Now I come to a sentence in the admiral's report which he dropped
carelessly from his pen, no doubt, and never gave the matter a second
thought. He little imagined what a freight of tragic prophecy it bore!
This is the sentence:
One stranger, an American, has settled on the island--a doubtful
acquisition.
A doubtful acquisition, indeed! Captain Ormsby, in the American ship
Hornet, touched at Pitcairn's nearly four months after the admiral's
visit, and from the facts which he gathered there we now know all about
that American. Let us put these facts together in historical form. The
American's name was Butterworth Stavely. As soon as he had become well
acquainted with all the people--and this took but a few days, of course
--he began to ingratiate himself with them by all the arts he could
command. He became exceedingly popular, and much looked up to; for one
of the first things he did was to forsake his worldly way of life, and
throw all his energies into religion. He was always reading his Bible,
or praying, or singing hymns, or asking blessings.
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