should remain at Pitcairn, he would 
remain also. 
Until recently, however, the people had not 
been encouraged by the hope, that in the event of 
their crops failing, or their population increasing, 
they might probably be transferred to some 
more roomy spot, blest with a genial climate 
and a fertile soil. 
It will be seen, in the progress of this work, 
that a scarcity of provisions, followed by general 
illness at Pitcairn's Island, in the year 1853, had 
caused a strong feeling of the necessity for a 
change of residence, and that this feeling had 
ripened into an actual proposition from the com- 
munity for a removal to Norfolk Island. It was a 
part of their plan, should this petition be granted. 
