Before we wind up this history, it will be as well to state to my young readers how it was that Captain Osborn made his appearance at so fortunate a moment. It will be recollected how a brig came off the island some months before this, and the great disappointment that the party on the island experienced in her not making her appearance again.
The fact was, that those on board of the brig had not only seen their signals, but had read the name of the "Pacific" upon the flag hoisted; but the heavy gale which came on drove them so far to the southward, that the master of the brig did not consider that he should do his duty to his owners, if he lost so much time in beating up for the island again. He therefore decided upon making all sail for Sydney, to which port he was bound.
When Captain Osborn was put into the boat by Mackintosh and the seamen of the Pacific, he was still insensible; but he gradually recovered, and after a stormy night, Captain Osborn was so far recovered as to hear from Mackintosh what had taken place, and why it was that he found himself in an open boat at sea. The next morning the wind moderated, and they were fortunate enough to fall in with a vessel bound to Van Diemen's Land, which took them all on board.
From the account given by Mackintosh, Captain Osborn had no doubt in his mind but that the Seagrave family had perished, and the loss of the vessel, with them on board, was duly reported to the owners. When at Van Diemen's Land, Captain Osborn was so much taken with the beauty and fertility of the country, and perhaps not so well inclined to go to sea again after such danger as he had incurred in the last voyage, that he resolved to purchase land and settle there. He did so, and had already stocked his farm with cattle, and had gone round to Sydney in a schooner to await the arrival of a large order from England which he had sent for, when the brig arrived and reported the existence of some white people on the small island, and also that they had hoisted a flag with the name Pacific worked on it.
Captain Osborn, hearing this, went to the master of the brig, and questioned him. He found the latitude and longitude of the island to be not far from that of the ship when she was deserted, and he was now convinced that, by some miracle, the Seagrave family had been preserved. He therefore went to the Governor of New South Wales, and made him acquainted with the facts which had been established, and the Governor instantly replied, that the government armed schooner was at his service, if he would himself go in quest of his former shipmates.
Inconvenient as the absence at that time was to Captain Osborn, he at once acquiesced, and in a few days the schooner sailed for her destination. She arrived off the island on the same morning that the fleet of canoes with the savages effected their landing, and when William made the remark to Ready as they were hastening into the stockade, that there was another vessel under sail off the garden-point, had Ready had time to put his eye to the telescope, he would have discovered that it was the schooner.
