HUNDRED years ago the frigate Imogene, commanded by Captain Henry Bruce, anchored in Valparaiso after a five months cruise in the South Seas. Her voyage was somewhat similar in intention and design to, though more productive of information than, the good-will cruises undertaken today by ships on the New Zealand station. Unpublished letters written by the captain to his brother-in-law, Sir Thomas Troubridge, a Lord of the Admiralty, have come by way of a descendant of the latter to the present writer.
Apart from anecdotal value, they shed direct light on the obscure period in the history of Pacific development which lies between discovery and the pearl-gin-beachcomber era, states the "Times." many naval commanders were "then like Henry Bruce, the conception of British duty to alien and subject races as one of trusteeship must have been in the air 80 years before the phrase "mandated territory" was known. From the evidence of the letters, however, one "would guess him to have been more humane than most. Down to the south-west in Melanesia there was wholesale murder and the sandal-"wood trade, Bruce's policy in the central Pacific was to imbue good principles, rebuke the heathen, and discourage rogues as far as he was able within the limits of his commission.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.