Excerpt from God Save the King: The Origin, and History of the Music and Words of the National Anthem
In 1879, Queen Victoria presented a church organ to the inhabitants of Pitcairn Island, who, it will be remembered, were descendants of the old mutineers of The Bounty. The instrument was conveyed to the island in Her Majesty's ship Opal, and on arrival at the island the organ was promptly transferred to the shore and placed in position. The inauguration was attended by the whole population, men, women and children, ninety-three in number. Then, by one of those picturesquely appropriate touches that strike so happily the mind of a com munity affected by a single impulse of feeling, the scene became at once as pathetic as beautiful, for hardly had the instrument been opened, than it and the people burst into the music of the National Anthem. The effect was touching in the extreme, as, verse by verse, the grand harmony of God save the Queen' rolled from the little church-house on the cliff, and was taken up by the ship's crew on the shore. It was no rehearsed scene, but a spontaneous and uncontrollable outburst of loyal gratitude: Her Majesty's gracious kindness, and such an unexpected and substantial proof of it, transported the Islanders with delight, and in the strains of the National Anthem they celebrated the glad renewal of their allegiance which they had feared was despised.
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