Another flash of my fire, and 'Thursday October Christian,' five-
and-twenty years of age, son of the dead and gone Fletcher by a
savage mother, leaps aboard His Majesty's ship Briton, hove-to off
Pitcairn's Island; says his simple grace before eating, in good
English; and knows that a pretty little animal on board is called a
dog, because in his childhood he had heard of such strange
creatures from his father and the other mutineers, grown grey under
the shade of the bread-fruit trees, speaking of their lost country
far away.
See the Halsewell, East Indiaman outward bound, driving madly on a
January night towards the rocks near Seacombe, on the island of
Purbeck! The captain's two dear daughters are aboard, and five
other ladies. The ship has been driving many hours, has seven feet
water in her hold, and her mainmast has been cut away. The
description of her loss, familiar to me from my early boyhood,
seems to be read aloud as she rushes to her destiny.
'About two in the morning of Friday the sixth of January, the ship
still driving, and approaching very fast to the shore, Mr. Henry
Meriton, the second mate, went again into the cuddy, where the
captain then was.
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