These men were
accompanied by five male islanders from Tahiti and Tubuai (in which last
place they had attempted to form a settlement and failed), three Tahitian
women, wives of the Tahitians, and ten other Tahitian women and a child.
The _Bounty_ was beached and burnt, and from her remains and the island
timber the mutineers built themselves homes. Soon dissensions arose,
murder followed, and within a few years after landing every Englishman
save Smith was dead, nearly all of them dying violent deaths. Smith
changed his name to John Adams, took a Bible from the _Bounty's_ library
as his guide, and set to work to govern and to train his colony of
half-caste children.
From 1815 Pitcairn became a pet colony of the English people, and every
ship that visited it brought back stories of the piety and beautiful
character of its population. Smith or Adams died in 1829. He had long
before been pardoned by the English Government, and [Sidenote: 1829]
the good work he began was carried on by Mr. Nobbs, one of several persons
who from time to time, attracted by the story of life at Pitcairn, had
managed to make their way to the island.
In 1856 the greater portion of the Pitcairn families were removed to
Norfolk Island, which the English Government had abandoned as a penal
settlement, giving up to them all the prison buildings as a new home.
For years after, Norfolk Island, like Pitcairn, was known as the home of
the descendants of the _Bounty_ mutineers, and was talked of all over the
world in the same strain as that other ideal community at Pitcairn, but
civilization has now worked its evil ways.
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