" It
was his province to make the laws, as well as execute them. His office
was elective; everybody over seventeen years old had a vote--no matter
about the sex.
The sole occupations of the people were farming and fishing; their sole
recreation, religious services. There has never been a shop in the
island, nor any money. The habits and dress of the people have always
been primitive, and their laws simple to puerility. They have lived in a
deep Sabbath tranquillity, far from the world and its ambitions and
vexations, and neither knowing nor caring what was going on in the mighty
empires that lie beyond their limitless ocean solitudes. Once in three
or four years a ship touched there, moved them with aged news of bloody
battles, devastating epidemics, fallen thrones, and ruined dynasties,
then traded them some soap and flannel for some yams and breadfruit, and
sailed away, leaving them to retire into their peaceful dreams and pious
dissipations once more.
On the 8th of last September, Admiral de Horsey, commander-in-chief of
the British fleet in the Pacific, visited Pitcairn's Island, and speaks
as follows in his official report to the admiralty:
They have beans, carrots, turnips, cabbages, and a little maize;
pineapples, fig trees, custard-apples, and oranges; lemons, and
cocoanuts.
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