THE ELDERS MEET THE PHILOSOPHERSONE DAY, THE ELDERS RECEIVED a message asking if they would give an audience to a group of philosophers who wanted to learn about the islands, for, unlike most of the English, they were interested in the wonders and diversity of nature. Their king himself had fostered this idea and only four years ago had given them what they called proudly a ‘royal charter’ with the name The Royal Society of London for the Advancement of Natural Knowledge.
They were particularly interested to know if in some way, the Pacific islands were like the New Atlantis described by one of their greatest writers, Francis Bacon, a few decades earlier. He wrote of an island called Bensalem in the South Seas, they said, in which everyone is content, having all the things each needs to l
