Their native modesty, assisted by a proper sense of religion & morality instilled into their youthful minds by John Adams, has hitherto preserved these interesting people perfectly chaste and free from all kinds of debauchery. Adams assured the tors, that since Christian's death there had not been a single instance of any young woman proving unchaste; nor any attempt at seduction on the part of the men. They all labour while young in the cultivation of the ground; and when possessed of a sufficient quantity of cleared land, and of stock to maintain a family, they are allowed to marry, but always with the consent of Adams, who unites them by a sort of marriage ceremony of his own. The greatest harmony prevailed in the little so-day of rest and of prayer. This was occasioned ciety; their only quarrels, and these rarely happen- by the Bounty having proceeded thither by the ed, being according to their own expression, eastern route, and our frigates having gone to the quarrels of the mouth; they are honest in their deal-westward; and the Topaz found them right acings, which consists of bartering different articles | cording to his own reckoning, she having also for mutual accommodation. approached the island from the eastward. Every ship from Europe proceeding to Pitcairn's island round the Cape of Good Hope will find them a day later-as those who approach them round Cape Horn, a day in advance, as was the case with Capt. Folger and the Capts. SirT. Stains and Pipon. was the simple and unaffected manner in which they returned thanks to the Almighty for the many blessings they enjoyed. They never failed to say grace before and after meals, to pray every visi-morning at sun-rise, and they frequently repeated the Lord's Prayer and Creed. "It was truly pleasing," says Capt. Pipon, "to see these poor people so well disposed, to listen so attentively to moral instruction, to believe in the attributes of God, and to place their reliance on divine goodness." The day on which the two captains landed was Saturday, the 17th of September; but by John Adams' account it was Sunday the 18th, and they were keeping the Sabbath by making it a || Their habitations are extremely neat. The little village of Pitcairn forms a pretty square, the houses at the upper end of which are occupied by the patriarch John Adams, and his family, consisting of his old blind wife and three daughters from fifteen to eighteen years of age, and a boy of eleven; a daughter of his wife by a former hus- The visit of the Topaz, is of course, as a notaband, and a son-in-law. On the opposite side is ble circumstance, marked down in John Adams' the dwelling of Thursday October Christian, and journal. The first ship that appeared off the in the centre is a smooth verdant lawn on which island was on the 27th December, 1795: but as the poultry are let loose, fenced in so as to pre- she did not approach the land, they could not vent the intrusion of the domestic quadrupeds. make out to what nation she belonged. A seAll that was done was obviously undertaken on a cond appeared some time after, but did not atsettled plan, unlike to any to be met with on the tempt to communicate with them. A third came other islands. In their houses too they had a good sufficiently near to see the natives and the habideal of decent furniture, consisting of beds laid tations, but did not attempt to send a boat on upon bedsteads, with neat covering; they had al-shore; which is the less surprising, considering so tables, and large chests to contain their valua- the uniform ruggedness of the coast, the total bles and clothing, which is made from the bark of want of shelter, and the almost constant and vioa certain trec, prepared chiefly by the elder Ota- lent breaking of the sea against the cliffs. The heitan females. Adams' house consisted of two good old man was anxious to know what was gorooms, and the windows had shutters to pull toing on in the old world, and they had means of at night. The younger part of the sex are, as be-gratifying his curiosity by supplying him with fore stated, employed with their brothers, under some magazines and modern publications. His the direction of their common father Adams, in library consisted of the books that belonged to the culture of the ground, which produces cocoa- Admiral Bligh, but the visitors had not time to nuts, bananas, the bread fruit tree, yams, sweet inspect them. potatoes, and turnips. They have also plenty of hogs and goats, the woods abound with a species of wild hog, and the coast of the island with several kinds of good fish. They inquired particularly after Fletcher Christian. This ill-fated young man, it seems, was never happy after the rash and inconsiderate step which he had taken; he became sullen and moTheir agricultural implements are made, by rose, and practised the very same kind of conduct themselves from iron supplied by the Bounty, towards his companions in guilt which he and which with great labour they beat out into spades, they so loudly complained against in their late hatchets, crows, &c. This was not all. The good commander. Disappointed, in his expectations at old man kept a regular journal, in which was en- Otaheite and the Friendly Islands, and most probatered the nature and quantity of work performed bly dreading a discovery, this deluded youth comby each family, what each had received, and what mitted himself and his remaining confederates to was due on account. There was, it seems, besides the mere chance of being cast upon some desert private property, a sort of general stock out of island, and chance threw them on that of Pitcairn. which articles were issued on account to the seve-Finding no anchorage near it, he ran the ship ral members of the community; and for mutual upon the rocks, cleared her of the live stock and accommodation exchanges of one kind of provision other articles which they had been supplied with for another were very frequent, as salt, for fresh at Otaheite, when he set her on fire, that no trace provisions, vegetables and fruit for poultry, fish, || of inhabitants might be visible, and all hope of &c. also when the stores of one family were low or escape cut off from himself and his wretched folwholly expended, a fresh supply was raised from lowers. He soon, however, disgusted both his another, or out of the general stock, to be repaid own countrymen and the Otaheitans, by his opwhen circumstances were more favourable:-all pressive and tyrannical conduct; they divided of which was carefully noted down in John Adams' into parties, and disputes, and affrays, and murJournal. ders were the consequence. His Otaheitan wife died within a twelve-month from their landing. But what is more gratifying of all to visitors || after which he carried off one that belonged to numerable islands of the Great Pacific. We have only to add, that Pitcairn's Island seems to be so fortified by nature as to oppose an invincible barto an invading enemy; there is no spot apparently, where a boat can land with safety; and, perhaps, not more than one where it can land at all: an everlasting swell of the ocean rolls in on every side, and breaks into foam against its rocky and iron bound shore. O happy people! happy in your sequestered state! May no civilized barbarian lay waste your peaceful abodes; no hoary proficient in swinish sensuality rob you of that innocence and simplicity which it is peculiarly your present lot to John Adams declared, as it was natural enough he should do, his abhorrence of the crime in which he was implicated, and said that he was sick at the time in his hammock. This, we understand, is not true, though he was not particularly active in the mutiny; he expressed the utmost willing-enjoy. ness to surrender himself and be taken to England; indeed he rather seemed to have an inclination to revisit his native country, but the young men and women flocked round him, and with tears and intreaties begged that their father and protector might not be taken from them, for without him they must all perish. It would have been an act of the greatest inhumanity to remove him from the island; and it is hardly necessary to add, that Sir Thomas Staines lent a willing ear to their entreaties, thinking, no doubt, as we feel strongly disposed to think, that if he were even among the most guilty, his care and success in instilling religious and moral principles into the minds of this young and interesting society, have, in a great degree, redeemed his crimes. || Under the impression that the variation was still westerly, but not so much as it is generally supposed, we, on the 23d inst. resolved to determine its quantity. This we did by a true meri. dian line, and found it two degrees easterly. Unwilling to suppose that the needle could steal such a march on all our surveyors, we ascribed much to local attraction. To detect this, if pos sible, we took three different bearings from the Plough and Harrow Post-Office, and at considerable distances. These courses reversed truly, and showed not the least sign of attraction. We beThe island is about 6 miles long by 3 broad, co- lieve our observations to be correct, for they vered with wood, and the soil of course very rich: were carefully made; but as there is a possibility situated under the parallel of 25, S. latitude, of error, we invite all surveyors and lovers of the and in the midst of such a wide expanse of ocean, mathematics to try the same experiment, and to the climate must be fine, and admirably adapted publish the results of their observations. Should for the reception of all the vegetable productions these measurably confirm our own we shall still of every part of the habitable globe. Small, there-expect a small difference of result; and that at fore, as Pitcairn's island may appear, there can be no great distances. This will be agreeable to the little doubt that it is capable of supporting many experience of other countries, where similar obinhabitants; and the present stock being of so servations have been made, and where accuracy good a description, we trust they will not be neg- could be insured by a choice of mathematical lected. In the course of time the patriarch must instruments. go hence; and we think it would be exceedingly desirable that the British nation should provide for such an event by sending out, not an ignorant and idle evangelical missionary, but some zealous and intelligent instructors, together with a few persons capable of teaching the useful trades or profes-tors sions. On Pitcairn's island there are better materials to work upon, than the missionaries have yet been so fortunate as to meet with, and the best results may reasonably be expected. Something we are bound to do for these blameless and interesting people. The articles recommended by Capt. Pipon appear to be highly proper; cooking utensils, implements of agriculture, maize or the Indian corn, the orange tree from Valparaiso, a most grateful fruit in warm climate, and not known in the Pacific islands; and that root of plenty, not of poverty, as a wretched scribbler has called it, the potatoe; bibles, prayer-books, and a proper selection of other books, with paper, and other implements of writing. The visitors supplied them with some tools, kettles, and other articles, such as the high surf would permit them to land, but to no great extent: many things are still wanted for their ease and comfort. The descendants of these people, by keeping up the Ota-theory be invented to account for it, facts will heitan language, which the present race speak either confirm or explode it. This last has been fluently, might be the means of civilizing the the fate of many hypothesis; facts contradicting multitudes of fine people scattered over the in- the principles on which they were grounded. A || From the Harrisonburg Observer. The variation being ascertained from time to time, its practical use is too obvious to need illustration. Land is getting scarce among us, and rising in price. Posterity, of course, will expect greater accuracy from us than we did from our progeni who made the first surveys. Land was then plenty and cheap. These circumstances occasioned an inaccuracy in the courses and chaining, which has opened the door to almost endless litigation. It requires no prophet to predict that level chains will be carried, the variation allowed, and the area calculated from the tables of latitude and departure, instead of the imperfect methods at present made use of. Such alterations have. taken place in some other states where land is scarce and dear; and like causes may produce the same effects in this state. From the records of variation kept in foreign countries, there appears such a difference in places not so very far distant, that it would not be surprising if the variation, even in the extent of Virginia, should be found to differ both in quantity and denomination. A further advantage arises from frequently ascertaining the variation. Should another new German Professor, it is said, has discovered that a needle exposed to the violet coloured rays the sun, will become as highly magnetical as if touched by the strongest load-stone. Granting this to be a fact, it shows a connection between light and magnetism, that may perhaps lead to further discoveries respecting the nature and properties of each. If we have discovered the true variation, we have done our duty in making it public. If we are under a mistake, others we hope will be incit-be launched in the Bay of Naples in the month of ed to make the discovery; and we shall be readyMay. The city of Naples proposes to present her to retract what we have advanced. royal highness with a diadem of 1,500,000 fr. RHODHAM KEMPER, Augusta County, Va. April 25th, 1816. The committee on the Earl of Elgin's collection of marbles, &c. have reported to the House of Commons, that 35,000l. is a reasonable and sufficient price for the collection. SUMMARY OF FOREIGN EVENTS. The last dates from Europe furnish nothing particularly interesting to American readers. The papers are principally taken up with the uninteresting matters of peace affairs. The docks at Liverpool were thronged with shipping. Business very dull. Cotton advancing a little, and ashes on the decline; lumber would not pay freight and duty. NEGRO INSURRECTION. The royal marriage was deferred till the first week in May, it being more propitious to love than the fickle month of April. Applications to become maids of honour to the Princess Charlotte already amount to 574. The arrangements for her domestic establishment are nearly completed. Lady Emily Murray, daughter of the Duke of Northumberland, and Lady John Thynne, have been appointed ladies of the bed chamber. [A On the 13th April last the negro slaves in four parishes in Barbadoes leagued together to shake off their bonds; and they commenced their mad career by setting fire to the fields of cane, and pillaging and destroying the buildings on many estates. To quell the insurgents, it was found necessary to call out the military force of the island. Many of the slaves were killed, and about very honourable office, indeed, if it be not a sine-four hundred taken prisoners and sent on board cure.] of vessels in the Bay, to wait the result of their trials, agreeably to the tenor of the annexed proclamation. The Prince Regent, as sovereign of Hanover, has issued an order, forbidding all Hanoverians to accept of any foreign order or service without his express permission. two frigates, and some transports, having on board, altogether, six thousand troops. Some changes is stated to have taken place in the Russian ministry. The trees of liberty in the department of Creuse have been sold by auction, and the product distributed among the poor. A ship of the line, to be called the "Royal Bourbon Uni," and a frigate to be called the "Marie Caroline,' in compliment to the marriage of the Marie Caroline to the Duke of Berri, will Barbadoes.-By Hon. John Spooner, &c. Whereas I have received official information, that numberless Slaves, prisoners, charged with rebellion, breaking open buildings, and committing depredations in various parts of this Island, are hourly sent in to the different posts of encapment of the Protest to the second reading of Bonaparte's deten-militia; and forasmuch as, under existing circumtion bill. stances, such crimes demand the most summary and exemplary punishment; I do hereby require all Colonels and Commandants, at the different posts where such prisoners may appear, charged with any or the like crimes, to proceed agreeably to the rules and discipline of war, in trying the said slaves and To consign to distant exile and imprisonment a foreign and captive chief, who, after the abdica-carrying the sentence thereof into immediate execution of his authority, relying on British generosi- tion. And I do hereby strictly charge and enjoin all ty, had surrendered himself to us in preference persons of every description to aid and assist in the to his other enemies, is unworthy the magnanimity discovery and apprehension of such offenders, and of a great country; and the treaties by which, in due execution of this my proclamation. By his honour's command, after his captivity, we have bound ourselves to detain him in custody, at the will of sovereigns to whom he had never surrendered himself, appear to me repugnant to the principles of equity, and utterly uncalled for by expedience or necessity. -Because, without reference to the character or previous conduct of the person who is the object of the present bill, I disapprove of the measure which it sanctions and continues. (Signed,) VASSALL HOLLAND. And on the third reading his royal highness the Duke of Sussex entered his protest for the same The Emperor of Austria has visited in person all the celebrated manufactories of Milan and Venice. The riches of the arts which had been transported to Paris by order of Bonaparte, were at this time returned, and publicly exhibited at Milan before they were restored to their former situations. At Florence there was a display of the same kind, and also at Rome. The Venus de Medicis is noticed with peculiar favour at Florence. It is said that the population of Amsterdam, during the revolution, had been reduced from 220 to 190 thousand, & many of them to beggary. reasons. By the last advices from Lisbon it appears that the expedition for the Brazils had not sailed. There were ready for sea, one ship of the line, W. GILL, Deputy Adjutant General. In pursuance of the above, many have been condemned to death by court martials and courts of inquiry instituted to try them, and their sentences carried into effect. But to prevent the innocent from suffering with the guilty, and to restore tranquillity, a proclamation issued, ordering the military to protect innocent persons, such as women and children, and offered a free pardon to all slaves who should, within five days from the date thereof, deliver themselves up, or return to their owners. NO. 16. VOL. 1.] WASHINGTON, SATURDAY, JUNE 15, 1816. SYSTEM-MONGERS. ligent beings, we are at a loss to imagine. They are not operated upon by the same blind impulses as dull and inanimate matter, and consequently a rule which is undoubtedly true when applied to matter, cannot by any stretch of construction, be applicable to them. Let us apply perceptions and intelligence to a piece of mechanism, and we shall at once be able to discover the sophistry conveyed in this hypothesis. We will suppose that a clock, independent of its mechanical pro. perties, was endued with volition; that it had the power of accelerating or of retarding its revolutions by a mere act of volition, unconnected with its weights. Now would any deductions drawn solely from the principle of gravity, apply to so wonderful a machine? No; unless it can be proved that the free will of the clock was regulated and controled by the weights, which would be a contradiction in terms. Hence we see that if volition, when applied to a piece of mechanism, would prove the falsity of a rule now universally true in mechanics, because no piece of mechanism does possess such principle of volition, it is equally clear, that in bodies possessing the power of volition, this rule cannot operate. History has done much injury to politicians, because they will not consider the pages of the historian to be, what they unquestionably are, mere repositories af facts. The historian is not satisfied with this; he must likewise, from these materials, build up a system of his own. With the page of the historian before him, he sets down to his work, disco-rate system-mongers. Such men, in the midst of all their confined habits of thinking, have common vers what he conceives to have been the secret principle by which the extinction of kingdoms, sense, which may gradually be expanded and enstates, and empires, was brought about, and lays larged sufficiently for all the purposes of sound down this as the basis of all his calculations here- legislation. Different from a politician who has after. He predicts, for instance, with confidence, just broke loose from his studies-they proceed in the downfall of the American republic. When their advances in knowledge firmly and surely: his reasons are demanded for such an opinion, he their common sense never departs them; but exwill inform us that he has discovered the causes pands over a larger circumference of action: they VOL. I. R which led to the ruins of Greece and Rome, and as he finds the same cause now prevalent in this Many writers have, by parallels from history, country, he confidently predicts the ruin of the endeavoured to ascertain the downfall of king-American republic also. These sage conclusions doms, states, and empires. They cite the down-are founded on the erroneous application of one fall of Greece and Rome to prove that the Ame- of the laws of mechanics to sentient and intellirican republic must fall also. All parallels of this gent beings; namely, that the same causes invakind we look upon as false and delusive theories. riably produce the same effects. This has been They go on this absurd hypothesis, that mankind one of the most powerful sources of error amongst are not sentient beings, but mere pieces of me- politicians. A man is prone to imagine that he chanism. The maxim is undoubtedly true in me- has read history to no purpose, unless he forms chanics, that similar causes will produce similar a system for himself from its perusal; and as the effects; but how this can be applied to intel-question then is with him, whether the whole United States shall be sacrificed to his system, or his system to the United States, he does not hesitate for a moment which sacrifice to make. Under the influence of this system-malady he acts; and, generally speaking, such men are, of all others, the most miserable politicians. They see no danger in any thing but what controverts the sanctity of their own systems, and the greatest imaginable danger in that quarter alone. They are thus, with the best intentions in the world, made mere instruments in the hands of cunning and crafty men, for the accomplishment of their own sinister purposes. They do acts of the most notorious injustice, because all these, as they imagine, go to the preservation of their favourite system-a system that must be preserved in its integrity in all possible events. They thus, while they are honestly labouring, as they conceive, to promote the welfare of their country, are doing all in their power to accomplish its destruction. On such en argument has no effect; because it does not reach the first principle on which, if it is not a contradiction in terms, they have founded the destruction of the Grecian and of the Roman republics. This is the life-spring of all their political actions We have no sort of hesitation in declaring, 4hat we had rather take a merchant from his counting house--a mechanic from his anvil-a farmer from his spade, and turn them at once into legislators, than to entrust our political rights to the guardianship of one of these invete are incomparably better judges than these sys- man is still a prominent public character! To tem-mongers can be of practicable good. Where-what class of men does he belong? Pressed by as, if a scholar is taken piping-hot from his study and metamorphosed into a legislator, he never dreams of practicable good. He thinks of nothing but blessings which may, with singular emphasis, be denominated theoretical. Before these strange visions and wild vagaries have been sobered down to the dull realities of life, he has done to his country all the injury in his power; injuries which he is incapable of providing a remedy for afterwards. He finds that his system is, after all, false and delusive, while the injury, which he has done to his country is a real and permanent inju-again avowed on the floor of the house of representatives. If Mr. Randolph is satisfied with such a luminous explanation of his political consistency, far be it from us to attempt to detract from its merits. We are only amazed at the extreme modesty of the man, who can prove himself to be these serious and goading difficulties on both sides, his vanity has constructed a stage on which he has stationed himself in sight of both parties; but which of right belongs to neither. Having taken his part in this lonely and sequestered situation, he cheers himself in his political hermitage with the reflection, that he is the only man in the United States who has preserved the integrity of his principles; that he has been led by them to the life of a monk; that, in fact, both parties have abandoned him. This he has again and ry. He finds that he has sacrificed a mammoth to propitiate the manes of a fly. We are not disposed to censure Mr. Randolph, although we have never enrolled ourselves amongst that gentleman's admirers. He may affect a contempt for what we shall say; and if he does, we care not. If, how-right by no other course of argument than that which proves all mankind besides himself to be wrong. We have heard of a man who was once confined in the walls of Bedlam, and to a question which was asked him how he came there, he answered-all mankind believe me to be mad, and I believe all mankind to be in the same predicament, and as they form the majority, I am unfor ever, he is disposed to impute the freedom of these strictures to improper motives, he will find himself opposed by a contempt fully equal to his his own. We know the purity of our own motives, and it is not the frown of mortified vanity that will divert us from our purpose. He began his political career with a heart undoubtedly honest, but full of strong and vindictive preju.tunately confined in this place. Such an apology dices in politics. Acting on these grounds, he for such political inconsistency, is no less an outmade his feelings, rather than his sober judgment, rage on common decency than it is on common his oracle. On all questions, whether they in- sense. volved the great points of political diversity or not, he manifested the same unsparing violence, as if he had a direct personal interest in every subject which was brought before the house of representatives. The be held in the most navy utter abhorrence, and they furnished him with many occasions to indulge in a strain of the most puerile invective. He enlisted, however, in his cause the unworthy prejudices of his countrymen; prejudices which we presume they have now re-chaunting. nounced, to a man, and which Mr. Randolph himself is now prepared to despise. His early life was enlisted in the ranks of opposition; where he continued until his friends obtained the possession of that power which they were struggling after. Shortly afterwards, he abandoned them; and he is now just as vindictive in persecuting them as he formerly was in his persecutions of the federal party. But what does this political character call himself now! He will not acknowledge himself to be a federalist, because that would cast a censure on the whole course of his early life-he will not acknowledge himself to be a democrat, because that would call in question his political integrity now. What then is to be done, for this LOCUSTS. TO THE EDITOR OF THE NATIONAL REGISTER. I have never seen, at any former period of my life, so large a swarm of locusts as is now in the neighbourhood of Northumberland court house, N. C. A common cow bell cannot be heard at the distance of two hundred yards when they are On examination, I find there is a very perceptible difference in the formation of the male and female. The male only is capable of making a noise. I understand they have not made their appearance in what is commonly called the pine lands, nor do they occupy a space of more than four or five miles square. It is said they generally appear periodically, at intervals of about 14 years. The writer would be gratified to learn from whence they came, and whither they go; or in other words, what is their original form, and what form do they assume? They come out of the earth a small bug, and when dryed by the rays of the sun, the shell splits on the back, and out comes a fly; but I am not |
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