m as a seaman, an officer, or a shipbuilder;
and if it was agreeable to me to go on board the Panther with him, I
should receive the some pay and emoluments with his lieutenants and
astronomers." A signal honor it was at a time when no love was lost
between British and American seafarers who had so recently fought each
other afloat.

And so Amasa Delano embarked as a lieutenant of the Bombay Marine, to
explore tropic harbors and goons until then unmapped and to parley with
dusky kings. Commodore McClure, diplomatic and humane, had almost no
trouble with the untutored islanders, except on the coast of New Guinea,
where the Panther was attacked by a swarm of canoes and the surgeon was
killed. It was a spirited little affair, four-foot arrows pelting like
hail across the deck, a cannon hurling grapeshot from the taffrail,
Amasa Delano hit in the chest and pulling out the arrow to jump to his
duty again.

Only a few years earlier the mutineers of the Bounty had established
themselves on Pitcairn Island, and Delano was able to compile the first
complete narrative of this extraordinary colony, which governed itself
in the light of the primitive Christian virtues. There was profound
wisdom in the comment of Amasa Delano: "While the present natural,
simple, and affectionate character prevails among these descendants
of the mutineers, they will be delightful to our minds, they will be
amiable and acceptable in the sight of God, and they will be useful
and happy among themselves. Let it be our fervent prayer that neither
canting and hypocritical emissaries from schools of artificial theology
on the one hand, nor sensual and licentious crews and adventurers on the
other, may ever enter the charming village of Pitcairn to give disease
to the minds or the bodies of the unsuspecting inhabitants."

Two years of this intensely romantic existence, and Delano started
homeward. But there was a chance of profit at Mauritius, and there he
bought a tremendous East Indiaman of fourteen hundred tons as a joint
venture with a Captain Stewart and put a crew of a hundred and fifty men
on board. She had been brought in by a French privateer and Delano was
moved to remark, with an indignation which was much in advance of his
times: "Privateering is entirely at variance with the first principle of
honorable warfare.... This system of licensed robbery enables a wicked
and mercenary man to insult and injure even neutral friends on the
ocean; and wh