For this volume of Teller’s Tales, I have selected the “Shipwrecked Orphans, a True Narrative of the Sufferings of John Ireland” and a little child, named William Doyley, who were unfortunately wrecked in the ship Charles Eaton, of London, and lived for several years with the natives of the South Sea Islands. The remainder of the passengers and crew of this ill-fated ship, were most inhumanly murdered by the savages soon after they landed from the wreck. The Narrative was written by one of the Orphans, John Ireland, and I give it to you in nearly his own words, having made but few alterations in the style in which he tells the story of their sufferings.

The people of some of the South Sea Islands, are of a very cruel disposition; some of them are cannibals; that is, they eat the flesh of those unfortunate persons who may happen to be shipwrecked on their Islands, or whom they may take prisoners of war. Others, on the contrary, show the greatest kindness to strangers in distress. May the time soon come when civilization and the Christian religion shall reach all these benighted savages, and teach them to relieve the distressed, and to regard the unfortunate as their brethren.

As very little is yet known of the manners and customs of these savage tribes, I trust this Narrative will prove both interesting and instructive to you all; and I hope you will feel grateful that,—unlike the sufferers in this story,—you are surrounded with the comforts of life, and have kind parents and friends to watch over you and defend you from the dangers and miseries to which these poor Orphans were so long exposed.