The Journal of William Lockerby Sandalwood Trader in the Fijian Islands During the Years 1808-1809

Excerpt from The Journal of William Lockerby: Sandalwood Trader in the Fijian Islands During the Years 1808-1809; With an Introduction and Other Papers Connected With the Earliest European Visitors to the Islands
Curran, that it was supposed he had been taken, in Liverpool, by a press-gang - the date of his disappearance being about the middle of the Napoleonic wars and on the eve of the American war of 1812-14; and that after a time most of his relations and friends assumed that he was dead, but his wife refused to wear mourning and expected his return. The tradition continued, that Lockerby did return, after several years, and accounted for his absence by saying that he had been marooned in the Fiji Islands, then not an uncommon way of disposing of troublesome pressed men. It was added, probably not by Lockerby himself, that a dusky princess of those parts had there fallen in love with him, had married him, had helped him with her people, and that eventually he had got away quite amicably.
The young people of the family knew that Lockerby had written a long account of his experiences in Fiji; but the elder members, under the in uence of old fashioned prudery, were very shy of allowing access to this narrative, so that it was not till almost a century after it had been written that Leonard Wharton was allowed even to see the true story of his great grandfather's adventure.
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