BISHOP bkoughton's VISIT. 365 
The services of the late excellent Dr. Brough- 
ton, Bishop of Sydney, and the regard which 
he felt for the Pitcairn community, have been 
noticed in the Ninth Chapter of this book. 
It is an interesting fact in the history of 
his life, that Norfolk Island, when a very dif- 
ferent race from its present occupants inhabited 
the place, was visited by the Bishop ; and that 
some of the then dwellers in that dreary abode 
of wrath and punishment were the special ob- 
jects of his pastoral care. An affecting letter, 
dated Mulgoa, New South Wales, 17th June, 
1839, addressed to the Secretary of the Society 
for Promoting Christian Knowledge, was read by 
the author to the Board seventeen years ago : — 
" I am anxious to have an opportunity of 
stating the satisfaction and thankfulness which 
I experienced, during a visit, in the month of 
January last, to the penal settlement of Norfolk 
Island, to find in that dreary abode of wrath 
and punishment, a striking practical testimony 
afforded to the value of the Society's exertions. 
Even among the outcast offenders who inhabit 
that insulated spot, your Bibles, and Prayer- 
books, and Manuals of Devotion, are among the 
chief sources of comfort enjoyed by the otherwise 
all but hopeless prisoner. 
" I never before had so strongly conveyed to my 
mind a sense of the diffusiveness of that bene- 
volence which you, my dear Sir, on behalf of 
the venerable Society, are so actively engaged in 
, extending, as when I beheld the eagerness with 
which those books are sought, and the thankful- 
ness with which they are received among more 
