Pitcairn Is. First Seen 200 Years Ago

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31380, 27 May 1967, Page 5

Pitcairn Is. First Seen 200 Years Ago

(Specially written for “The

Pre«" by

KENNETHY ANTHONY)

. .1 When the mutineers of ’ HMS. Bounty cast Captain 1 William Bllgh adrift in the ; Pacific in an open boat with , a few loyal companions in ’ 1789 they knew that their 1 troubles were only just begin- 1 Ding. Before lpns the Admiralty was sure to do its best to, exact retribution, and, death sentences were inevitable if tte ringleaders Were caught Their only chance was to find a refuge so rmnote that they would never be found. ■' Fletcher Christian, who led toe mutiny, remembered reading the journal of Captaln Philip Cartaret, who while sailing the Padfic inH.M.S; Swallow more than 20 years before, had discovered - an unknown island which he

named Pitcairn, after the young midshipman who first sighted it. Pitcairn, Fletcher decided, was the ideal hideaway. And it was there that he and his companions toot the Bounty, beached and burned her. It proved a wise decision. Soma of the other mutineers, who preferred to settle down amid the pleasures of Tahiti, were soon apprehended. But after the Bounty, no ship from the outside world touched at Pitreirn, for another 18 years. In 1808 an American named Folger found the new Pitcairn community, but his report Went unnoticed in a Europe at war with Napoleon. By that time only one ot tte

i original mutineers was still ; living. Not until 1814 did two British warships arrive, I whereupon the story of the > settlement was revealed to an astonished world. An Hteaira himself? Soon after the discovery of 1767, ■ he was lost at sea. But his i name lives on, not only on ' maps of tte Pacific but in the - stamp album. And on Pitcairn Island the i descendants of the mutineers 1 can use stamps like the one illustrated here on their ; letters—one of a set issued i- in March 1967 to mart tte ; bicentenary of the discovery, i The attractive design shows Captain Cartaret and his ship, i the Swallow.