Pitcairn's Island [antikvár]

AUTHORS' NOTE The Bounty mutineers settled on Pitcairn Island in the year 1790. In 1808, their refuge was discovered and made known to the world by Captain Mayhew Folger, of the American sealing vessel Topaz. Various and discrepant accounts have been preserved concerning the events of the eighteen years between these dates. The source of them all, direct or indirect, was Alexander Smith (or John Adams, as he later called himself), the only surviving mutineer at the time of Folger's visit. He told the story first to Folger, then to Captains Staines and Pipon, in 1814, then to Captain Beechey, in 1825, and finally, in 1829, to J. A. Moerenhout, author of Voyages aux îles du Grand Océan. Later accounts were recorded by Walter Brodie, who set down, in 1850, a narrative obtained from Arthur, Matthew Quintal's son; and by Rosalind Young, in her Story of Pitcairn Island, which gives certain gruesome details retained in the memory of Eliza, daughter of John Mills, who reached the advanced age of ninety-three. Each of these accounts is remarkable for its differences from the others, if for nothing else, and all contain discrepancies and improbabilities of human behaviour which can scarcely be in accordance with the facts. The authors, therefore, after a careful study of every existing account, have adopted a chronology and selected a sequence of events which seem to them to render more plausible the play of cause and effect. Certain details which would add nothing to the narrative and are too revolting for the printed page have been omitted.