ly. The whole
community was transported in a ship to Tahiti in March 1831.

But the loose manners and evil habits of many of the people there had
such an effect on the Pitcairners that they took the first opportunity
of returning to their much-loved island. John Buffett and a few
families went first. The remainder soon followed in an American brig.

Thereafter, life on the Lonely Island flowed as happily as ever for many
years, with the exception of a brief but dark interval, when a
scoundrel, named Joshua Hill, went to the island, passed himself off as
an agent of the British Government, misled the trusting inhabitants, and
established a reign of terror, ill-treating Nobbs, Buffett, and Evans,
whom for a time he compelled to quit the place. Fortunately this
impostor was soon found out and removed. The banished men returned, and
all went well again.

Rear-Admiral Moresby visited Pitcairn in 1851, and experienced a warm
reception. Finding that the people wished Mr Nobbs to be ordained, he
took him to England for this purpose. The faithful pastor did not fail
to interest the English public in the romantic isle of which God had
given him the oversight. During his visit he was presented to the
Queen, who gave him portraits of herself and the Royal family. The
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel placed Mr Nobbs on their
missionary list, with a salary of 50 pounds per annum.

Soon after this the increasing population of Pitcairn Island rendered it
necessary that the islanders should find a wider home. Government,
therefore, offered them houses and land in Norfolk Island, a penal
settlement from which the convicts had been removed. Of course the
people shrank from the idea of leaving Pitcairn when it was first
proposed, but ultimately assented, and were landed on Norfolk Island,
hundreds of miles from their old home, in June 1856. On this lovely
spot the descendants of the mutineers of the _Bounty_ have lived ever
since, under the care of that loved pastor on whom John Adams had
dropped his mantle.

We believe that the Reverend George H. Nobbs is still alive. At all
events he was so last year, (1879), having written a letter in June to
the Secretary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, in
which, among other things, he speaks of the "rapidly increasing
community, now numbering 370 persons." He adds--"I am becoming very
feeble from age, and my memory fails me in consequence of an operation