r in the centre is evaporated by the
heat of the sun, till at last a terra firma is completed. In this state
it would for ever remain a barren sand, had not Divine Providence given
birth to the cocoa-nut tree, whose fruit is so protected with a hard
shell, that after floating about for a twelve-month in the sea, it will
vegetate, take root, and grow in those salt marshes, lagoons, incipient
islands, or what you please to call them. Their roots serve to bind the
surface of the coral; and the annual shedding of their leaves, in time
creates a soil which produces a verdure or undergrowth. This affords a
favourite resting-place to sea-fowls, and the whole feathered race, who
in their dung drop the seeds of shrubs, fruits, and plants; by which
means all the variety of the vegetable kingdom is disseminated. At last
the variegated landscape rises to the view; and when the divine
Architect has finished his work, it becomes then a residence for man.

From the various accidents incident to man in the early stages of
society, their wants, and the restless spirit inherent in their natures,
they are tempted to dare the elements, either in fishing, commerce, or
war; and from their temerity are often blown to remote and uninhabited
islands. Distressing accidents of this nature often happening to
inhabitants of the South Seas, they now seldom undertake any hazardous
enterprise by water without a woman, and a sow with pig, being in the
canoe with them; by which means, if they are cast on any of those
uninhabited islands, they fix their abode.

Their remote situation from European powers has deprived them of the
culture of civilised life, as they neither serve to swell the ambitious
views of conquest, nor the avarice of commerce. Here the sacred finger of
Omnipotence has interposed, and rendered our vices the instruments of
virtue; and although that unfortunate man Christian has, in a rash
unguarded moment, been tempted to swerve from his duty to his king and
country, as he is in other respects of an amiable character and
respectable abilities, should he elude the hand of justice, it may be
hoped he will employ his talents in humanizing the rude savages; so that,
at some future period, a British Ilion may blaze forth in the south with
all the characteristic virtues of the English nation, and complete the
great prophecy, by propagating the Christian knowledge amongst the
infidels. As Christian has taken fourteen beautiful women with him f