REMOVAL OF ME. HILL. 179 
Mayor's, and to the dinner of an Alderman of 
London." 
Happily, the Hill dynasty was not destined 
to last long. He had given out, says Mr, Brodie, 
"that he was a very near relative of the Duke 
of Bedford, and that the Duchess seldom rode 
out in her carriage without him." * But whilst 
the people listened, and still their wonder grew 
at his magnificent accounts of himself, and of 
his noble friends, who should arrive on their 
shores, in H.M.S. Actceon, in 1837, but Cap- 
tain Lord Edward Russell, a son of the Duke 
of Bedford ! 
A spectre could not have been a more ap- 
palling visitant to the so-called relative of the 
Russellsc He would have been forthwith taken 
from the place by Lord Edward ; but this could 
not have been done without orders. Soon, 
however, Captain H. W. Bruce (afterwards Ad- 
miral Bruce, Commander-in-chief on the coast 
of Africa) arrived in H. M. S- Imogene, and 
quietly carried off Mr* Hill, landing him, in 
1838, safe at Valparaiso. 
Mr. Nobbs, during his absence from Pitcairn, 
was at the Gambier Islands, where he employed 
himself as a teacher, biding his time in patience, 
and employing, in his own homely manner, the 
talent entrusted to his use. 
Gambier's group, about three hundred miles 
W.N. W. of Pitcairn, consists of eight islands, 
surrounded by coral reefs, enclosing a lagoon in 
which there are several secure anchoring-places, 
* Brodie, p. 211. 
