116 LETTER FROM SIR T. STAINES. 
the face. The same name, and the date, A.D. 
1771, are engraved inside. It is at present in 
London, and is an object of exceeding interest to 
those who view it with reference to its history in 
connexion with the Resolution and the Bounty. 
But to return to Pitcairn. No further notice 
was taken of the island or its inhabitants until 
1814, when his Majesty's ships Briton and 
Tagus, Captains Sir Thomas Staines and Cap- 
tain Pipon, being in search of an American ship 
of war, the Essex, which had been seizing some 
of our whaling vessels, arrived at Pitcairn. 
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 offi- 
cers, who soon reassured 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 
and Tagus. I therefore hove to until daylight, 
