THE GREAT REVOLUTION IN PITCAIRN
Let me refresh the reader's memory a little. Nearly a hundred years agothe crew of the British ship Bounty mutinied, set the captain and hisofficers adrift upon the open sea, took possession of the ship, andsailed southward. They procured wives for themselves among the nativesof Tahiti, then proceeded to a lonely little rock in mid-Pacific, calledPitcairn's Island, wrecked the vessel, stripped her of everything thatmight be useful to a new colony, and established themselves on shore.Pitcairn's is so far removed from the track of commerce that it was manyyears before another vessel touched there. It had always been consideredan uninhabited island; so when a ship did at last drop its anchor there,in 1808, the captain was greatly surprised to find the place peopled.Although the mutineers had fought among themselves, and gradually killedeach other off until only two or three of the original stock remained,these tragedies had not occurred before a number of children had beenborn; so in 1808 the island had a population of twenty-seven persons.John Adams, the chief mutineer, still survived, and was to live manyyears yet, as governor and patriarch of the flock. From being mutineerand homicide, he had turned Christian and teacher, and his nation oftwenty-seven persons was now the purest and devoutest in Christendom.Adams had long ago hoisted the British flag and constituted his islandan appanage of the British crown.
To-day the population numbers ninety persons--sixteen men, nineteenwomen, twenty-five boys, and thirty girls--all descendants of themutineers, all bearing the family names of those mutineers, and allspeaking English, and English only. The island stands high up out ofthe sea, and has precipitous walls. It is about three-quarters of a milelong, and in places is as much as half a mile wide. Such arable land asit affords is held by the several families, according to a division mademany years ago. There is some live stock--goats, pigs, chickens, andcats; but no dogs, and no large animals. There is one church buildingused also as a capitol, a schoolhouse, and a public library. The titleof the governor has been, for a generation or two, "Magistrate and ChiefRuler, in subordination to her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain." Itwas his province to make the laws, as well as execute them. His officewas elective; everybody over seventeen years old had a vote--no matterabout the sex.
The sole occupations of the people were farming and fishing; theirsole recreation, religious services. There has never been a shop in theisland, nor any money. The habits and dress of the people have alwaysbeen primitive, and their laws simple to puerility. They have lived ina deep Sabbath tranquillity, far from the world and its ambitions andvexations, and neither knowing nor caring what was going on in themighty empires that lie beyond their limitless ocean solitudes. Once inthree or four years a ship touched there, moved them with aged newsof bloody battles, devastating epidemics, fallen thrones, and ruineddynasties, then traded them some soap and flannel for some yams andbreadfruit, and sailed away, leaving them to retire into their peacefuldreams and pious dissipations once more.
On the 8th of last September, Admiral de Horsey, commander-in-chief ofthe British fleet in the Pacific, visited Pitcairn's Island, and speaksas 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 cocoa-nuts. Clothing is obtained alone from passing ships, in barter for refreshments. There are no springs on the island, but as it rains generally once a month they have plenty of water, although at times in former years they have suffered from drought. No alcoholic liquors, except for medicinal purposes, are used, and a drunkard is unknown....
The necessary articles required by the islanders are best shown by those we furnished in barter for refreshments: namely, flannel, serge, drill, half-boots, combs, tobacco, and soap. They also stand much in need of maps and slates for their school, and tools of any kind are most acceptable. I caused them to be supplied from the public stores with a Union jack for display on the arrival of ships, and a pit-saw, of which they were greatly in need. This, I trust, will meet the approval of their lordships. If the munificent people of England were only aware of the wants of this most deserving little colony, they would not long go unsupplied....
Divine service is held every Sunday at 10.30 A.M. and at 3 P.M., in the house built and used by John Adams for that purpose until he died in 1829. It is conducted strictly in accordance with the liturgy of the Church of England, by Mr. Simon Young, their selected pastor, who is much respected. A Bible class is held every Wednesday, when all who conveniently can, attend. There is also a general meeting for prayer on the first Friday in every month. Family prayers are said in every house the first thing in the morning and the last thing in the evening, and no food is partaken of without asking God's blessing before and afterward. Of these islanders' religious attributes no one can speak without deep respect. A people whose greatest pleasure and privilege is to commune in prayer with their God, and to join in hymns of praise, and who are, moreover, cheerful, diligent, and probably freer from vice than any other community, need no priest among them.
Now I come to a sentence in the admiral's report which he droppedcarelessly from his pen, no doubt, and never gave the matter a secondthought. 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 shipHornet, touched at Pitcairn's nearly four months after the admiral'svisit, and from the facts which he gathered there we now know all aboutthat American. Let us put these facts together in historical form. TheAmerican's name was Butterworth Stavely. As soon as he had becomewell acquainted with all the people--and this took but a few days, ofcourse--he began to ingratiate himself with them by all the arts hecould command. He became exceedingly popular, and much looked up to; forone 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 hisBible, or praying, or singing hymns, or asking blessings. In prayer, noone had such "liberty" as he, no one could pray so long or so well.
At last, when he considered the time to be ripe, he began secretly tosow the seeds of discontent among the people. It was his deliberatepurpose, from the beginning, to subvert the government, but of course hekept that to himself for a time. He used different arts with differentindividuals. He awakened dissatisfaction in one quarter by callingattention to the shortness of the Sunday services; he argued that thereshould be three three-hour services on Sunday instead of only two.Many had secretly held this opinion before; they now privately bandedthemselves into a party to work for it. He showed certain of the womenthat they were not allowed sufficient voice in the prayer-meetings;thus another party was formed. No weapon was beneath his notice; heeven descended to the children, and awoke discontent in their breastsbecause--as he discovered for them--they had not enough Sunday-school.This created a third party.
Now, as the chief of these parties, he found himself the strongest powerin the community. So he proceeded to his next move--a no less importantone than the impeachment of the chief magistrate, James Russell Nickoy;a man of character and ability, and possessed of great wealth, he beingthe owner of a house with a parlor to it, three acres and a half ofyam land, and the only boat in Pitcairn's, a whaleboat; and, mostunfortunately, a pretext for this impeachment offered itself at just theright time.
One of the earliest and most precious laws of the island was the lawagainst trespass. It was held in great reverence, and was regardedas the palladium of the people's liberties. About thirty years ago animportant case came before the courts under this law, in this wise: achicken belonging to Elizabeth Young (aged, at that time, fifty-eight,a daughter of John Mills, one of the mutineers of the Bounty) trespassedupon the grounds of Thursday October Christian (aged twenty-nine, agrandson of
Fletcher Christian, one of the mutineers). Christian killedthe chicken. According to the law, Christian could keep the chicken; or,if he preferred, he could restore its remains to the owner and receivedamages in "produce" to an amount equivalent to the waste and injurywrought by the trespasser. The court records set forth that "the saidChristian aforesaid did deliver the aforesaid remains to the saidElizabeth Young, and did demand one bushel of yams in satisfaction of thedamage done." But Elizabeth Young considered the demand exorbitant; theparties could not agree; therefore Christian brought suit in the courts.He lost his case in the justice's court; at least, he was awarded onlya half-peck of yams, which he considered insufficient, and in thenature of a defeat. He appealed. The case lingered several years in anascending grade of courts, and always resulted in decrees sustaining theoriginal verdict; and finally the thing got into the supreme court, andthere it stuck for twenty years. But last summer, even the supreme courtmanaged to arrive at a decision at last. Once more the original verdictwas sustained. Christian then said he was satisfied; but Stavely waspresent, and whispered to him and to his lawyer, suggesting, "as a mereform," that the original law be exhibited, in order to make sure thatit still existed. It seemed an odd idea, but an ingenious one. So thedemand was made. A messenger was sent to the magistrate's house; hepresently returned with the tidings that it had disappeared from amongthe state archives.
The court now pronounced its late decision void, since it had been madeunder a law which had no actual existence.
Great excitement ensued immediately. The news swept abroad over thewhole island that the palladium of the public liberties was lost--maybetreasonably destroyed. Within thirty minutes almost the entire nationwere in the court-room--that is to say, the church. The impeachment ofthe chief magistrate followed, upon Stavely's motion. The accused methis misfortune with the dignity which became his great office. He didnot plead, or even argue; he offered the simple defense that he had notmeddled with the missing law; that he had kept the state archives inthe same candle-box that had been used as their depository from thebeginning; and that he was innocent of the removal or destruction of thelost document.
But nothing could save him; he was found guilty of misprision oftreason, and degraded from his office, and all his property wasconfiscated.
The lamest part of the whole shameful matter was the reason suggestedby his enemies for his destruction of the law, to wit: that he did it tofavor Christian, because Christian was his cousin! Whereas Stavely wasthe only individual in the entire nation who was not his cousin. Thereader must remember that all these people are the descendants of halfa dozen men; that the first children intermarried together and boregrandchildren to the mutineers; that these grandchildren intermarried;after them, great and great-great-grandchildren intermarried; so thatto-day everybody is blood kin to everybody. Moreover, the relationshipsare wonderfully, even astoundingly, mixed up and complicated. Astranger, for instance, says to an islander:--
"You speak of that young woman as your cousin; a while ago you calledher your aunt."
"Well, she is my aunt, and my cousin, too. And also my stepsister, myniece, my fourth cousin, my thirty-third cousin, my forty-second cousin,my great-aunt, my grandmother, my widowed sister-in-law--and next weekshe will be my wife."
So the charge of nepotism against the chief magistrate was weak. Butno matter; weak or strong, it suited Stavely. Stavely was immediatelyelected to the vacant magistracy, and, oozing reform from every pore,he went vigorously to work. In no long time religious services ragedeverywhere and unceasingly. By command, the second prayer of the Sundaymorning service, which had customarily endured some thirty-five or fortyminutes, and had pleaded for the world, first by continent and then bynational and tribal detail, was extended to an hour and a half, andmade to include supplications in behalf of the possible peoples in theseveral planets. Everybody was pleased with this; everybody said, "Nowthis is something like." By command, the usual three-hour sermons weredoubled in length. The nation came in a body to testify their gratitudeto the new magistrate. The old law forbidding cooking on the Sabbath wasextended to the prohibition of eating, also. By command, Sunday-schoolwas privileged to spread over into the week. The joy of all classes wascomplete. In one short month the new magistrate had become the people'sidol!
The time was ripe for this man's next move. He began, cautiously atfirst, to poison the public mind against England. He took the chiefcitizens aside, one by one, and conversed with them on this topic.Presently he grew bolder, and spoke out. He said the nation owed it toitself, to its honor, to its great traditions, to rise in its might andthrow off "this galling English yoke."
But the simple islanders answered:
"We had not noticed that it galled. How does it gall? England sendsa ship once in three or four years to give us soap and clothing, andthings which we sorely need and gratefully receive; but she nevertroubles us; she lets us go our own way."
"She lets you go your own way! So slaves have felt and spoken in all theages! This speech shows how fallen you are, how base, how brutalizedyou have become, under this grinding tyranny! What! has all manly prideforsaken you? Is liberty nothing? Are you content to be a mere appendageto a foreign and hateful sovereignty, when you might rise up and takeyour rightful place in the august family of nations, great, free,enlightened, independent, the minion of no sceptered master, but thearbiter of your own destiny, and a voice and a power in decreeing thedestinies of your sister-sovereignties of the world?"
Speeches like this produced an effect by-and-by. Citizens began to feelthe English yoke; they did not know exactly how or whereabouts theyfelt it, but they were perfectly certain they did feel it. They got togrumbling a good deal, and chafing under their chains, and longing forrelief and release. They presently fell to hating the English flag, thatsign and symbol of their nation's degradation; they ceased to glanceup at it as they passed the capitol, but averted their eyes and gratedtheir teeth; and one morning, when it was found trampled into the mud atthe foot of the staff, they left it there, and no man put his hand toit to hoist it again. A certain thing which was sure to happen sooner orlater happened now. Some of the chief citizens went to the magistrate bynight, and said:--
"We can endure this hated tyranny no longer. How can we cast it off?"
"By a coup d'etat."
"How?"
"A coup d'etat. It is like this: everything is got ready, and at theappointed moment I, as the official head of the nation, publicly andsolemnly proclaim its independence, and absolve it from allegiance toany and all other powers whatsoever."
"That sounds simple and easy. We can do that right away. Then what willbe the next thing to do?"
"Seize all the defenses and public properties of all kinds, establishmartial law, put the army and navy on a war footing, and proclaim theempire!"
This fine program dazzled these innocents. They said:--
"This is grand--this is splendid; but will not England resist?"
"Let her. This rock is a Gibraltar."
"True. But about the empire? Do we need an empire and an emperor?"
"What you need, my friends, is unification. Look at Germany; look atItaly. They are unified. Unification is the thing. It makes living dear.That constitutes progress. We must have a standing army and a navy.Taxes follow, as a matter of course. All these things summed up makegrandeur. With unification and grandeur, what more can you want? Verywell--only the empire can confer these boons."
So on the 8th day of December Pitcairn's Island was proclaimed a freeand independent nation; and on the same day the solemn coronation ofButterworth I, Emperor of Pitcairn's Island, took place, amid greatrejoicings and festivities. The entire nation, with the exception offourteen persons, mainly little children, marched past the throne insingle file, with banners and music, the procession being upward ofninety feet long; and some said it was as much as three-quarters of aminute passing a given point. Nothing like it had ever been seen in thehistory of the island before. Public enthusiasm was meas
ureless.
Now straightway imperial reforms began. Orders of nobility wereinstituted. A minister of the navy was appointed, and the whale-boat putin commission. A minister of war was created, and ordered to proceed atonce with the formation of a standing army. A first lord of the treasurywas named, and commanded to get up a taxation scheme, and also opennegotiations for treaties, offensive, defensive, and commercial, withforeign powers. Some generals and admirals were appointed; alsosome chamberlains, some equerries in waiting, and some lords of thebedchamber.
At this point all the material was used up. The Grand Duke of Galilee,minister of war, complained that all the sixteen grown men in the empirehad been given great offices, and consequently would not consent toserve in the ranks; wherefore his standing army was at a stand-still. TheMarquis of Ararat, minister of the navy, made a similar complaint. Hesaid he was willing to steer the whale-boat himself, but he must havesomebody to man her.
The emperor did the best he could in the circumstances: he took all theboys above the age of ten years away from their mothers, and pressedthem into the army, thus constructing a corps of seventeen privates,officered by one lieutenant-general and two major-generals. This pleasedthe minister of war, but procured the enmity of all the mothers in theland; for they said their precious ones must now find bloody graves inthe fields of war, and he would be answerable for it. Some of the moreheartbroken and unappeasable among them lay constantly wait for theemperor and threw yams at him, unmindful of the body-guard.
On account of the extreme scarcity of material, it was found necessaryto require the Duke of Bethany postmaster-general, to pull stroke-oarin the navy and thus sit in the rear of a noble of lower degree namely,Viscount Canaan, lord-justice of the common pleas. This turned the Dukeof Bethany into tolerably open malcontent and a secret conspirator--athing which the emperor foresaw, but could not help.
Things went from bad to worse. The emperor raised Nancy Peters to thepeerage on one day, and married her the next, notwithstanding, forreasons of state, the cabinet had strenuously advised him to marryEmmeline, eldest daughter of the Archbishop of Bethlehem. This causedtrouble in a powerful quarter--the church. The new empress secured thesupport and friendship of two-thirds of the thirty-six grown women inthe nation by absorbing them into her court as maids of honor; but thismade deadly enemies of the remaining twelve. The families of the maidsof honor soon began to rebel, because there was nobody at home to keephouse. The twelve snubbed women refused to enter the imperial kitchenas servants; so the empress had to require the Countess of Jericho andother great court dames to fetch water, sweep the palace, and performother menial and equally distasteful services. This made bad blood inthat department.
Everybody fell to complaining that the taxes levied for the supportof the army, the navy, and the rest of the imperial establishment wereintolerably burdensome, and were reducing the nation to beggary. Theemperor's reply--"Look--Look at Germany; look at Italy. Are you betterthan they? and haven't you unification?"---did not satisfy them. Theysaid, "People can't eat unification, and we are starving. Agriculturehas ceased. Everybody is in the army, everybody is in the navy,everybody is in the public service, standing around in a uniform, withnothing whatever to do, nothing to eat, and nobody to till the fields--"
"Look at Germany; look at Italy. It is the same there. Such isunification, and there's no other way to get it--no other way to keep itafter you've got it," said the poor emperor always.
But the grumblers only replied, "We can't stand the taxes--we can'tstand them."
Now right on top of this the cabinet reported a national debt amountingto upward of forty-five dollars--half a dollar to every individual inthe nation. And they proposed to fund something. They had heard thatthis was always done in such emergencies. They proposed duties onexports; also on imports. And they wanted to issue bonds; also papermoney, redeemable in yams and cabbages in fifty years. They said the payof the army and of the navy and of the whole governmental machine wasfar in arrears, and unless something was done, and done immediately,national bankruptcy must ensue, and possibly insurrection andrevolution. The emperor at once resolved upon a high-handed measure, andone of a nature never before heard of in Pitcairn's Island. He went instate to the church on Sunday morning, with the army at his back, andcommanded the minister of the treasury to take up a collection.
That was the feather that broke the camel's back. First one citizen, andthen another, rose and refused to submit to this unheard-of outrage--andeach refusal was followed by the immediate confiscation of themalcontent's property. This vigor soon stopped the refusals, and thecollection proceeded amid a sullen and ominous silence. As the emperorwithdrew with the troops, he said, "I will teach you who is masterhere." Several persons shouted, "Down with unification!" They were atonce arrested and torn from the arms of their weeping friends by thesoldiery.
But in the mean time, as any prophet might have foreseen, a SocialDemocrat had been developed. As the emperor stepped into the gildedimperial wheelbarrow at the church door, the social democrat stabbed athim fifteen or sixteen times with a harpoon, but fortunately with such apeculiarly social democratic unprecision of aim as to do no damage.
That very night the convulsion came. The nation rose as one man--thoughforty-nine of the revolutionists were of the other sex. The infantrythrew down their pitchforks; the artillery cast aside their cocoa-nuts;the navy revolted; the emperor was seized, and bound hand and foot inhis palace. He was very much depressed. He said:--
"I freed you from a grinding tyranny; I lifted you up out of yourdegradation, and made you a nation among nations; I gave you a strong,compact, centralized government; and, more than all, I gave you theblessing of blessings--unification. I have done all this, and my rewardis hatred, insult, and these bonds. Take me; do with me as you will.I here resign my crown and all my dignities, and gladly do I releasemyself from their too heavy burden. For your sake I took them up; foryour sake I lay them down. The imperial jewel is no more; now bruise anddefile as ye will the useless setting."
By a unanimous voice the people condemned the ex-emperor and the socialdemocrat to perpetual banishment from church services, or to perpetuallabor as galley-slaves in the whale-boat--whichever they might prefer.The next day the nation assembled again, and rehoisted the British flag,reinstated the British tyranny, reduced the nobility to the condition ofcommoners again, and then straightway turned their diligent attentionto the weeding of the ruined and neglected yam patches, and therehabilitation of the old useful industries and the old healing andsolacing pieties. The ex-emperor restored the lost trespass law, andexplained that he had stolen it--not to injure any one, but to furtherhis political projects. Therefore the nation gave the late chiefmagistrate his office again, and also his alienated Property.
Upon reflection, the ex-emperor and the social democrat chose perpetualbanishment from religious services in preference to perpetual labor asgalley-slaves "with perpetual religious services," as they phrasedit; wherefore the people believed that the poor fellows' troubles hadunseated their reason, and so they judged it best to confine them forthe present. Which they did.
Such is the history of Pitcairn's "doubtful acquisition."