Revised Jun 22 2021
The services of the late excellent Dr. Broughton, Bishop of Sydney, and the regard which he felt for the Pitcairn community, have been noticed in the Ninth Chapter of this book. It is an interesting fact in the history of his life, that Norfolk Island, when a very different race from its present occupants inhabited the place, was visited by the Bishop; and that some of the then dwellers in that dreary abode of wrath and punishment were the special objects of his pastoral care. An affecting letter, dated Mulgoa, New South Wales, 17th June, 1839, addressed to the Secretary of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, was read by the author to the Board seventeen years ago:—
"I am anxious to have an opportunity of stating the satisfaction and thankfulness which I experienced, during a visit, in the month of January last, to the penal settlement of Norfolk Island, to find in that dreary abode of wrath and punishment, a striking practical testimony afforded to the value of the Society's exertions. Even among the outcast offenders who inhabit that insulated spot, your Bibles, and Prayer-books, and Manuals of Devotion, are among the chief sources of comfort enjoyed by the otherwise all but hopeless prisoner.
"I never before had so strongly conveyed to my mind a sense of the diffusiveness of that benevolence which you, my dear Sir, on behalf of the venerable Society, are so actively engaged in extending, as when I beheld the eagerness with which those books are sought, and the thankfulness with which they are received among more than 700 criminals, who are there under the spiritual charge of the Rev. Thomas Sharpe. So extensive, indeed, have been the fruits of his attention, that, under the Divine blessing, and with thankfulness to the Society which has so aided his exertions, I may express a confident expectation of many hardened men receiving the light of the truth, and being recovered to a reverence for it, to which, during the previous portion of their lives, they had been practically strangers.
"So far as it is granted me to judge of the sincerity of man's intentions, I felt so confident as to a considerable number presented and recommended to me by Mr. Sharpe, that, at their humble and earnest desire, I admitted them to the rite of Confirmation, the nature and design of which had been, carefully explained to them. And I afterwards received such of them as were desirous to attend, at the administration of the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper."