322 POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
they proceeded to Tahiti. Those who wished to re¬ 
main there left the ship, and the others stood out to 
sea in search of some unfrequented and uninhabited 
spot of the ocean, that might afford them subsist¬ 
ence and concealment. Proceeding in an easterly 
direction, they reached Pitcairn’s Island, and could 
scarcely have desired a place more suited to their 
purpose. Here they run the Bounty on shore, 
removed the pigs, goats, and fowls to the land, 
and, having taken every thing on shore that they 
supposed would be useful, set fire to the vessel. 
The party consisted of twenty-seven persons, viz. 
ten Englishmen, six Tahitians, and eleven women;* 
or, according to another account, of nine English¬ 
men, and twelve women. In a sheltered and elevated • 
part of the island they erected their dwellings, de¬ 
posited in the earth the seeds and young plants which 
they had brought from Tahiti, and commenced the 
cultivation of the yam, and other roots, for their sub¬ 
sistence* New troubles awaited them. The wife of 
Christian, the leader of the mutineers, died ; and he 
is said to have seized by force the wife of one* of 
the Tahitians. Revenge or jealousy prompted the 
Tahitian to take the life of Christian, who was shot 
while at work in his garden, about two years after 
his arrival. The English and the Tahitians seemed 
bent on each other’s destruction. Six English¬ 
men were killed, and Adams, now the only 
survivor of the crew, was wounded : every Tahitian 
man was put to death. The history of the mu¬ 
tineers is truly tragical.—The children of these 
unhappy men have been trained up with the most in¬ 
defatigable care and attention to morals and religion 
by John Adams, who, with his interesting family 
around him, remained undiscovered and unvisited 
• Narrative of Briton’s Voyage. 
