Let me refresh the reader's memory a little. Nearly a hundred years ago
the crew of the British ship Bounty mutinied, set the captain and his
officers adrift upon the open sea, took possession of the ship, and
sailed southward. They procured wives for themselves among the natives
of Tahiti, then proceeded to a lonely little rock in mid-Pacific, called
Pitcairn's Island, wrecked the vessel, stripped her of everything that
might be useful to a new colony, and established themselves on shore.
Pitcairn's is so far removed from the track of commerce that it was many
years before another vessel touched there. It had always been considered
an uninhabited island; so when a ship did at last drop its anchor there,
in 1808, the captain was greatly surprised to find the place peopled.
Although the mutineers had fought among themselves, and gradually killed
each other off until only two or three of the original stock remained,
these tragedies had not occurred before a number of children had been
born; so in 1808 the island had a population of twenty-seven persons.
John Adams, the chief mutineer, still survived, and was to live many
years yet, as governor and patriarch of the flock. From being mutineer
and homicide, he had turned Christian and teacher, and his nation of
twenty-seven persons was now the purest and devoutest in Christendom.
Adams had long ago hoisted the British flag and constituted his island
an appanage of the British crown.
To-day the population numbers ninety persons--sixteen men, nineteen
women, twenty-five boys, and thirty girls--all descendants of the
mutineers, all bearing the family names of those mutineers, and all
speaking English, and English only. The island stands high up out of
the sea, and has precipitous walls. It is about three-quarters of a mile
long, and in places is as much as half a mile wide. Such arable land as
it affords is held by the several families, according to a division made
many years ago. There is some live stock--goats, pigs, chickens, and
cats; but no dogs, and no large animals. There is one church building
used also as a capitol, a schoolhouse, and a public library. The title
of the governor has been, for a generation or two, “Magistrate and Chief
Ruler, in subordination to her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain.” It
was his province to make the laws, as well as execute them. His office
was elective; everybody over seventeen years old had a vote--no matter
about the sex.
The sole occupations of the people were farming and fishing; their
sole recreation, religious services. There has never been a shop in the
island, nor any money. The habits and dress of the people have always
been primitive, and their laws simple to puerility. They have lived in
a deep Sabbath tranquillity, far from the world and its ambitions and
vexations, and neither knowing nor caring what was going on in the
mighty empires that lie beyond their limitless ocean solitudes. Once in
three or four years a ship touched there, moved them with aged news
of bloody battles, devastating epidemics, fallen thrones, and ruined
dynasties, then traded them some soap and flannel for some yams and
breadfruit, and sailed away, leaving them to retire into their peaceful
dreams and pious dissipations once more.
On the 8th of last September, Admiral de Horsey, commander-in-chief of
the British fleet in the Pacific, visited Pitcairn's Island, and speaks
as follows in his official report to the admiralty:--
They have beans, carrots, turnips, cabbages, and a little maize;
pineapples, fig-trees, custard-apples, and oranges; lemons, and
cocoa-nuts. Clothing is obtained alone from passing ships, in barter
for refreshments. There are no springs on the island, but as it
rains generally once a month they have plenty of water, although at
times in former years they have suffered from drought. No alcoholic
liquors, except for medicinal purposes, are used, and a drunkard is
unknown....
The necessary articles required by the islanders are best shown by
those we furnished in barter for refreshments: namely, flannel,
serge, drill, half-boots, combs, tobacco, and soap. They also stand
much in need of maps and slates for their school, and tools of any
kind are most acceptable. I caused them to be supplied from the
public stores with a Union jack for display on the arrival of
ships, and a pit-saw, of which they were greatly in need. This, I
trust, will meet the approval of their lordships. If the munificent
people of England were only aware of the wants of this most
deserving little colony, they would not long go unsupplied....
Divine service is held every Sunday at 10.30 A.M. and at 3 P.M.,
in the house built and used by John Adams for that purpose until he
died in 1829. It is conducted strictly in accordance with the
liturgy of the Church of England, by Mr. Simon Young, their selected
pastor, who is much respected. A Bible class is held every
Wednesday, when all who conveniently can, attend. There is also a
general meeting for prayer on the first Friday in every month.
Family prayers are said in every house the first thing in the
morning and the last thing in the evening, and no food is partaken
of without asking God's blessing before and afterward. Of these
islanders' religious attributes no one can speak without deep
respect. A people whose greatest pleasure and privilege is to
commune in prayer with their God, and to join in hymns of praise,
and who are, moreover, cheerful, diligent, and probably freer from
vice than any other community, need no priest among them.
Now I come to a sentence in the admiral's report which he dropped
carelessly from his pen, no doubt, and never gave the matter a second
thought. He little imagined what a freight of tragic prophecy it bore!
This is the sentence:--
One stranger, an American, has settled on the island--a doubtful
acquisition.
A doubtful acquisition, indeed! Captain Ormsby, in the American ship
Hornet, touched at Pitcairn's nearly four months after the admiral's
visit, and from the facts which he gathered there we now know all about
that American. Let us put these facts together in historical form. The
American's name was Butterworth Stavely. As soon as he had become
well acquainted with all the people--and this took but a few days, of
course--he began to ingratiate himself with them by all the arts he
could command. He became exceedingly popular, and much looked up to; for
one of the first things he did was to forsake his worldly way of life,
and throw all his energies into religion. He was always reading his
Bible, or praying, or singing hymns, or asking blessings. In prayer, no
one had such “liberty” as he, no one could pray so long or so well.
At last, when he considered the time to be ripe, he began secretly to
sow the seeds of discontent among the people. It was his deliberate
purpose, from the beginning, to subvert the government, but of course he
kept that to himself for a time. He used different arts with different
individuals. He awakened dissatisfaction in one quarter by calling
attention to the shortness of the Sunday services; he argued that there
should be three three-hour services on Sunday instead of only two.
Many had secretly held this opinion before; they now privately banded
themselves into a party to work for it. He showed certain of the women
that they were not allowed sufficient voice in the prayer-meetings;
thus another party was formed. No weapon was beneath his notice; he
even descended to the children, and awoke discontent in their breasts
because--as he discovered for them--they had not enough Sunday-school.
This created a third party.
Now, as the chief of these parties, he found himself the strongest power
in the community. So he proceeded to his next move--a no less important
one than the impeachment of the chief magistrate, James Russell Nickoy;
a man of character and ability, and possessed of great wealth, he being
the owner of a house with a parlor to it, three acres and a half of
yam land, and the only boat in Pitcairn's, a whaleboat; and, most
unfortunately, a pretext for this impeachment offered itself at just the
right time.
One of the earliest and most precious laws of the island was the law
against trespass. It was held in great reverence, and was regarded
as the palladium of the people's liberties. About thirty years ago an
important case came before the courts under this law, in this wise: a
chicken belonging to Elizabeth Young (aged, at that time, fifty-eight,
a daughter of John Mills, one of the mutineers of the Bounty) trespassed
upon the grounds of Thursday October Christian (aged twenty-nine, a
grandson of Fletcher Christian, one of the mutineers). Christian killed
the chicken. According to the law, Christian could keep the chicken; or,
if he preferred, he could restore its remains to the owner and receive
damages in “produce” to an amount equivalent to the waste and injury
wrought by the trespasser. The court records set forth that “the said
Christian aforesaid did deliver the aforesaid remains to the said
Elizabeth Young, and did demand one bushel of yams in satisfaction of the
damage done.” But Elizabeth Young considered the demand exorbitant; the
parties could not agree; therefore Christian brought suit in the courts.
He lost his case in the justice's court; at least, he was awarded only
a half-peck of yams, which he considered insufficient, and in the
nature of a defeat. He appealed. The case lingered several years in an
ascending grade of courts, and always resulted in decrees sustaining the
original verdict; and finally the thing got into the supreme court, and
there it stuck for twenty years. But last summer, even the supreme court
managed to arrive at a decision at last. Once more the original verdict
was sustained. Christian then said he was satisfied; but Stavely was
present, and whispered to him and to his lawyer, suggesting, “as a mere
form,” that the original law be exhibited, in order to make sure that
it still existed. It seemed an odd idea, but an ingenious one. So the
demand was made. A messenger was sent to the magistrate's house; he
presently returned with the tidings that it had disappeared from among
the state archives.
The court now pronounced its late decision void, since it had been made
under a law which had no actual existence.
Great excitement ensued immediately. The news swept abroad over the
whole island that the palladium of the public liberties was lost--maybe
treasonably destroyed. Within thirty minutes almost the entire nation
were in the court-room--that is to say, the church. The impeachment of
the chief magistrate followed, upon Stavely's motion. The accused met
his misfortune with the dignity which became his great office. He did
not plead, or even argue; he offered the simple defense that he had not
meddled with the missing law; that he had kept the state archives in
the same candle-box that had been used as their depository from the
beginning; and that he was innocent of the removal or destruction of the
lost document.
But nothing could save him; he was found guilty of misprision of
treason, and degraded from his office, and all his property was
confiscated.
The lamest part of the whole shameful matter was the reason suggested
by his enemies for his destruction of the law, to wit: that he did it to
favor Christian, because Christian was his cousin! Whereas Stavely was
the only individual in the entire nation who was not his cousin. The
reader must remember that all these people are the descendants of half
a dozen men; that the first children intermarried together and bore
grandchildren to the mutineers; that these grandchildren intermarried;
after them, great and great-great-grandchildren intermarried; so that
to-day everybody is blood kin to everybody. Moreover, the relationships
are wonderfully, even astoundingly, mixed up and complicated. A
stranger, for instance, says to an islander:--
“You speak of that young woman as your cousin; a while ago you called
her your aunt.”
“Well, she is my aunt, and my cousin, too. And also my stepsister, my
niece, my fourth cousin, my thirty-third cousin, my forty-second cousin,
my great-aunt, my grandmother, my widowed sister-in-law--and next week
she will be my wife.”
So the charge of nepotism against the chief magistrate was weak. But
no matter; weak or strong, it suited Stavely. Stavely was immediately
elected to the vacant magistracy, and, oozing reform from every pore,
he went vigorously to work. In no long time religious services raged
everywhere and unceasingly. By command, the second prayer of the Sunday
morning service, which had customarily endured some thirty-five or forty
minutes, and had pleaded for the world, first by continent and then by
national and tribal detail, was extended to an hour and a half, and
made to include supplications in behalf of the possible peoples in the
several planets. Everybody was pleased with this; everybody said, “Now
this is something like.” By command, the usual three-hour sermons were
doubled in length. The nation came in a body to testify their gratitude
to the new magistrate. The old law forbidding cooking on the Sabbath was
extended to the prohibition of eating, also. By command, Sunday-school
was privileged to spread over into the week. The joy of all classes was
complete. In one short month the new magistrate had become the people's
idol!
The time was ripe for this man's next move. He began, cautiously at
first, to poison the public mind against England. He took the chief
citizens aside, one by one, and conversed with them on this topic.
Presently he grew bolder, and spoke out. He said the nation owed it to
itself, to its honor, to its great traditions, to rise in its might and
throw off “this galling English yoke.”
But the simple islanders answered:
“We had not noticed that it galled. How does it gall? England sends
a ship once in three or four years to give us soap and clothing, and
things which we sorely need and gratefully receive; but she never
troubles us; she lets us go our own way.”
“She lets you go your own way! So slaves have felt and spoken in all the
ages! This speech shows how fallen you are, how base, how brutalized
you have become, under this grinding tyranny! What! has all manly pride
forsaken you? Is liberty nothing? Are you content to be a mere appendage
to a foreign and hateful sovereignty, when you might rise up and take
your rightful place in the august family of nations, great, free,
enlightened, independent, the minion of no sceptered master, but the
arbiter of your own destiny, and a voice and a power in decreeing the
destinies of your sister-sovereignties of the world?”
Speeches like this produced an effect by-and-by. Citizens began to feel
the English yoke; they did not know exactly how or whereabouts they
felt it, but they were perfectly certain they did feel it. They got to
grumbling a good deal, and chafing under their chains, and longing for
relief and release. They presently fell to hating the English flag, that
sign and symbol of their nation's degradation; they ceased to glance
up at it as they passed the capitol, but averted their eyes and grated
their teeth; and one morning, when it was found trampled into the mud at
the foot of the staff, they left it there, and no man put his hand to
it to hoist it again. A certain thing which was sure to happen sooner or
later happened now. Some of the chief citizens went to the magistrate by
night, and said:--
“We can endure this hated tyranny no longer. How can we cast it off?”
“By a coup d'etat.”
“How?”
“A coup d'etat. It is like this: everything is got ready, and at the
appointed moment I, as the official head of the nation, publicly and
solemnly proclaim its independence, and absolve it from allegiance to
any and all other powers whatsoever.”
“That sounds simple and easy. We can do that right away. Then what will
be the next thing to do?”
“Seize all the defenses and public properties of all kinds, establish
martial law, put the army and navy on a war footing, and proclaim the
empire!”