Governors Island

“ But the dark forests which once clothed those shores had been violated by the savage hand of cultivation, and their tangled mazes and impenetrable thickets had degenerated into teeming orchards, and waving fields of grain. Even Governor's Island, once a smiling garden appertaining to the sovereigns of the province, was now covered with fortifications, inclosing a tremendous block house; so that this once peaceful island resembled a fierce little warrior in a big cocked hat, breathing gunpowder and defiance to the world! ”

“ In the autumn of 1869, the island was visited by Sir John Young, the governor-general of British North America. He was accompanied by several of his ministers, who discussed informally, with members of the government, the subject of a union of the island with the Dominion of Canada. On the eighteenth of December, 1869, the governor-general transmitted to Sir Robert Hodgson, the administrator of the government of Prince Edward Island, a minute of the privy council of Canada, relating to the question of a political union of the island with the Dominion. ”

“ A governor has just as much power to do the one as the other. I should like to know what opinion you would have of a country where the validity of public contracts depended on the will of the governor.
“The purchases were made in the very worst period of the war, when the property was very precarious indeed, and when no man in England would have given hardly a guinea for the whole island. It is now peace, and fortunately we still remain a part of the British Empire. The lands are consequently esteemed more valuable, and the proprietors have become clamorous for their loss. ”

“ Next morning we left, but, owing to light winds, we did not anchor in Hoop-Iron Bay, off Moresby Island, till the morning of the 22nd. The anchorage here is in an open roadstead. It is a very fine island—the vegetation from the water’s edge right up to the mountain tops. Plantations are to be seen all round. The people live in small detached companies, and are not so pleasant and friendly-looking a people as are the Teste islanders. This is the great Basilaki, and the natives are apparently the deadly foes of all the islanders round. ”

“ But with its imposing groves of oak, its golden wealth of orange-trees, its odorous lanes of oleander.
its broad grazing-meadows yellow-starred with wild camomile, Grande Isle remains the prettiest island of the Gulf; and its loveliness is exceptional. For the bleakness of Grand Terre is reiterated by most of the other islands,—Caillou, Cassetete, Calumet, Wine Island, the twin Timbaliers, Gull Island, and the many islets haunted by the gray pelican,—all of which are little more than sand-bars covered with wiry grasses, prairie-cane, and scrub-timber. ”

“ Those that are poor, and cannot pay their passage, or can rake together only a trifle, are going to a rascally heap of sand, rock and swamp, called Prince Edward Island, in the horrible Gulf of Saint Lawrence ”

“ On this subject Colonel Huntington wrote to Governor Trumbull, June 6th, as follows: "Long Island has the greatest proportion of Tories, both of its own growth and of adventitious ones, of any part of this colony; from whence some conjecture that the attack is to be made by that way. It is more likely to be so than not. Notwithstanding the vigilance of our outposts, we are sure there is frequent intercourse between the Asia and the shore, and that they have been supplied with fresh meat. ”

“ After the last war of independence an American colony settled there{266} and has since become numerous and prosperous. The Island is now practically owned by citizens of the United States, who represent a majority of the population. Several land companies have been in operation for the past ten years, and have established many thriving towns and settlements. The soil of the island is adapted to all kinds of farming and the climate has been famous for its salubrity during the past hundred years. ”

“ A mandamus addressed to the Governor of Nova Scotia, the island being now annexed to that province, was handed to each of the proprietors, instructing the governor to issue the respective grants, on the conditions specified. In the following year, 1768, a large majority of the proprietors presented a petition to the King, praying that the island should be erected into a separate government ”

“ The group lies between the south end of New Ireland and the north end of the great Bougainville Island in the Solomon Archipelago, and consists of six low, well-wooded and fertile islands, enclosed within a barrier reef, forming a noble atoll, almost circular in shape. All the islands are thickly populated at the present day by natives, who are peaceable enough, and engage in bêche-de-mer and pearl-shell fishing. ”

“ This hostile conduct of the natives induced me to give up our intention of wooding at this island; since the Indians might easily advance under cover of the thick underwood, and throw their spears before we could be aware of their approach. As soon, therefore, as our watering was completed, I determined upon procuring our fuel from an island to the northward, which, during our visit, we had seen from the North-West point of the bay, and which, together with the one we were at, were called Goulburn Islands, in compliment to the then Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies. ”

“ The islands of Isabel and Guadalcanar were the {102} hunting grounds for the New Georgia chiefs, whilst occasional visits to Florida Island helped them along. From ninety to a hundred heads were often brought in by some of these chiefs, the result of a long and successful raid, and many travellers who visited these islands between forty and fifty years ago state frankly that the lives of the natives in the less powerful islands were not worth a day. They never knew when a canoe might land with a force superior to theirs and wipe them all out; the wonder is that there are so many still alive. ”

“ This island, so singular alike by its physical features and its remarkable history as the retreat of the surviving mutineers of the Bounty with their families, has latterly had its interesting population removed to Norfolk Island, where there was room for the simple God-fearing community to increase its numbers without the risk of an excess of population over the resources of the soil, as there appeared reason to apprehend had they been left on Pitcairn Island. ”

“ At Thursday Island I bade farewell to the schooner Myrtle; for she, having transhipped her cargo to a China steamer, returned to New Guinea, and I took up my quarters in one of the hotels, to wait with what patience I possessed for a south-bound steamer. Thursday Island is—or rather was—the centre of the pearling industry, and is one of the most God-forsaken holes I know of; there is absolutely nothing to do in the place to kill time. ”

“ Within the bay Ellis' Island is near the Jersey shore; Bedloe's Island is not far from its centre, and is the selected site of the colossal statue of Liberty which France has presented to New York; while Governor's Island, the largest of the three, lies to the right, between New York and Brooklyn. Each island is fortified, the latter containing Castle William and old Fort Columbus.
The bay is dotted with the shipping of every nation. Ocean steamers are setting out on their long journeys, or just returning from foreign shores. ”

“ Every person who keeps a boarding-house is compelled to report the names of his boarders, and about eight P.M. the captain of the police goes around to see if all are in. If any are absent from their respective houses, they are found and marched home; and should they be saucy, or show any belligerent spirit, off they go to the calaboose. This also tends to prevent desertions, as the governor allows no white man to remain on the island unless sick. There are a few old residents here who are exceptions, they being citizens. ”

“ For guard Lt. Burnham, for Red Hook tomorrow night Lt. Collins.
GEN. GREENE'S ORDERS. June 21, 1776.
Lt. Huse is requested to oversee the well-digging in fort Greene. 110 men for Governor's Island & 40 for Red Hook. [Pg ii.19] Those that are to go on the Island to be at St. ”

“ In conformity with the promise made by government, Governor Fanning, in his speech to the assembly in November, 1802, said that he had the satisfaction to inform them, on the highest authority, that the public affairs of the island had been brought under the consideration of His Majesty’s ministers in a manner highly favorable to the late humble and dutiful representations made on behalf of the inhabitants, respecting the many large, unsettled, and uncultivated tracts of land in the island. ”

“ Entirely under the control and jurisdiction of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, it is unique in that it is the only island in the world which has the rating of a man-o'-war, being garrisoned, or rather manned, by a detachment of sailors and marines, and being administered in every respect as though it were a unit of the British navy. With the exception of a dozen acres of vegetable garden, there is not a single green thing on the island—grass, shrub, or tree. ”

“ At the wreck of the Cornwallis the islanders in rendering assistance lost their only boat, one made by themselves, and thus their only means of communicating with passing ships....
“One stranger, an American, has settled on the island—a doubtful acquisition. A few of the islanders have expressed a wish to return to Norfolk Island—a not unnatural wish for change—but the chief magistrate thinks none are likely to go. ”

“ It was one of the most interesting and pathetic places of which the human mind can conceive—a place of grim tragedies. There were about twelve hundred lepers on the island, divided into two colonies, one at each end of the island. The island itself forms a natural fortress from which escape is almost impossible, the sea on one side and mountains on the other. ”

“ The chief’s fool, as we called him, was frequently my guide in the island of Santa Anna. He was the general butt of the village; and I was told the girls would sometimes seize hold of him and roll him about in the sand. Insanity would appear to be of uncommon occurrence amongst these islanders; but I suspect that such individuals are not permitted to live. Whilst the “Lark” was engaged in the survey of Faro Island in Bougainville Straits, I learned that there was a madman, who was partially dumb, living in the bush in the interior of the island. ”

“ Formerly there was more vegetation here, but at odd times the poor people have gathered and burned for fuel fully half the turf on the island. It is written in the book of records that the soil of the islands is gradually decreasing, and that a time would come when the dead must be buried in the sea or on the main-land.
From the year 1775 until 1820, the few inhabitants who remained on the islands lived in a deplorable condition of ignorance and vice. Some of them had lost their ages for want of a record. Each family was a law to itself. ”

“ These Precipices are natural; for the Rocks seem too hard to work on; nor is there any sign that Art hath been employed about them. On Bashee Island there is one such, and built upon, with its back next the Sea. Grafton and Monmouth Isles are very thick set with these Hills and Towns; and the Natives, whether for fear of Pirates, or Foreign Enemies, or Factions among their own Clans, care not for Building but in these Fastnesses; which I take to be the Reason that Orange Isle, though the largest, and as Fertile as any, yet being Level, and exposed, hath no Inhabitants. ”

“ Amongst them are to be found many very wealthy men; but except a few individuals, they live in a mean, penurious, and most uncomfortable manner. The population of the island is estimated at about thirty-seven thousand souls, of which number near five thousand are slaves. It is the western part of the island which is the best inhabited; a circumstance to be ascribed, not so much to the fertility of the soil as its contiguity to the city of New York. ”

“ Another island in the harbor is called Ellis Island, where most of the emigrants who have left their homes in other countries, land when they reach the United States. Irish and Poles, Italians and Russians, men with children clinging to their sides, and women with arms clasped around tiny babies, all dressed in the fashion of their old homes, step from the big ships and take their first breath of the free air of America almost under the shadow of the Statue of Liberty. ”

“ Those which grow on the south-east point of the island, where the land is low, are those which have hitherto been made use of.
Norfolk Island, if correctly laid down in a plan, with all the hills and vallies represented accurately, would very much resemble the waves of the sea in a gale of wind; for it is composed wholly of long, narrow, and very steep ridges of hills, with deep gullies, which are as narrow at the bottom as the hills are on the top, so that there is scarcely any level country upon it ”

“ We did not go to them, because we had not reached the extremity of the island which we should have to round, [243] and also because the coast is beset with many reefs and shoals which we could scarcely pass through in the brigantine, it being impossible to sail through them in ships. These islands would be 6 leagues from Santa Isabel; they are in latitude 91⁄3° S., as they lie east and west with the island of Veru 10 leagues. These islands, which we passed, bear east and west one with the other. The land runs much further to the west-by-north. ”

“ The second, eight leagues at farthest from this great island. But all this part is an extensive Archipelago of little isles; which, on account of their number, were called the Thousand Isles, by admiral Roggewein, who passed through them in 1722. Then in what manner does this Cape Mabo, which is in the neighbourhood of Gilolo, belong to New Guinea? Where shall we place it, if (as there is so much reason to believe) all New Guinea itself is a heap of great islands? the various channels between which are as yet unknown. It must certainly belong to the westmost of these considerable isles. ”