LETTER FROM SIR T. STAINES. 117 
and then closed, to ascertain whether it was 
inhabited, which I soon discovered it to be, and, 
to my great astonishment, found that every 
individual on the island (forty in number) 
spoke very good English. They proved to be 
the descendants of the deluded crew of the 
Bounty, which from Otaheite proceeded to the 
above-mentioned island, where the ship was 
burnt. 
" Christian appeared to have been the leader, 
and the sole cause of the mutiny in that ship. 
A venerable old man, named John Adams, is 
the only surviving Englishman of those who last 
quitted Otaheite in her, and whose exemplary 
conduct, and fatherly care of the whole little 
colony, could not but command admiration. The 
pious manner in which all those born on the 
island have been reared, the correct sense of 
religion which has been instilled into their young 
minds by this old man, has given him the pre- 
eminence over the whole of them, to whom they 
look up as the father of the whole, and one 
family. 
" A son of Christian was the first born on the 
island, now about twenty-five years of age 
(named Thursday October Christian) ; the elder 
Christian fell a sacrifice to the jealousy of an 
Otaheitan man, within three or four years after 
their arrival on the island. They were accom- 
panied thither by six Otaheitan men and twelve 
women ; the former were all swept away by 
desperate contentions between them and the 
Englishmen, and five of the latter have died 
at different periods, leaving at present only 
