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Mutiny on the Bounty

April 08, 2023

This article is about the historical event. For other uses, see Mutiny on the Bounty (disambiguation).

The mutiny on the Royal Navy vessel HMS Bounty occurred in the South Pacific Ocean on 28 April 1789. Disaffected crewmen, led by acting-Lieutenant Fletcher Christian, seized control of the ship from their captain, Lieutenant William Bligh, and set him and eighteen loyalists adrift in the ship's open launch. The mutineers variously settled on Tahiti or on Pitcairn Island. Bligh navigated more than 3,500 nautical miles (6,500 km; 4,000 mi) in the launch to reach safety and began the process of bringing the mutineers to justice.

Fletcher Christian and the mutineers set Lieutenant William Bligh and 18 others adrift; 1790 painting by Robert Dodd.

Bounty had left England in 1787 on a mission to collect and transport breadfruit plants from Tahiti to the West Indies. A five-month layover in Tahiti, during which many of the men lived ashore and formed relationships with native Polynesians, led those men to be less amenable to military discipline. Relations between Bligh and his crew deteriorated after he allegedly began handing out increasingly harsh punishments, criticism, and abuse, Christian being a particular target. After three weeks back at sea, Christian and others forced Bligh from the ship. Twenty-five men remained on board afterwards, including loyalists held against their will and others for whom there was no room in the launch.

After Bligh reached England in April 1790, the Admiralty despatched HMS Pandora to apprehend the mutineers. Fourteen were captured in Tahiti and imprisoned on board Pandora, which then searched without success for Christian's party that had hidden on Pitcairn Island. After turning back towards England, Pandora ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef, with the loss of 31 crew and four prisoners from Bounty. The ten surviving detainees reached England in June 1792 and were court-martialled; four were acquitted, three were pardoned, and three were hanged.

Christian's group remained undiscovered on Pitcairn until 1808, by which time only one mutineer, John Adams, remained alive. Almost all of his fellow mutineers, including Christian, had been killed, either by one another or by their Polynesian companions. No action was taken against Adams; descendants of the mutineers and their accompanying Tahitians live on Pitcairn into the 21st century.

Background

Bounty and its mission

His Majesty's Armed Vessel (HMAV) Bounty, or HMS Bounty, was built in 1784 at the Blaydes shipyard in Hull, Yorkshire, as a collier named Bethia. It was renamed after being purchased by the Royal Navy for £1,950 in May 1787.[1] It was three-masted, 91 feet (28 m) long overall and 25 feet (7.6 m) across at its widest point, and registered at 230 tons burthen.[2] Its armament was four short four-pounder carriage guns and ten half-pounder swivel guns, supplemented by small arms such as muskets.[3] As it was rated by the Admiralty as a cutter, the smallest category of warship, its commander would be a lieutenant rather than a post-captain and would be the only commissioned officer on board. Nor did a cutter warrant the usual detachment of Royal Marines that naval commanders could use to enforce their authority.[4][n 1]

Bounty had been acquired to transport breadfruit plants from Tahiti (then rendered "Otaheite"), a Polynesian island in the South Pacific Ocean, to the British colonies in the West Indies. The expedition was promoted by the Royal Society and organised by its president Sir Joseph Banks, who shared the view of Caribbean plantation owners that breadfruit might grow well there and provide cheap food for the slaves.[8] Bounty was refitted under Banks' supervision at Deptford Dockyard on the River Thames. The great cabin, normally the quarters of the ship's captain, was converted into a greenhouse for over a thousand potted breadfruit plants, with glazed windows, skylights, and a lead-covered deck and drainage system to prevent the waste of fresh water.[9] The space required for these arrangements in the small ship meant that the crew and officers would endure severe overcrowding for the duration of the long voyage.[10]

Bligh

 
Lieutenant William Bligh, captain of HMS Bounty

With Banks' agreement, command of the expedition was given to Lieutenant William Bligh,[11] whose experiences included Captain James Cook's third and final voyage (1776–80) in which he had served as sailing master, or chief navigator, on HMS Resolution.[n 2] Bligh was born in Plymouth in 1754 into a family of naval and military tradition—Admiral Sir Richard Rodney Bligh was his third cousin.[11][12] Appointment to Cook's ship at the age of 21 had been a considerable honour, although Bligh believed that his contribution was not properly acknowledged in the expedition's official account.[14] With the 1783 ending of the eight-year American War of Independence and subsequent renewal of conflict with France—which had recognised and allied with the new United States in 1778—the vast Royal Navy was reduced in size, and Bligh found himself ashore on half-pay.[15]

After a period of idleness, Bligh took temporary employment in the mercantile service and in 1785 was captain of the Britannia, a vessel owned by his wife's uncle, Duncan Campbell.[16] Bligh assumed the prestigious Bounty appointment on 16 August 1787, at a considerable financial cost; his lieutenant's pay of four shillings a day (£70 a year) contrasted with the £500 a year he had earned as captain of Britannia. Because of the limited number of warrant officers allowed on Bounty, Bligh was also required to act as the ship's purser.[17][18] In order to survey an important but under-explored passage, Bligh's sailing orders stated that he was to enter the Pacific via Cape Horn around South America and then, after collecting the breadfruit plants, sail westward through the Endeavour Strait. He was then to cross the Indian and South Atlantic Oceans to the West Indies islands in the Caribbean. Bounty would thus complete a circumnavigation of the Earth in the Southern Hemisphere.[19]

Crew

Main article: Complement of HMS Bounty

Bounty's complement was 46 men, comprising 44 Royal Navy personnel (including Bligh) and two civilian botanists. Directly beneath Bligh were his warrant officers, appointed by the Navy Board and headed by the sailing master John Fryer.[20] The other warrant officers were the boatswain, the surgeon, the carpenter and the gunner.[21] To the two master's mates and two midshipmen were added several honorary midshipmen—so-called "young gentlemen" who were aspirant naval officers. These signed the ship's roster as able seamen but were quartered with the midshipmen and treated on equal terms with them.[22]

Most of Bounty's crew were chosen by Bligh or were recommended to him by influential patrons. The gunner, William Peckover, and the armourer, Joseph Coleman, had been with Cook and Bligh on Resolution;[23] several others had sailed under Bligh more recently on Britannia. Among these was the 23-year-old Fletcher Christian, who came from a wealthy Cumberland family descended from Manx gentry. Christian had chosen a life at sea rather than the legal career envisaged by his family.[24] He had twice voyaged with Bligh to the West Indies, and the two had formed a master-pupil relationship through which Christian had become a skilled navigator.[25] Christian was willing to serve on Bounty without pay as one of the "young gentlemen";[26] Bligh gave him one of the salaried master's mate's berths.[25] Another of the young gentlemen recommended to Bligh was 15-year-old Peter Heywood, also from a Manx family and a distant relation of Christian's. Heywood had left school at age 14 to spend a year on HMS Powerful, a harbour-bound training vessel at Plymouth.[27] His recommendation to Bligh came from Richard Betham, a Heywood family friend who was Bligh's father-in-law.[22]

The two botanists, or "gardeners", were chosen by Banks. The chief botanist, David Nelson, was a veteran of Cook's third expedition who had been to Tahiti and had learned some of the natives' language.[28] Nelson's assistant William Brown was a former midshipman who had seen naval action against the French.[23] Banks also helped to secure the official midshipmen's berths for two of his protégés, Thomas Hayward and John Hallett.[29] Overall, Bounty's crew was relatively youthful, the majority being under 30;[30] at the time of departure, Bligh was 33 years old. Among the older crewmembers were the 39-year-old Peckover, who had sailed on all three of Cook's voyages, and Lawrence Lebogue, a year older and formerly sailmaker on Britannia.[31] The youngest aboard were Hallett and Heywood, both aged 15 when they left England.[32]

Living space on the ship was allocated on the basis of rank. Bligh, having yielded the great cabin,[32] occupied private sleeping quarters with an adjacent dining area or pantry on the starboard side of the ship, and Fryer a small cabin on the opposite side. The surgeon Thomas Huggan, the other warrant officers, and Nelson the botanist had tiny cabins on the lower deck,[33] while the master's mates and the midshipmen, together with the young gentlemen, berthed together in an area behind the captain's dining room known as the cockpit; as junior or prospective officers, they were allowed use of the quarterdeck.[20] The other ranks had their quarters in the forecastle, a windowless unventilated area measuring 36 by 22 feet (11.0 by 6.7 m) with headroom of 5 feet 7 inches (1.70 m).[34]

Officers and gentlemen of HMS Bounty, December 1787[35]
Name Rank or function
William Bligh Lieutenant, Royal Navy: Ship's captain
John Fryer Warrant officer: Sailing master
William Cole Warrant officer: Boatswain
William Peckover Warrant officer: Gunner
William Purcell Warrant officer: Carpenter
Thomas Huggan Ship's surgeon
Fletcher Christian Master's mate
William Elphinstone Master's mate
Thomas Ledward Surgeon's mate
John Hallett Midshipman
Thomas Hayward Midshipman
Peter Heywood Honorary midshipman
George Stewart Honorary midshipman
Robert Tinkler Honorary midshipman
Edward "Ned" Young Honorary midshipman
David Nelson Botanist (civilian)
William Brown Assistant gardener (civilian)
Other ranks of HMS Bounty, December 1787[35]
Name Rank or function
Peter Linkletter Quartermaster
John Norton Quartermaster
George Simpson Quartermaster's mate
James Morrison Boatswain's mate
John Mills Gunner's mate
Charles Norman Carpenter's mate
Thomas McIntosh Carpenter's mate
Lawrence Lebogue Sailmaker
Charles Churchill Master-at-arms
Joseph Coleman Armourer
John Samuel Captain's clerk
John Smith Captain's servant
Henry Hillbrant Cooper
Thomas Hall Cook
Robert Lamb Butcher
William Muspratt Assistant cook
Thomas Burkett Able seaman
Michael Byrne (or "Byrn") Able seaman – musician
Thomas Ellison Able seaman
William McCoy (or "McKoy") Able seaman
Isaac Martin Able seaman
John Millward Able seaman
Matthew Quintal Able seaman
Richard Skinner Able seaman
John Adams ("Alexander Smith") Able seaman
John Sumner Able seaman
Matthew Thompson Able seaman
James Valentine Able seaman
John Williams Able seaman

Expedition

To Cape Horn

On 15 October 1787, Bounty left Deptford for Spithead, in the English Channel, to await final sailing orders.[36][n 3] Adverse weather delayed arrival at Spithead until 4 November. Bligh was anxious to depart quickly and reach Cape Horn before the end of the short southern summer,[38] but the Admiralty did not accord him high priority and delayed issuing the orders for a further three weeks. When Bounty finally sailed on 28 November, the ship was trapped by contrary winds and unable to clear Spithead until 23 December.[39][40] With the prospect of a passage around Cape Horn now in serious doubt, Bligh received permission from the Admiralty to take, if necessary, an alternative route to Tahiti via the Cape of Good Hope.[41]

As the ship settled into its sea-going routine, Bligh introduced Cook's strict discipline regarding sanitation and diet. According to the expedition's historian Sam McKinney, Bligh enforced these rules "with a fanatical zeal, continually fuss[ing] and fum[ing] over the cleanliness of his ship and the food served to the crew."[42] He replaced the navy's traditional watch system of alternating four-hour spells on and off duty with a three-watch system, whereby each four-hour duty was followed by eight hours' rest.[43] For the crew's exercise and entertainment, he introduced regular music and dancing sessions.[44] Bligh's despatches to Campbell and Banks indicated his satisfaction; he had no occasion to administer punishment because, he wrote: "Both men and officers tractable and well disposed, & cheerfulness & content in the countenance of every one".[45] The only adverse feature of the voyage to date, according to Bligh, was the conduct of the surgeon Huggan, who was revealed as an indolent, unhygienic drunkard.[44]

From the start of the voyage, Bligh had established warm relations with Christian, according him a status which implied that he was Bligh's second-in-command rather than Fryer.[46][n 4] On 2 March, Bligh formalised the position by assigning Christian to the rank of acting-Lieutenant.[48][n 5] Fryer showed little outward sign of resentment at his junior's advancement, but his relations with Bligh significantly worsened from this point.[51] A week after the promotion, and on Fryer's insistence, Bligh ordered the flogging of seaman Matthew Quintal, who received twelve lashes for "insolence and mutinous behaviour",[47] thereby dashing Bligh's expressed hope of a voyage free from such punishment.[52]

On 2 April, as Bounty approached Cape Horn, a strong gale and high seas began an unbroken period of stormy weather which, Bligh wrote, "exceeded what I had ever met with before ... with severe squalls of hail and sleet".[53] The winds drove the ship back; on 3 April, it was further north than it had been a week earlier.[54] Again and again, Bligh forced the ship forward, to be repeatedly repelled. On 17 April, he informed his exhausted crew that the sea had beaten them, and that they would turn and head for the Cape of Good Hope—"to the great joy of every person on Board", Bligh recorded.[55]

Cape to Pacific

On 24 May 1788, Bounty anchored in False Bay, east of the Cape of Good Hope, where five weeks were spent in repairs and reprovisioning.[56] Bligh's letters home emphasised how fit and well he and his crew were, by comparison with other vessels, and expressed hope that he would receive credit for this.[57] At one stage during the sojourn, Bligh lent Christian money, a gesture that the historian Greg Dening suggests might have sullied their relationship by becoming a source of anxiety and even resentment to the younger man.[58] In her account of the voyage, Caroline Alexander describes the loan as "a significant act of friendship", but one which Bligh ensured Christian did not forget.[57]

After leaving False Bay on 1 July, Bounty set out across the southern Indian Ocean on the long voyage to their next port of call, Adventure Bay in Van Diemen's Land (now called Tasmania). They passed the remote Île Saint-Paul, a small uninhabited island which Bligh knew from earlier navigators contained fresh water and a hot spring, but he did not attempt a landing. The weather was cold and wintry, conditions akin to the vicinity of Cape Horn, and it was difficult to take navigational observations, but Bligh's skill was such that on 19 August he sighted Mewstone Rock, on the south-west corner of Van Diemen's Land and, two days later, made anchorage in Adventure Bay.[59]

 
Matavai Bay, Tahiti, as painted by William Hodges in 1776

The Bounty party spent their time at Adventure Bay in recuperation, fishing, replenishment of water casks, and felling timber. There were peaceful encounters with the native population.[59] The first sign of overt discord between Bligh and his officers occurred when the captain exchanged angry words with the carpenter, William Purcell, over the latter's methods for cutting wood.[60][n 6] Bligh ordered Purcell back to the ship and, when the carpenter stood his ground, Bligh withheld his rations, which "immediately brought him to his senses", according to Bligh.[60]

Further clashes occurred on the final leg of the journey to Tahiti. On 9 October, Fryer refused to sign the ship's account books unless Bligh provided him with a certificate attesting to his complete competence throughout the voyage. Bligh would not be coerced. He summoned the crew and read the Articles of War, at which Fryer backed down.[62] There was also trouble with the surgeon Huggan, whose careless blood-letting of able seaman James Valentine while treating him for asthma led to the seaman's death from a blood infection.[63] To cover his error, Huggan reported to Bligh that Valentine had died from scurvy,[64] which led Bligh to apply his own medicinal and dietary antiscorbutic remedies to the entire ship's company.[65] By now, Huggan was almost incapacitated with drink, until Bligh confiscated his supply. Huggan briefly returned to duty; before Bounty's arrival in Tahiti, he examined all on board for signs of venereal disease and found none.[66] Bounty came to anchor in Matavai Bay, Tahiti, on 26 October 1788, concluding a journey of 27,086 nautical miles (50,163 km; 31,170 mi).[67]

Tahiti

Bligh's first action on arrival was to secure the co-operation of the local chieftains, as well as the King of Tahiti Pōmare I. The paramount chief Tynah remembered Bligh from Cook's voyage fifteen years previously and greeted him warmly. Bligh presented the chiefs with gifts and informed them that their own "King George" wished in return only breadfruit plants. They happily agreed with this simple request.[68] Bligh assigned Christian to lead a shore party charged with establishing a compound in which the plants would be nurtured.[69]

 
A Polynesian woman, painted in 1777 by John Webber

Whether based ashore or on board, the men's duties during Bounty's five-month stay in Tahiti were relatively light. Many led promiscuous lives among the native women—altogether, eighteen officers and men, including Christian, received treatment for venereal infections[70]—while others took regular partners.[71] Christian formed a close relationship with a Polynesian woman named Mauatua, to whom he gave the name "Isabella" after a former sweetheart from Cumberland.[72] Bligh remained chaste himself,[73] but was tolerant of his men's activities, unsurprised that they should succumb to temptation when "the allurements of dissipation are beyond any thing that can be conceived".[74] Nevertheless, he expected them to do their duty efficiently, and was disappointed to find increasing instances of neglect and slackness on the part of his officers. Infuriated, he wrote: "Such neglectful and worthless petty officers I believe were never in a ship such as are in this."[70]

Huggan died on 10 December. Bligh attributed this to "the effects of intemperance and indolence ... he never would be prevailed on to take half a dozen turns upon deck at a time, through the whole course of the voyage".[75] For all his earlier favoured status, Christian did not escape Bligh's wrath. He was often humiliated by the captain—sometimes in front of the crew and the Tahitians—for real or imagined slackness,[70] while severe punishments were handed out to men whose carelessness had led to the loss or theft of equipment. Floggings, rarely administered during the outward voyage, now became increasingly common.[76] On 5 January 1789 three members of the crew—Charles Churchill, William Muspratt and John Millward—deserted, taking a small boat, arms and ammunition. Muspratt had recently been flogged for neglect. Among the belongings Churchill left on the ship was a list of names that Bligh interpreted as possible accomplices in a desertion plot—the captain later asserted that the names included those of Christian and Heywood. Bligh was persuaded that his protégé was not planning to desert, and the matter was dropped. Churchill, Millward and Muspratt were found after three weeks and, on their return to the ship, were flogged.[76]

From February onwards, the pace of work increased; more than 1,000 breadfruit plants were potted and carried into the ship, where they filled the great cabin.[77] The ship was overhauled for the long homeward voyage, in many cases by men who regretted the forthcoming departure and loss of their easy life with the Tahitians. Bligh was impatient to be away, but as Richard Hough observes in his account, he "failed to anticipate how his company would react to the severity and austerity of life at sea ... after five dissolute, hedonistic months at Tahiti".[78] The work was done by 1 April 1789, and four days later, after an affectionate farewell from Tynah and his queen, Bounty left the harbour.[77]

Towards home

In their Bounty histories, both Hough and Alexander maintain that the men were not at a stage close to mutiny, however sorry they were to leave Tahiti. The journal of James Morrison, the boatswain's mate, supports this.[79][80][n 7] The events that followed, Hough suggests, were determined in the three weeks following the departure, when Bligh's anger and intolerance reached paranoid proportions. Christian was a particular target, always seeming to bear the brunt of the captain's rages.[82] Unaware of the effects of his behaviour on his officers and crew,[14] Bligh would forget these displays instantly and attempt to resume normal conversation.[79]

On 22 April 1789, Bounty arrived at Nomuka, in the Friendly Islands (now called Tonga), intending to pick up wood, water, and further supplies on the final scheduled stop before the Endeavour Strait.[83] Bligh had visited the island with Cook and knew that the inhabitants could behave unpredictably. He put Christian in charge of the watering party and equipped him with muskets, but at the same time ordered that the arms should be left in the boat instead of carried ashore.[83] Christian's party was harassed and threatened continually but were unable to retaliate, having been denied the use of arms. He returned to the ship with his task incomplete, and was cursed by Bligh as "a damned cowardly rascal".[84] Further disorder ashore resulted in the thefts of a small anchor and an adze, for which Bligh further berated Christian and Fryer.[85] In an attempt to recover the missing property, Bligh briefly detained the island's chieftains on the ship, but to no avail. When he finally gave the order to sail, neither the anchor nor the adze had been restored.[86]

By 27 April, Christian was in a state of despair, depressed and brooding.[87][n 8] His mood was worsened when Bligh accused him of stealing coconuts from the captain's private supply. Bligh punished the whole crew for this theft, stopping their rum ration and reducing their food by half.[88][89] Feeling that his position was now intolerable, Christian considered constructing a raft with which he could escape to an island and take his chances with the natives. He may have acquired wood for this purpose from Purcell.[87][90] In any event, his discontent became common knowledge among his fellow officers. Two of the young gentlemen, George Stewart and Edward Young, urged him not to desert; Young assured him that he would have the support of almost all on board if he were to seize the ship and depose Bligh.[91] Stewart told him the crew were "ripe for anything".[87]

Mutiny

Seizure

 
Fletcher Christian and the mutineers seize HMS Bounty on 28 April 1789. Engraving by Hablot Knight Browne, 1841

In the early hours of 28 April 1789, Bounty lay about 30 nautical miles (56 km; 35 mi) south of the island of Tofua.[92] After a largely sleepless night, Christian had decided to act. He understood from his discussions with Young and Stewart which crewmen were his most likely supporters and, after approaching Quintal and Isaac Martin, he learned the names of several more. With the help of these men, Christian rapidly gained control of the upper deck; those who questioned his actions were ordered to keep quiet.[93] At about 05:15, Christian went below, dismissed Hallett (who was sleeping on the chest containing the ship's muskets) and distributed arms to his followers before making for Bligh's cabin.[94] Three men took hold of the captain and tied his hands, threatening to kill him if he raised the alarm;[95] Bligh "called as loudly as [he] could in hopes of assistance".[96] The commotion woke Fryer, who saw, from his cabin opposite, the mutineers frogmarching Bligh away. The mutineers ordered Fryer to "lay down again, and hold my tongue or I was a dead man".[94]

Bligh was brought to the quarterdeck, his hands bound by a cord held by Christian, who was brandishing a bayonet;[97] some reports maintained that Christian had a sounding plummet hanging from his neck so that he could jump overboard and drown himself if the mutiny failed.[94] Others who had been awakened by the noise left their berths and joined in the general pandemonium. It was unclear at this stage who were and who were not active mutineers. Hough describes the scene: "Everyone was, more or less, making a noise, either cursing, jeering or just shouting for the reassurance it gave them to do so".[97] Bligh shouted continually, demanding to be set free, sometimes addressing individuals by name, and otherwise exhorting the company generally to "knock Christian down!"[98] Fryer was briefly permitted on deck to speak to Christian, but was then forced below at bayonet-point; according to Fryer, Christian told him: "I have been in hell for weeks past. Captain Bligh has brought this on himself."[94]

Christian originally thought to cast Bligh adrift in Bounty's small jolly boat, together with his clerk John Samuel and the loyalist midshipmen Hayward and Hallett. This boat proved unseaworthy, so Christian ordered the launching of a larger ship's boat, with a capacity of around ten. However, Christian and his allies had overestimated the extent of the mutiny—at least half on board were determined to leave with Bligh. Thus the ship's largest boat, a 23-foot (7.0 m) launch, was put into the water.[99] During the following hours the loyalists collected their possessions and entered the boat. Among these was Fryer, who with Bligh's approval sought to stay on board—in the hope, he later claimed, that he would be able to retake the ship[94]—but Christian ordered him into the launch. Soon, the vessel was badly overloaded, with more than twenty persons and others still vying for places. Christian ordered the two carpenter's mates, Norman and McIntosh, and the armourer, Joseph Coleman, to return to the ship, considering their presence essential if he were to navigate Bounty with a reduced crew. Reluctantly they obeyed, beseeching Bligh to remember that they had remained with the ship against their will. Bligh assured them: "Never fear, lads, I'll do you justice if ever I reach England".[100]

Samuel saved the captain's journal, commission papers and purser's documents, a compass and quadrant, but was forced to leave behind Bligh's maps and charts—fifteen years of navigational work.[94] With the eighteen men who had remained loyal to Bligh, the launch was supplied with about five days' food and water and Purcell's tool chest.[101] Bligh mentions in his journals that a sextant and any time-keeper was refused by the mutineers, but boatswain's mate James Morrison stated Christian handed over his personal sextant saying, "There, Captain Bligh, this is sufficient for every purpose and you know the sextant to be a good one."[102] The ship's K2 chronometer was left on Bounty,[103] but Peckover had his own pocket watch that Bligh used to keep time.[96] At the last minute the mutineers threw four cutlasses down into the boat.[94] Of Bounty's complement—44 after the deaths of Huggan and Valentine—19 men were crowded into the launch, leaving it dangerously low in the water with only seven inches of freeboard.[101] The 25 men remaining on Bounty included the committed mutineers who had taken up arms, the loyalists detained against their will, and others for whom there was no room in the launch. At around 10:00 the line holding the launch to the ship was cut; a little later, Bligh ordered a sail to be raised. Their immediate destination was the nearby island of Tofua, clearly marked on the horizon by the plume of smoke rising from its volcano.[104]

Bligh's open-boat voyage

 
Map showing Bounty's movements in the Pacific Ocean, 1788–1790
  Voyage of Bounty to Tahiti and to location of the mutiny, 28 April 1789
  Course of Bligh's open-boat journey to Coupang, Timor, between 2 May and 14 June 1789
  Movements of Bounty under Christian after the mutiny, from 28 April 1789 onwards
 
"Fletcher Christian. Aged 24 years – 5.9 High. Dark swarthy complexion..." The beginning of Bligh's list of mutineers, written during the open-boat voyage. Now in the collection of the National Library of Australia.

Bligh hoped to find water and food on Tofua, then proceed to the nearby island of Tongatapu to seek help from King Poulaho (whom he knew from his visit with Cook) in provisioning the boat for a voyage to the Dutch East Indies.[105] Ashore at Tofua, there were encounters with natives who were initially friendly but grew more menacing as time passed. On 2 May, four days after landing, Bligh realised that an attack was imminent. He directed his men back to the sea, shortly before the Tofuans seized the launch's stern rope and attempted to drag it ashore. Bligh coolly shepherded the last of his shore party and their supplies into the boat. In an attempt to free the rope from its captors, the quartermaster John Norton leapt into the water; he was immediately set upon and stoned to death.[106]

The launch escaped to the open sea, where the shaken crew reconsidered their options. A visit to Tongatapu, or any island landfall, might incur similarly violent consequences; their best chance of salvation, Bligh reckoned, lay in sailing directly to the Dutch settlement of Kupang in Timor, using the rations presently on board.[n 9] This was a journey of some 3,500 nautical miles (6,500 km; 4,000 mi) to the west, beyond the Endeavour Strait, and it would necessitate daily rations of an ounce of bread and a quarter-pint of water for each man. The plan was unanimously agreed.[108][109]

From the outset, the weather was wet and stormy, with mountainous seas that constantly threatened to overwhelm the boat.[110] When the sun appeared, Bligh noted in his daily journal that it "gave us as much pleasure as a winter's day in England".[111] Bligh endeavoured to continue his journal throughout the voyage, observing, sketching, and charting as they made their way west. To keep up morale, he told stories of his prior experiences at sea, got the men singing, and occasionally said prayers.[112] The launch made the first passage by Europeans through the Fiji Islands,[113] but they dared not stop because of the islanders' reputation for cannibalism.[114][n 10] On 17 May, Bligh recorded that "our situation was miserable; always wet, and suffering extreme cold ... without the least shelter from the weather".[116]

A week later with the skies clearing, birds began to appear, signalling a proximity to land.[117] On 28 May, the Great Barrier Reef was sighted; Bligh found a navigable gap and sailed the launch into a calm lagoon.[118] Late that afternoon, he ran the boat ashore on a small island which he named Restoration Island, where the men found oysters and berries in plentiful supply and were able to eat ravenously.[119][120] Over the next four days, the party island-hopped northward within the lagoon, aware that their movements were being closely monitored by natives on the mainland.[121] Strains were showing within the party; following a heated disagreement with Purcell, Bligh grabbed a cutlass and challenged the carpenter to fight. Fryer told Cole to arrest their captain but backed down after Bligh threatened to kill him if he interfered.[122]

On 2 June, the launch cleared Cape York, the extreme northern point of the Australian continent. Bligh turned south-west and steered through a maze of shoals, reefs, sandbanks, and small islands. The route taken was not the Endeavour Strait, but a narrower southerly passage later known as the Prince of Wales Channel. At 20:00 that evening, they reached the open Arafura Sea,[123] still 1,100 nautical miles (2,000 km; 1,300 mi) from Kupang.[124] The following eight days encompassed some of the toughest travel of the entire journey and, by 11 June, many were close to collapse. The next day, the coast of Timor was sighted: "It is not possible for me to describe the pleasure which the blessing of the sight of this land diffused among us", Bligh wrote.[125] On 14 June, with a makeshift Union Jack hoisted, they sailed into Kupang harbour.[116]

In Kupang, Bligh reported the mutiny to the authorities, and wrote to his wife: "Know then, my own Dear Betsey, I have lost the Bounty ..."[126] Nelson the botanist quickly succumbed to the harsh Kupang climate and died.[127] On 20 August, the party departed for Batavia (now called Jakarta) to await a ship for Europe;[128] the cook Thomas Hall died there, having been ill for weeks.[129] Bligh obtained passages home for himself, his clerk Samuel, and his servant John Smith, and sailed on 16 October 1789.[130] Four of the remainder—the master's mate Elphinstone, the quartermaster Peter Linkletter, the butcher Robert Lamb and the assistant surgeon Thomas Ledward—all died either in Batavia or on their journeys home.[131][132]

Bounty under Christian

After the departure of Bligh's launch, Christian divided the personal effects of the departed loyalists among the remaining crew and threw the breadfruit plants into the sea.[133] He recognised that Bligh could conceivably survive to report the mutiny, and that anyway the non-return of Bounty would occasion a search mission, with Tahiti as its first port of call. Christian therefore headed Bounty towards the small island of Tubuai, some 450 nautical miles (830 km; 520 mi) south of Tahiti.[134] Tubuai had been discovered and roughly charted by Cook; except for a single small channel, it was entirely surrounded by a coral reef and could, Christian surmised, be easily defended against any attack from the sea.[135]

 
Tubuai, where Christian first attempted to settle; the island is almost totally surrounded by a coral reef

Bounty arrived at Tubuai on 28 May 1789. The reception from the native population was hostile; when a flotilla of war canoes headed for the ship, Christian used a four-pounder gun to repel the attackers. At least a dozen warriors were killed, and the rest scattered. Undeterred, Christian and an armed party surveyed the island and decided it would be suitable for their purposes.[136] However, to create a permanent settlement, they needed compliant native labour and women. The most likely source for these was Tahiti, to which Bounty returned on 6 June. To ensure the co-operation of the Tahiti chiefs, Christian concocted a story that he, Bligh, and Cook were founding a new settlement at Aitutaki. Cook's name ensured generous gifts of livestock and other goods and, on 16 June, the well-provisioned Bounty sailed back to Tubuai. On board were nearly thirty Tahitian men and women, some of whom were there by deception.[137][138]

For the next two months, Christian and his forces struggled to establish themselves on Tubuai. They began to construct a large moated enclosure—called "Fort George", after the British king—to provide a secure fortress against attack by land or sea.[137] Christian attempted to form friendly relations with the local chiefs, but his party was unwelcome.[139] There were persistent clashes with the native population, mainly over property and women, culminating in a pitched battle in which 66 islanders were killed and many wounded.[140] Discontent was rising among the Bounty party, and Christian sensed that his authority was slipping. He called a meeting to discuss future plans and offered a free vote. Eight remained loyal to Christian, the hard core of the active mutineers, but sixteen wished to return to Tahiti and take their chances there. Christian accepted this decision; after depositing the majority at Tahiti, he would "run before the wind, and ... land upon the first island the ship drives. After what I have done I cannot remain at Tahiti."[139] In order to flee, Bounty cut the ropes to two anchors in the bay; one was recovered by Pandora, [141] while the other was rediscovered in 1957.[142]

Mutineers divided

When Bounty returned to Tahiti, on 22 September, the welcome was much less effusive than previously. The Tahitians had learned from the crew of a visiting British ship that the story of Cook and Bligh founding a settlement in Aitutaki was a fabrication, and that Cook had been long dead.[143] Christian worried that their reaction might turn violent and did not stay long. Of the sixteen men who had voted to settle in Tahiti, he allowed fifteen ashore; Joseph Coleman was detained on the ship, as Christian required his skills as an armourer.[144]

That evening, Christian coaxed aboard Bounty a party of Tahitians, mainly women, for a social gathering. With the festivities underway, he cut the anchor rope and Bounty sailed away with its captive guests.[145] Coleman escaped by diving overboard and reached land.[144] Among the abducted group were six elderly women, for whom Christian had no use; he put them ashore on the nearby island of Mo'orea.[146] Bounty's complement now comprised nine mutineers—Christian, Young, Quintal, Brown, Martin, John Williams, John Mills, William McCoy and John Adams (known by the crew as "Alexander Smith")[147]—and twenty Polynesians, of whom fourteen were women.[148]

The sixteen sailors on Tahiti began to organise their lives.[149] One group, led by Morrison and Tom McIntosh, began building a schooner, which they named Resolution after Cook's ship.[150] Morrison had not been an active mutineer; rather than waiting for recapture, he hoped to sail the vessel to the Dutch East Indies and surrender to the authorities there, hoping that such action would confirm his innocence. Morrison's group maintained ship's routine and discipline, even to the extent of holding divine service each Sunday.[151][n 11] Churchill and Matthew Thompson, on the other hand, chose to lead drunken and generally dissolute lives, which ended in the violent deaths of both. Churchill was murdered by Thompson, who was in turn killed by Churchill's native friends.[153] Others, such as Stewart and Heywood, settled into quiet domesticity; Heywood spent much of his time studying the Tahitian language.[149] He adopted native dress and, in accordance with the local custom, was heavily tattooed on his body.[154]

Retribution

HMS Pandora mission

When Bligh landed in England on 14 March 1790, news of the mutiny had preceded him and he was fêted as a hero. In October 1790 at a formal court-martial for the loss of Bounty, he was honourably acquitted of responsibility for the loss and was promoted to post-captain. As an adjunct to the court-martial, Bligh brought charges against Purcell for misconduct and insubordination; the former carpenter received a reprimand.[155][156]

In November 1790, the Admiralty despatched the frigate HMS Pandora, under Captain Edward Edwards, to capture the mutineers and return them to England to stand trial.[157] Pandora arrived at Tahiti on 23 March 1791 and, within a few days, all fourteen surviving Bounty men had either surrendered or been captured.[158] Edwards made no distinction between mutineers and those who claimed they had been detained on Bounty unwillingly;[159] all were incarcerated in a specially constructed prison erected on Pandora's quarterdeck, dubbed "Pandora's Box".[160] Pandora remained at Tahiti for five weeks while Edwards unsuccessfully sought information on Bounty's whereabouts. The ship finally sailed on 8 May to search for Bounty among the thousands of southern Pacific islands.[161] Apart from a few spars discovered at Palmerston Island, no traces of the fugitive vessel were found.[162] Edwards continued the search until August, when he turned west and headed for the Dutch East Indies.[163] Ironically, one of the islands Pandora sailed to, but did not land at, was Pitcairn Island; had Edwards checked his charts and found that this uncharted island was at the correct latitude but wrong longitude for Pitcairn Island, he could very well have fulfilled his mission by capturing the last nine Bounty mutineers. Edwards' search for the remaining mutineers ultimately proved fruitless.

When passing Vanikoro on 13 August 1791, Edwards observed smoke signals rising from the island. Edwards, single-minded in his search for Bounty and convinced that mutineers fearful of discovery would not be advertising their whereabouts, ignored the smoke signals and sailed on. Wahlroos argues that the smoke signals were almost certainly a distress message sent by survivors of the Lapérouse expedition, which later evidence indicated were still alive on Vanikoro at that time—three years after their ships Boussole and Astrolabe had foundered. Wahlroos is "virtually certain" that Edwards, whom he characterizes as one of England's most "ruthless", "inhuman", "callous", and "incompetent" naval captains, missed his chance to become "one of the heroes of maritime history" by solving the mystery of the lost expedition.[164]

 
HMS Pandora foundering, 29 August 1791; 1831 etching by Robert Batty, from a sketch by Heywood

On 29 August 1791, Pandora ran aground on the outer Great Barrier Reef. The men in "Pandora's Box" were ignored as the regular crew attempted to prevent the ship from foundering. When Edwards gave the order to abandon ship, Pandora's armourer began to remove the prisoners' shackles, but the ship sank before he had finished. Heywood and nine other prisoners escaped; four Bounty men—George Stewart, Henry Hillbrant, Richard Skinner and John Sumner—drowned, along with 31 of Pandora's crew. The survivors, including the ten remaining prisoners, then embarked on an open-boat journey that largely followed Bligh's course of two years earlier. The prisoners were mostly kept bound hand and foot until they reached Kupang on 17 September.[165][166]

The prisoners were confined for seven weeks, at first in prison and later on a Dutch East India Company ship, before being transported to Cape Town.[167] On 5 April 1792, they embarked for England on a British warship, HMS Gorgon, and arrived at Portsmouth on 19 June. There they were transferred to the guardship HMS Hector to await trial. The prisoners included the three detained loyalists—Coleman, McIntosh and Norman—to whom Bligh had promised justice; the blind fiddler Michael Byrne (or "Byrn"); Heywood; Morrison; and four active mutineers: Thomas Burkett, John Millward, Thomas Ellison and William Muspratt.[168] Bligh, who had been given command of HMS Providence for a second breadfruit expedition, had left England in August 1791[169] and thus would be absent from the pending court-martial proceedings.[170]

Court martial, verdict, and sentences

 
Admiral Lord Hood, who presided over the Bounty court martial

The court-martial opened on 12 September 1792 on HMS Duke in Portsmouth Harbour, with Vice-Admiral Lord Hood, Commander-in-Chief, Portsmouth, presiding.[171] Heywood's family secured him competent legal advisers;[172] of the other defendants, only Muspratt employed legal counsel.[173] The survivors of Bligh's open-boat journey gave evidence against their former comrades—the testimonies from Thomas Hayward and John Hallett were particularly damaging to Heywood and Morrison, who each maintained their innocence of any mutinous intention and had surrendered voluntarily to Pandora.[174] The court did not challenge the statements of Coleman, McIntosh, Norman and Byrne, all of whom were acquitted.[175] On 18 September the six remaining defendants were found guilty of mutiny and were sentenced to death by hanging, with recommendations of mercy for Heywood and Morrison "in consideration of various circumstances".[176]

On 26 October 1792 Heywood and Morrison received royal pardons from King George III and were released. Muspratt, through his lawyer, won a stay of execution by filing a petition protesting that court-martial rules had prevented his calling Norman and Byrne as witnesses in his defence.[177] He was still awaiting the outcome when Burkett, Ellison and Millward were hanged from the yardarm of HMS Brunswick in Portsmouth dock on 28 October. Some accounts claim that the condemned trio continued to protest their innocence until the last moment,[178] while others speak of their "manly firmness that ... was the admiration of all".[179] There was some unease expressed in the press—a suspicion that "money had bought the lives of some, and others fell sacrifice to their poverty."[180] A report that Heywood was heir to a large fortune was unfounded; nevertheless, Dening asserts that "in the end it was class or relations or patronage that made the difference."[180] In December Muspratt heard that he was reprieved, and on 11 February 1793 he, too, was pardoned and freed.[181]

Aftermath

Much of the court-martial testimony was critical of Bligh's conduct—by the time of his return to England in August 1793, following his successful conveyance of breadfruit to the West Indies aboard Providence, professional and public opinion had turned against him.[182] He was snubbed at the Admiralty when he went to present his report, and was left on half pay for nineteen months before receiving his next appointment.[183] In late 1794 the jurist Edward Christian, brother of Fletcher, published his Appendix to the court-martial proceedings, which was said by the press to "palliate the behaviour of Christian and the Mutineers, and to criminate Captain Bligh".[184] Bligh's position was further undermined when the loyalist gunner Peckover confirmed that much of what was alleged in the Appendix was true.[185]

Bligh commanded HMS Director at the Battle of Camperdown in October 1797 and HMS Glatton in the Battle of Copenhagen in April 1801.[14] In 1805, while commanding HMS Warrior, he was court-martialled for using bad language to his officers and reprimanded.[186] In 1806, he was appointed Governor of New South Wales in Australia; after two years a group of army officers arrested and deposed him in the Rum Rebellion. After his return to England, Bligh was promoted to rear-admiral in 1811 and vice-admiral in 1814, but was not offered further naval appointments. He died, aged 63, in December 1817.[14]

Of the pardoned mutineers, Heywood and Morrison returned to naval duty. Heywood acquired the patronage of Hood and, by 1803 at the age of 31, had achieved the rank of captain. After a distinguished career, he died in 1831.[182] Morrison became a master gunner and was eventually lost in 1807 when HMS Blenheim foundered in the Indian Ocean. Muspratt is believed to have worked as a naval steward before his death, in or before 1798. The other principal participants in the court martial—Fryer, Peckover, Coleman, McIntosh and others—generally vanished from the public eye after the closing of the procedures.[187]

Pitcairn

 
Bounty Bay on Pitcairn Island, where HMS Bounty was burned on 23 January 1790
 
Fletcher Christian's House
 
1831 engraving of John Adams Wooden House Pitcairn Island
 
1908 photograph of Wooden House Built by the Mutineers of the 'Bounty,' Pitcairn Island

Settlement

After leaving Tahiti on 22 September 1789, Christian sailed Bounty west in search of a safe haven. He then formed the idea of settling on Pitcairn Island, far to the east of Tahiti; the island had been reported in 1767, but its exact location was never verified. After months of searching, Christian rediscovered the island on 15 January 1790, 188 nautical miles (348 km; 216 mi) east of its recorded position.[188] This longitudinal error contributed to the mutineers' decision to settle on Pitcairn.[189]

 
Descendants of the mutineers John Adams and Matthew Quintal on Norfolk Island, 1862. From Left to right:John Adams 1827–1897 son of George Adams; John Quintal 1820–1912 son of Arthur Qunital; George Adams 1804–1873 son of John Adams; Arthur Quintal 1795–1873 son of Matthew Quintal

On arrival the ship was unloaded and stripped of most of its masts and spars, for use on the island.[185] It was set ablaze and destroyed on 23 January, either as an agreed upon precaution against discovery or as an unauthorised act by Quintal—in either case, there was now no means of escape.[190]

Pitcairn Island proved an ideal haven for the mutineers—uninhabited and virtually inaccessible, with plenty of food, water, and fertile land.[188] For a while, the mutineers and Tahitians existed peaceably. Christian settled down with Isabella; a son, Thursday October Christian, was born, as were other children.[191] Christian's authority as leader gradually diminished, and he became prone to long periods of brooding and introspection.[192]

Gradually, tensions and rivalries arose over the increasing extent to which the Europeans regarded the Tahitians as their property, in particular the women who, according to Alexander, were "passed around from one 'husband' to the other".[190] In September 1793 matters degenerated into extreme violence, when several of the mutineers—possibly including Christian, Williams, Martin, Mills, and Brown—were killed by Tahitians in a series of murders. Both Adams and one of the Tahitian women, Teehuteatuaonoa, later claimed that Christian was killed in this massacre.[193] However, Adams' stories were inconsistent; over the years he also claimed that Christian had died of sickness or suicide.[194] At any rate, his gravesite has never been found.[195] According to Teehuteatuaonoa, Christian was shot and killed from behind while in the act of "clearing away some ground for a garden".[196]

In-fighting continued thereafter, and by 1794 the six Tahitian men were all dead, killed either by the widows of the murdered mutineers or by each other.[197] Two of the four surviving mutineers, Young and Adams, assumed leadership and secured a tenuous calm, which was disrupted by the drunkenness of McCoy and Quintal after the former distilled an alcoholic beverage from a local plant.[188] Some of the women attempted to leave the island in a makeshift boat but could not launch it successfully. Life continued uneasily until McCoy's suicide in 1798. A year later, after Quintal threatened fresh murder and mayhem, Adams and Young killed him and were able to restore peace.[198]

Discovery

 
Parts of Bounty's rudder, recovered from Pitcairn Island and preserved in a Fiji museum
 
HMAS Bounty bell
 
HMAS Bounty ballast bar

After Young succumbed to asthma in 1800, Adams took responsibility for the education and well-being of the nine remaining women and nineteen children. Using the ship's Bible from Bounty, he taught literacy and Christianity, and kept peace on the island.[189] This was the situation in February 1808, when the American sealer Topaz came unexpectedly upon Pitcairn, landed, and discovered the by-then thriving community.[199][200] Adams gave Bounty's Azimuth compass and Marine chronometer to Topaz's captain, Mayhew Folger. News of the discovery did not reach Britain until 1810, when it was overlooked by an Admiralty preoccupied by war with France.

In 1814, two British warships, HMS Briton and HMS Tagus, chanced upon Pitcairn. Among those who greeted them were Thursday October Christian and George Young (Edward Young's son).[201] The captains, Sir Thomas Staines and Philip Pipon, reported that Christian's son displayed "in his benevolent countenance, all the features of an honest English face".[202] On shore they found a population of 46–mainly young islanders led by Adams,[202] upon whom the islanders' welfare was wholly dependent, according to the captains' report.[203] After receiving Staines and Pipon's report, the Admiralty decided to take no action.

In the following years, many ships called at Pitcairn Island and heard Adams' various stories of the foundation of the Pitcairn settlement.[203] Adams died in 1829, honoured as the founder and father of a community that became celebrated over the next century as an exemplar of Victorian morality.[188]

Explorer Luis Marden rediscovered the remains of Bounty in January 1957.[204] After spotting remains of the rudder[205] (which had been found in 1933 by Parkin Christian, and is still displayed in the Fiji Museum in Suva) he persuaded his editors and writers to let him dive off Pitcairn Island. After several days of dangerous diving, Marden found the remains of the ship: a rudder pin, nails, a ships boat oarlock, fittings and a Bounty anchor that he raised.[205][206] Later in life, Marden wore cuff links made of nails from Bounty. He also dived to the wreck of Pandora and left a Bounty nail with that vessel. Some of the Bounty's remains, such as the ballast stones, are still partially visible in the waters of Bounty Bay. The last of Bounty's four-pounder cannon was recovered in 1998 by an archaeological team from James Cook University and was sent to the Queensland Museum in Townsville, Queensland, Australia, to be stabilised through lengthy conservation treatment via electrolysis over a period of nearly forty months. The gun was subsequently returned to Pitcairn Island, where it has been placed on display in a new community hall.

Over the years, many recovered Bounty artefacts have been sold by islanders as souvenirs; in 1999, the Pitcairn Project was established by a consortium of Australian academic and historical bodies to survey and document all the remaining material, as part of a detailed study of the settlement's development.[207]

Cultural impact

Biographies and history

Bligh published his journal several months after his return to London. Titled Narrative of the Mutiny on the Bounty, it was a bestseller.[208] He published an expanded account, A Voyage to the South Sea, in 1792. Bligh's narrative called the voyage one of "uninterrupted prosperity," and made no mention of personal differences with the crew.[209] The journal was heavily edited by Joseph Banks, who told Bligh: "We shall abridge considerably what you wrote ... to satisfy the public and place you in such a point of view as they shall approve."[210]

Bligh's narrative was unchallenged until the court-martial of the captured Bounty crewmembers in September 1792. In their testimony, the crew alleged that Bligh had cut their rations and Christian had been "in hell" due to his frequent quarrels with the captain.[211] By contrast, Bligh's journal had claimed that he and Christian were on friendly terms and he believed the lure of Tahiti had caused the mutiny.

The perception of Bligh as an overbearing tyrant began with Edward Christian's Appendix of 1794.[212] The Appendix was based on interviews with Fryer, Hayward, Purcell, John Smith, Heywood, Muspratt and Morrison. It argued that the day before the mutiny, Bligh had accused Christian of stealing his coconuts and reduced the crew's yam ration to three quarters of a pound as punishment.[213] This left the crew "greatly discontented ... and their discontent was increased from the consideration that they had plenty of provisions on board, and the captain was his own purser".[214] As purser, it was in Bligh's interest to be frugal so that he could supplement his salary by selling back surplus provisions on his return.[215]

Apart from Bligh's journal, the first published account of the mutiny was that of Sir John Barrow, published in 1831. Barrow was a friend of the Heywood family; his book mitigated Heywood's role while emphasising Bligh's severity.[216] The book also instigated the legend that Christian had not died on Pitcairn, but had somehow returned to England and been recognised by Heywood in Plymouth, around 1808–1809.[217] An account written in 1870 by Heywood's stepdaughter Diana Belcher further exonerated Heywood and Christian and, according to Bligh biographer Caroline Alexander, "cemented ... many falsehoods that had insinuated their way into the narrative".[216]

Among historians' attempts to portray Bligh more sympathetically are those of Richard Hough (1972) and Caroline Alexander (2003). Hough depicts "an unsurpassed foul-weather commander ... I would go through hell and high water with him, but not for one day in the same ship on a calm sea".[218] Alexander presents Bligh as over-anxious, solicitous of his crew's well-being, and utterly devoted to his task. However, Bligh's reputation as the archetypal bad commander remains: the Baltimore Sun's reviewer of Alexander's book wrote "poetry routed science and it has held the field ever since".[219]

In film and theatre

 
Poster for the 1935 film Mutiny on the Bounty, starring Charles Laughton as Bligh and Clark Gable as Christian

In addition to many books and articles about the mutiny, in the 20th century five feature films were produced. The first was a 1916 silent Australian film, subsequently lost.[220] The second, also from Australia, titled In the Wake of the Bounty (1933), was the screen debut of Errol Flynn in the role of Christian.[220] The impact of this film was overshadowed by that of the MGM version, Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), based on the popular namesake novel by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall, and starring Charles Laughton and Clark Gable as Bligh and Christian, respectively. The film's story was presented, says Dening, as "the classic conflict between tyranny and a just cause";[221] Laughton's portrayal became in the public mind the definitive Bligh, "a byword for sadistic tyranny".[219]

The two subsequent major films, Mutiny on the Bounty (1962) with Trevor Howard and Marlon Brando, and The Bounty (1984) with Anthony Hopkins and Mel Gibson, largely perpetuated this image of Bligh and that of Christian as tragic hero.

In 1998, in advance of a BBC documentary film aimed at Bligh's rehabilitation, the respective descendants of Bligh and Christian feuded over their contrary versions of the truth. Dea Birkett, the programme's presenter, suggested that "Christian versus Bligh has come to represent rebellion versus authoritarianism, a life constrained versus a life of freedom, sexual repression versus sexual licence."[222] In 2017, Channel 4 undertook a recreating of the voyage of Bligh featuring the former soldier Ant Middleton.[223]

A musical Mutiny! played at the Piccadilly Theatre in London's West End for sixteen months from 1985.[224] It was co-written by David Essex based on the novel Mutiny on the Bounty and starred Essex as Christian. Morecambe and Wise produced a spoof "play what Ernie wrote" called Monty on the Bonty, starring Arthur Lowe as Bligh.[225]

Museums

Both Pitcairn Island Museum and Bounty Museum on Norfolk Island use objects and memorabilia to interpret the history of the mutineers.[226][227][228][229]

Notes and references

Notes

  1. ^ James Cook commanded his first voyage in HMS Endeavour as a newly promoted lieutenant, and was not promoted to the rank of captain until after his second voyage.[5][6] However, Cook always insisted on the support of a marine detachment of at least twelve.[7]
  2. ^ The latter part of this voyage was without Cook, who was killed by Hawaiians in 1779.[12][13]
  3. ^ Dates are given as recorded by Bligh in Bounty's log (where applicable), which was kept according to the "nautical", "navy" or "sea" time then used by the Royal Navy—each day begins at noon and continues until noon the next day, twelve hours ahead of regular "civil", "natural", or "land" time. The nautical "15 October", for example, equates to the land time period between noon on the 14th and noon on the 15th.[37]
  4. ^ An early example of Bligh's esteem for Christian was indicated at Tenerife, where Bounty stopped between 5 and 11 January. On arrival, Bligh sent Christian ashore as the ship's representative to pay respect to the island's governor.[46][47]
  5. ^ This was not a formal naval promotion, but it gave Christian the authority of a full lieutenant on the voyage, and greatly increased his chances of a permanent lieutenant's commission from the Admiralty on his return.[49][50]
  6. ^ Suggestions that Bligh was an exceptionally harsh commander are not borne out by evidence. His violence was more verbal than physical;[14] as a captain, his overall flogging rate of less than one in ten seamen was exceptionally low for the time.[61] He was known for shortness of temper and sharpness of tongue, but his rages were generally directed at his officers, particularly when he perceived incompetence or dereliction of duty.[61]
  7. ^ Morrison's journal was probably written with the advantage of hindsight, after his return to London as a prisoner. Hough argues that Morrison could not have maintained a day-by-day account of all the experiences he underwent, including the mutiny, his capture, and the return to England.[81]
  8. ^ The historian Leonard Guttridge suggests that Christian's psychological state may have been further affected by the venereal disease contracted in Tahiti.[87]
  9. ^ Bligh listed these provisions in his journal as 150 pounds (68 kg) of bread, 28 gallons (130 litres) of water, 20 pounds (9.1 kg) of pork, and a few coconuts and breadfruit salvaged from Tofua. There were also three bottles of wine and five quarts of rum.[107]
  10. ^ The strait through which the loyalists passed pursued by natives is still called Bligh Water.[115]
  11. ^ Morrison and his men created a seaworthy schooner. When Pandora arrived in Tahiti in March 1791 in search of mutineers, the schooner was confiscated and commandeered to act as Pandora's tender. The schooner subsequently disappeared in a storm and was presumed lost, but was returned safely to Batavia by a skeleton crew.[152]

References

  1. ^ Winfield 2007, p. 355.
  2. ^ Hough 1972, p. 64.
  3. ^ Alexander 2003, p. 70.
  4. ^ Alexander 2003, pp. 49, 71.
  5. ^ David 2004.
  6. ^ Alexander 2003, p. 72.
  7. ^ Alexander 2003, p. 71.
  8. ^ McKinney 1999, p. 16.
  9. ^ McKinney 1999, pp. 17–20.
  10. ^ Hough 1972, p. 65.
  11. ^ a b Alexander 2003, p. 43.
  12. ^ a b Darby 2004.
  13. ^ McKinney 1999, pp. 7–12.
  14. ^ a b c d e Frost 2004.
  15. ^ Alexander 2003, p. 47.
  16. ^ Hough 1972, pp. 58–59.
  17. ^ Hough 1972, pp. 66–67.
  18. ^ Alexander 2003, p. 73.
  19. ^ Alexander 2003, p. 48.
  20. ^ a b McKinney 1999, pp. 164–166.
  21. ^ Alexander 2003, p. 51.
  22. ^ a b Hough 1972, p. 74.
  23. ^ a b Alexander 2003, p. 56.
  24. ^ McKinney 1999, pp. 20–22.
  25. ^ a b Hough 1972, pp. 75–76.
  26. ^ Dening 1992, p. 70.
  27. ^ Alexander 2003, pp. 63–65.
  28. ^ Hough 1972, pp. 67–68.
  29. ^ Alexander 2003, p. 68.
  30. ^ McKinney 1999, p. 23.
  31. ^ McKinney 1999, pp. 17–23, 164–166; Wahlroos 1989, p. 304.
  32. ^ a b McKinney 1999, pp. 17–23, 37, 164–166.
  33. ^ Dening 1992, pp. 28–32.
  34. ^ Alexander 2003, p. 69.
  35. ^ a b Bligh 1792, pp. 158–160; Hough 1972, pp. 76–77; Alexander 2003, frontispiece.
  36. ^ Hough 1972, p. 78.
  37. ^ McKinney 1999, p. 180.
  38. ^ Alexander 2003, pp. 70–71.
  39. ^ Alexander 2003, pp. 72–73.
  40. ^ Hough 1972, pp. 78–80.
  41. ^ McKinney 1999, pp. 25–26.
  42. ^ McKinney 1999, pp. 13–14, 28.
  43. ^ Hough 1972, p. 83.
  44. ^ a b Hough 1972, p. 88.
  45. ^ Alexander 2003, p. 86.
  46. ^ a b Alexander 2003, p. 79.
  47. ^ a b Bligh 1792, p. 27.
  48. ^ Bligh 1792, p. 25.
  49. ^ Alexander 2003, pp. 86–87.
  50. ^ McKinney 1999, p. 31.
  51. ^ Hough 1972, p. 87.
  52. ^ Dening 1992, p. 22.
  53. ^ Bligh 1792, p. 30.
  54. ^ Alexander 2003, p. 90.
  55. ^ Bligh 1792, p. 33.
  56. ^ Hough 1972, pp. 95–96.
  57. ^ a b Alexander 2003, pp. 92–94.
  58. ^ Dening 1992, p. 69.
  59. ^ a b Hough 1972, pp. 97–99.
  60. ^ a b Alexander 2003, pp. 97–98.
  61. ^ a b Dening 1992, p. 127.
  62. ^ Hough 1972, pp. 100–101.
  63. ^ Wahlroos 1989, pp. 297–298.
  64. ^ Dening 1992, p. 71.
  65. ^ Alexander 2003, pp. 101–103.
  66. ^ Alexander 2003, pp. 103–104.
  67. ^ McKinney 1999, p. 47.
  68. ^ Alexander 2003, pp. 105–107.
  69. ^ Hough 1972, p. 115.
  70. ^ a b c Hough 1972, pp. 122–125.
  71. ^ Alexander 2003, p. 112.
  72. ^ Guttridge 2006, p. 26.
  73. ^ Guttridge 2006, p. 24.
  74. ^ Bligh 1792, p. 162.
  75. ^ Bligh 1792, p. 102.
  76. ^ a b Alexander 2003, pp. 115–120.
  77. ^ a b Alexander 2003, pp. 124–125.
  78. ^ Hough 1972, p. 128.
  79. ^ a b Hough 1972, p. 133.
  80. ^ Alexander 2003, p. 126.
  81. ^ Hough 1972, pp. 312–313.
  82. ^ Hough 1972, pp. 131–132.
  83. ^ a b Hough 1972, pp. 135–136.
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  96. ^ a b Bligh's account of events on 28 April 1789, from Log of the Proceedings of His Majestys Ship Bounty Lieut. Wm Bligh Commander from Otaheite towards Jamaica
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  107. ^ Bligh 1792, p. 176.
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  111. ^ Bligh 1792, p. 186.
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  115. ^ Stanley 2004, pp. 597–598.
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  117. ^ Hough 1972, p. 179.
  118. ^ Alexander 2003, p. 151.
  119. ^ Hough 1972, pp. 180–182.
  120. ^ Bligh 1792, p. 200.
  121. ^ Hough 1972, pp. 184–185.
  122. ^ Guttridge 2006, p. 35.
  123. ^ Hough 1972, pp. 186–187.
  124. ^ Alexander 2003, p. 152.
  125. ^ Bligh 1792, p. 227.
  126. ^ Alexander 2003, p. 154.
  127. ^ Bligh 1792, pp. 239–240.
  128. ^ Hough 1972, p. 213.
  129. ^ Bligh 1792, p. 257.
  130. ^ Alexander 2003, pp. 163–164.
  131. ^ Bligh 1792, p. 264.
  132. ^ Hough 1972, p. 215.
  133. ^ Alexander 2003, pp. 12–13.
  134. ^ Guttridge 2006, p. 36.
  135. ^ Hough 1972, pp. 192–195.
  136. ^ Hough 1972, pp. 194–196.
  137. ^ a b Dening 1992, p. 90.
  138. ^ Hough 1972, pp. 196–197.
  139. ^ a b Hough 1972, pp. 199–200.
  140. ^ Alexander 2003, p. 14.
  141. ^ "HMS Pandora Encyclopedia". Pitcairn Islands Study Center. Pacific Union College. Retrieved 31 October 2012.
  142. ^ National Geographic, December 1957, Luis Marden, "I Found the Bones of the Bounty"
  143. ^ Hough 1972, pp. 201–203.
  144. ^ a b Alexander 2003, p. 15.
  145. ^ Alexander 2003, p. 250.
  146. ^ Alexander 2003, pp. 368–369.
  147. ^ Dening 1992, p. 84.
  148. ^ Hough 1972, pp. 204–205.
  149. ^ a b Hough 1972, p. 229.
  150. ^ Dening 1992, pp. 215–217.
  151. ^ Hough 1972, pp. 220–221.
  152. ^ Alexander 2003, pp. 10, 19, 29–30.
  153. ^ Alexander 2003, p. 8.
  154. ^ Tagart 1832, p. 83.
  155. ^ Hough 1972, pp. 216–217.
  156. ^ Alexander 2003, p. 173.
  157. ^ Alexander 2003, p. 7.
  158. ^ Alexander 2003, p. 11.
  159. ^ Alexander 2003, p. 9.
  160. ^ Dening 1992, pp. 238–239.
  161. ^ Hough 1972, pp. 226–227.
  162. ^ Alexander 2003, pp. 15–18.
  163. ^ Hough 1972, pp. 227–229.
  164. ^ Wahlroos, Sven, "Mutiny and Romance in the South Seas", Salem House Publishers, c/o Harper & Row, New York, NY, 1989
  165. ^ Alexander 2003, pp. 22–26.
  166. ^ Hough 1972, pp. 227–230.
  167. ^ Alexander 2003, pp. 27, 30–31.
  168. ^ Alexander 2003, pp. 32–35.
  169. ^ Hough 1972, p. 218.
  170. ^ Dening 1992, pp. 43–44.
  171. ^ Hough 1972, p. 276.
  172. ^ Alexander 2003, pp. 204–205.
  173. ^ Alexander 2003, p. 272.
  174. ^ Alexander 2003, pp. 240–245.
  175. ^ Hough 1972, p. 281.
  176. ^ Alexander 2003, p. 283.
  177. ^ Dening 1992, p. 46.
  178. ^ Alexander 2003, pp. 300–302.
  179. ^ Dening 1992, p. 48.
  180. ^ a b Dening 1992, pp. 37–42.
  181. ^ Alexander 2003, p. 302.
  182. ^ a b Hough 1972, p. 284.
  183. ^ Alexander 2003, pp. 318, 379.
  184. ^ Alexander 2003, pp. 340–341.
  185. ^ a b Hough 1972, p. 286.
  186. ^ Hough 1972, p. 290.
  187. ^ Alexander 2003, pp. 377–378.
  188. ^ a b c d Government of Pitcairn 2000.
  189. ^ a b Stanley 2004, pp. 288–296.
  190. ^ a b Alexander 2003, p. 369.
  191. ^ Hough 1972, pp. 243, 246.
  192. ^ Hough 1972, pp. 245–246.
  193. ^ Christian, Harrison (2021). Men Without Country. Sydney: Ultimo Press. p. 280. ISBN 9781761150050.
  194. ^ Christian, Harrison (2021). Men Without Country. Sydney: Ultimo Press. p. 290. ISBN 9781761150050.
  195. ^ Christian, Harrison (2021). Men Without Country. Sydney: Ultimo Press. p. 290. ISBN 9781761150050.
  196. ^ Christian, Harrison (2021). Men Without Country. Sydney: Ultimo Press. p. 282. ISBN 9781761150050.
  197. ^ Guttridge 2006, p. 86.
  198. ^ Hough 1972, pp. 266–267.
  199. ^ Alexander 2003, pp. 347–348.
  200. ^ An transcription of Floger Log entry Concerning the Bounty and Pitcairn Island pp.36–40
  201. ^ Alexander 2003, pp. 351–352.
  202. ^ a b Barrow 1831, pp. 285–289.
  203. ^ a b Alexander 2003, p. 355.
  204. ^ Pitcairn Miscellany https/www.miscellany.pn
  205. ^ a b "The 'Bounty's' Last Relics". Life. Vol. 44, no. 6. 10 February 1958. pp. 38–41. Retrieved 31 October 2012.
  206. ^ . Archived from the original on 26 October 2012. Retrieved 31 October 2012.
  207. ^ Erskine 1999.
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  209. ^ Christian, Harrison (2021). Men Without Country. Sydney: Ultimo. p. 203. ISBN 9781761150050.
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  212. ^ Alexander 2003, pp. 343–344.
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  214. ^ Christian, Harrison (2021). Men Without Country. Sydney: Ultimo Press. p. 202. ISBN 9781761150050.
  215. ^ Christian, Harrison (2021). Men Without Country. Sydney: Ultimo Press. p. 91. ISBN 9781761150050.
  216. ^ a b Alexander 2003, pp. 401–402.
  217. ^ Barrow 1831, pp. 309–310.
  218. ^ Hough 1972, pp. 302–303.
  219. ^ a b Lewis 2003.
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  222. ^ Minogue 1998.
  223. ^ "Mutiny". Channel 4.
  224. ^ Mutiny! (Essex).
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  226. ^ "Bounty Folk Museum | History & Culture | Norfolk Island". www.norfolkisland.com.au. Retrieved 29 March 2023.
  227. ^ Johnson, Henry (2010). "Brushing up on Mutineers: Music with Art at Fletcher's Mutiny Cyclorama, Norfolk Island". Music in Art. 35 (1/2): 119–132. ISSN 1522-7464. JSTOR 41818611.
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Sources

Online

  • Darby, Madge (2004). "Bligh, Sir Richard Rodney (1737–1821)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/2648. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  • David, Andrew (2004). "Cook, James (1728–1779)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/6140. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  • Erskine, Nigel (1999). "Reclaiming the Bounty". Archaeology. Boston: Archaeological Institute of America. 52 (3). Retrieved 18 May 2015.
  • Frost, Alan (2004). "Bligh, William (1754–1817)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/2650. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  • "History of Pitcairn Island". Pitcairn Islands Study Center. Pacific Union College. 2000. Retrieved 30 April 2015. Used by permission from the government-published Guide to Pitcairn,
  • "Mutiny! (Essex) – The Guide to Musical Theatre". www.guidetomusicaltheatre.com. Retrieved 30 January 2020.

News

  • Lewis, Mark (26 October 2003). "'The Bounty': Fletcher Christian was the villain". The Baltimore Sun. Baltimore, Maryland. Retrieved 20 May 2015.
  • Minogue, Tim (22 March 1998). "Blighs v Christians, the 209-year feud". The Independent. London. Retrieved 20 May 2015.

Archives

  • Bligh, William. "Log of the Proceedings of His Majestys Ship Bounty Lieut. Wm Bligh Commander from Otaheite towards Jamaica, signed 'Wm Bligh'," (5 April 1789 – 13 March 1790) [Log Book]. Bligh Family Papers, Series: 414397, File: Safe 1/47. NSW, Aus: State Library Collection, State Library of New South Wales.

Books

  • Alexander, Caroline (2003). The Bounty. London: Harper Collins. ISBN 978-0-00-257221-7.
  • Barrow, Sir John (1831). The Eventful History of the Mutiny and Piratical Seizure of HMS Bounty: Its Causes and Consequences. London: John Murray. OCLC 4050135.
  • Bligh, William (1792). A Voyage to the South Sea, etc. London: Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. OCLC 28790.
  • Dening, Greg (1992). Mr Bligh's Bad Language: Passion, Power and Theatre on the Bounty. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-38370-7.
  • Guttridge, Leonard F (2006) [1992]. Mutiny: A History of Naval Insurrection. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-1-59114-348-2.
  • Hough, Richard (1972). Captain Bligh and Mr Christian: The Men and the Mutiny [republished in 1984 by Corgi as The Bounty]. London: Hutchinsons. ISBN 978-0-09-112860-9.
  • McKinney, Sam (1999) [1989]. Bligh!: The Whole Story of the Mutiny Aboard H.M.S. Bounty. Victoria, British Columbia: TouchWood Editions. ISBN 978-0-920663-64-6.
  • Stanley, David (2004). South Pacific (Eighth ed.). Chico, California: Moon Handbooks. ISBN 978-1-56691-411-6.
  • Tagart, Edward (1832). A Memoir of the late Captain Peter Heywood, R.N. with Extracts from his Diaries and Correspondence. London: Effingham Wilson. OCLC 7541945.
  • Wahlroos, Sven (1989). Mutiny and Romance in the South Seas: a Companion to the Bounty Adventure. Topsfield, Massachusetts: Salem House Publishers. ISBN 978-0-88162-395-6.
  • Winfield, Rif (2007). British Warships in the Age of Sail, 1714–1792: Design, Construction, Careers and Fates. Barnsley: Seaforth Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84415-700-6.

Further reading

  • Fryer, John (1979). Walters, Stephen S (ed.). The Voyage of the Bounty Launch: John Fryer's Narrative. Guildford: Genesis Publications. ISBN 978-0-904351-10-1.
  • Ledward, Thomas Denman. Letter of 15 October 1789 briefly giving an account of the Mutiny and his status in Timor. Printed in Notes and Queries Oxford Journal 26 December 1903 pp.501–502
  • Morrison, James (1935). Rutter, Owen (ed.). The Journal of James Morrison, etc. London: Golden Cockerel Press. OCLC 752837769.
  • Proud, Jodie; Zammit, Anthony (2006). (PDF). AICCM Symposium 2006. Canberra: Australian Institute for the Conservation of Cultural Material. Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 July 2018. Retrieved 1 May 2015.

External links

April 08, 2023
mutiny, bounty, this, article, about, historical, event, other, uses, disambiguation, mutiny, royal, navy, vessel, bounty, occurred, south, pacific, ocean, april, 1789, disaffected, crewmen, acting, lieutenant, fletcher, christian, seized, control, ship, from,. This article is about the historical event For other uses see Mutiny on the Bounty disambiguation The mutiny on the Royal Navy vessel HMS Bounty occurred in the South Pacific Ocean on 28 April 1789 Disaffected crewmen led by acting Lieutenant Fletcher Christian seized control of the ship from their captain Lieutenant William Bligh and set him and eighteen loyalists adrift in the ship s open launch The mutineers variously settled on Tahiti or on Pitcairn Island Bligh navigated more than 3 500 nautical miles 6 500 km 4 000 mi in the launch to reach safety and began the process of bringing the mutineers to justice Fletcher Christian and the mutineers set Lieutenant William Bligh and 18 others adrift 1790 painting by Robert Dodd Bounty had left England in 1787 on a mission to collect and transport breadfruit plants from Tahiti to the West Indies A five month layover in Tahiti during which many of the men lived ashore and formed relationships with native Polynesians led those men to be less amenable to military discipline Relations between Bligh and his crew deteriorated after he allegedly began handing out increasingly harsh punishments criticism and abuse Christian being a particular target After three weeks back at sea Christian and others forced Bligh from the ship Twenty five men remained on board afterwards including loyalists held against their will and others for whom there was no room in the launch After Bligh reached England in April 1790 the Admiralty despatched HMS Pandora to apprehend the mutineers Fourteen were captured in Tahiti and imprisoned on board Pandora which then searched without success for Christian s party that had hidden on Pitcairn Island After turning back towards England Pandora ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef with the loss of 31 crew and four prisoners from Bounty The ten surviving detainees reached England in June 1792 and were court martialled four were acquitted three were pardoned and three were hanged Christian s group remained undiscovered on Pitcairn until 1808 by which time only one mutineer John Adams remained alive Almost all of his fellow mutineers including Christian had been killed either by one another or by their Polynesian companions No action was taken against Adams descendants of the mutineers and their accompanying Tahitians live on Pitcairn into the 21st century Contents 1 Background 1 1 Bounty and its mission 1 2 Bligh 1 3 Crew 2 Expedition 2 1 To Cape Horn 2 2 Cape to Pacific 2 3 Tahiti 2 4 Towards home 3 Mutiny 3 1 Seizure 3 2 Bligh s open boat voyage 3 3 Bounty under Christian 3 4 Mutineers divided 4 Retribution 4 1 HMS Pandora mission 4 2 Court martial verdict and sentences 4 3 Aftermath 5 Pitcairn 5 1 Settlement 5 2 Discovery 6 Cultural impact 6 1 Biographies and history 6 2 In film and theatre 6 3 Museums 7 Notes and references 7 1 Notes 7 2 References 7 3 Sources 7 3 1 Online 7 3 2 News 7 3 3 Archives 7 3 4 Books 8 Further reading 9 External linksBackground EditBounty and its mission Edit A 1960 reconstruction of HMS Bounty His Majesty s Armed Vessel HMAV Bounty or HMS Bounty was built in 1784 at the Blaydes shipyard in Hull Yorkshire as a collier named Bethia It was renamed after being purchased by the Royal Navy for 1 950 in May 1787 1 It was three masted 91 feet 28 m long overall and 25 feet 7 6 m across at its widest point and registered at 230 tons burthen 2 Its armament was four short four pounder carriage guns and ten half pounder swivel guns supplemented by small arms such as muskets 3 As it was rated by the Admiralty as a cutter the smallest category of warship its commander would be a lieutenant rather than a post captain and would be the only commissioned officer on board Nor did a cutter warrant the usual detachment of Royal Marines that naval commanders could use to enforce their authority 4 n 1 Bounty had been acquired to transport breadfruit plants from Tahiti then rendered Otaheite a Polynesian island in the South Pacific Ocean to the British colonies in the West Indies The expedition was promoted by the Royal Society and organised by its president Sir Joseph Banks who shared the view of Caribbean plantation owners that breadfruit might grow well there and provide cheap food for the slaves 8 Bounty was refitted under Banks supervision at Deptford Dockyard on the River Thames The great cabin normally the quarters of the ship s captain was converted into a greenhouse for over a thousand potted breadfruit plants with glazed windows skylights and a lead covered deck and drainage system to prevent the waste of fresh water 9 The space required for these arrangements in the small ship meant that the crew and officers would endure severe overcrowding for the duration of the long voyage 10 Bligh Edit Lieutenant William Bligh captain of HMS Bounty With Banks agreement command of the expedition was given to Lieutenant William Bligh 11 whose experiences included Captain James Cook s third and final voyage 1776 80 in which he had served as sailing master or chief navigator on HMS Resolution n 2 Bligh was born in Plymouth in 1754 into a family of naval and military tradition Admiral Sir Richard Rodney Bligh was his third cousin 11 12 Appointment to Cook s ship at the age of 21 had been a considerable honour although Bligh believed that his contribution was not properly acknowledged in the expedition s official account 14 With the 1783 ending of the eight year American War of Independence and subsequent renewal of conflict with France which had recognised and allied with the new United States in 1778 the vast Royal Navy was reduced in size and Bligh found himself ashore on half pay 15 After a period of idleness Bligh took temporary employment in the mercantile service and in 1785 was captain of the Britannia a vessel owned by his wife s uncle Duncan Campbell 16 Bligh assumed the prestigious Bounty appointment on 16 August 1787 at a considerable financial cost his lieutenant s pay of four shillings a day 70 a year contrasted with the 500 a year he had earned as captain of Britannia Because of the limited number of warrant officers allowed on Bounty Bligh was also required to act as the ship s purser 17 18 In order to survey an important but under explored passage Bligh s sailing orders stated that he was to enter the Pacific via Cape Horn around South America and then after collecting the breadfruit plants sail westward through the Endeavour Strait He was then to cross the Indian and South Atlantic Oceans to the West Indies islands in the Caribbean Bounty would thus complete a circumnavigation of the Earth in the Southern Hemisphere 19 Crew Edit Main article Complement of HMS Bounty Bounty s complement was 46 men comprising 44 Royal Navy personnel including Bligh and two civilian botanists Directly beneath Bligh were his warrant officers appointed by the Navy Board and headed by the sailing master John Fryer 20 The other warrant officers were the boatswain the surgeon the carpenter and the gunner 21 To the two master s mates and two midshipmen were added several honorary midshipmen so called young gentlemen who were aspirant naval officers These signed the ship s roster as able seamen but were quartered with the midshipmen and treated on equal terms with them 22 Most of Bounty s crew were chosen by Bligh or were recommended to him by influential patrons The gunner William Peckover and the armourer Joseph Coleman had been with Cook and Bligh on Resolution 23 several others had sailed under Bligh more recently on Britannia Among these was the 23 year old Fletcher Christian who came from a wealthy Cumberland family descended from Manx gentry Christian had chosen a life at sea rather than the legal career envisaged by his family 24 He had twice voyaged with Bligh to the West Indies and the two had formed a master pupil relationship through which Christian had become a skilled navigator 25 Christian was willing to serve on Bounty without pay as one of the young gentlemen 26 Bligh gave him one of the salaried master s mate s berths 25 Another of the young gentlemen recommended to Bligh was 15 year old Peter Heywood also from a Manx family and a distant relation of Christian s Heywood had left school at age 14 to spend a year on HMS Powerful a harbour bound training vessel at Plymouth 27 His recommendation to Bligh came from Richard Betham a Heywood family friend who was Bligh s father in law 22 The two botanists or gardeners were chosen by Banks The chief botanist David Nelson was a veteran of Cook s third expedition who had been to Tahiti and had learned some of the natives language 28 Nelson s assistant William Brown was a former midshipman who had seen naval action against the French 23 Banks also helped to secure the official midshipmen s berths for two of his proteges Thomas Hayward and John Hallett 29 Overall Bounty s crew was relatively youthful the majority being under 30 30 at the time of departure Bligh was 33 years old Among the older crewmembers were the 39 year old Peckover who had sailed on all three of Cook s voyages and Lawrence Lebogue a year older and formerly sailmaker on Britannia 31 The youngest aboard were Hallett and Heywood both aged 15 when they left England 32 Living space on the ship was allocated on the basis of rank Bligh having yielded the great cabin 32 occupied private sleeping quarters with an adjacent dining area or pantry on the starboard side of the ship and Fryer a small cabin on the opposite side The surgeon Thomas Huggan the other warrant officers and Nelson the botanist had tiny cabins on the lower deck 33 while the master s mates and the midshipmen together with the young gentlemen berthed together in an area behind the captain s dining room known as the cockpit as junior or prospective officers they were allowed use of the quarterdeck 20 The other ranks had their quarters in the forecastle a windowless unventilated area measuring 36 by 22 feet 11 0 by 6 7 m with headroom of 5 feet 7 inches 1 70 m 34 Officers and gentlemen of HMS Bounty December 1787 35 Name Rank or functionWilliam Bligh Lieutenant Royal Navy Ship s captainJohn Fryer Warrant officer Sailing masterWilliam Cole Warrant officer BoatswainWilliam Peckover Warrant officer GunnerWilliam Purcell Warrant officer CarpenterThomas Huggan Ship s surgeonFletcher Christian Master s mateWilliam Elphinstone Master s mateThomas Ledward Surgeon s mateJohn Hallett MidshipmanThomas Hayward MidshipmanPeter Heywood Honorary midshipmanGeorge Stewart Honorary midshipmanRobert Tinkler Honorary midshipmanEdward Ned Young Honorary midshipmanDavid Nelson Botanist civilian William Brown Assistant gardener civilian Other ranks of HMS Bounty December 1787 35 Name Rank or functionPeter Linkletter QuartermasterJohn Norton QuartermasterGeorge Simpson Quartermaster s mateJames Morrison Boatswain s mateJohn Mills Gunner s mateCharles Norman Carpenter s mateThomas McIntosh Carpenter s mateLawrence Lebogue SailmakerCharles Churchill Master at armsJoseph Coleman ArmourerJohn Samuel Captain s clerkJohn Smith Captain s servantHenry Hillbrant CooperThomas Hall CookRobert Lamb ButcherWilliam Muspratt Assistant cookThomas Burkett Able seamanMichael Byrne or Byrn Able seaman musicianThomas Ellison Able seamanWilliam McCoy or McKoy Able seamanIsaac Martin Able seamanJohn Millward Able seamanMatthew Quintal Able seamanRichard Skinner Able seamanJohn Adams Alexander Smith Able seamanJohn Sumner Able seamanMatthew Thompson Able seamanJames Valentine Able seamanJohn Williams Able seamanExpedition EditTo Cape Horn Edit On 15 October 1787 Bounty left Deptford for Spithead in the English Channel to await final sailing orders 36 n 3 Adverse weather delayed arrival at Spithead until 4 November Bligh was anxious to depart quickly and reach Cape Horn before the end of the short southern summer 38 but the Admiralty did not accord him high priority and delayed issuing the orders for a further three weeks When Bounty finally sailed on 28 November the ship was trapped by contrary winds and unable to clear Spithead until 23 December 39 40 With the prospect of a passage around Cape Horn now in serious doubt Bligh received permission from the Admiralty to take if necessary an alternative route to Tahiti via the Cape of Good Hope 41 As the ship settled into its sea going routine Bligh introduced Cook s strict discipline regarding sanitation and diet According to the expedition s historian Sam McKinney Bligh enforced these rules with a fanatical zeal continually fuss ing and fum ing over the cleanliness of his ship and the food served to the crew 42 He replaced the navy s traditional watch system of alternating four hour spells on and off duty with a three watch system whereby each four hour duty was followed by eight hours rest 43 For the crew s exercise and entertainment he introduced regular music and dancing sessions 44 Bligh s despatches to Campbell and Banks indicated his satisfaction he had no occasion to administer punishment because he wrote Both men and officers tractable and well disposed amp cheerfulness amp content in the countenance of every one 45 The only adverse feature of the voyage to date according to Bligh was the conduct of the surgeon Huggan who was revealed as an indolent unhygienic drunkard 44 From the start of the voyage Bligh had established warm relations with Christian according him a status which implied that he was Bligh s second in command rather than Fryer 46 n 4 On 2 March Bligh formalised the position by assigning Christian to the rank of acting Lieutenant 48 n 5 Fryer showed little outward sign of resentment at his junior s advancement but his relations with Bligh significantly worsened from this point 51 A week after the promotion and on Fryer s insistence Bligh ordered the flogging of seaman Matthew Quintal who received twelve lashes for insolence and mutinous behaviour 47 thereby dashing Bligh s expressed hope of a voyage free from such punishment 52 On 2 April as Bounty approached Cape Horn a strong gale and high seas began an unbroken period of stormy weather which Bligh wrote exceeded what I had ever met with before with severe squalls of hail and sleet 53 The winds drove the ship back on 3 April it was further north than it had been a week earlier 54 Again and again Bligh forced the ship forward to be repeatedly repelled On 17 April he informed his exhausted crew that the sea had beaten them and that they would turn and head for the Cape of Good Hope to the great joy of every person on Board Bligh recorded 55 Cape to Pacific Edit On 24 May 1788 Bounty anchored in False Bay east of the Cape of Good Hope where five weeks were spent in repairs and reprovisioning 56 Bligh s letters home emphasised how fit and well he and his crew were by comparison with other vessels and expressed hope that he would receive credit for this 57 At one stage during the sojourn Bligh lent Christian money a gesture that the historian Greg Dening suggests might have sullied their relationship by becoming a source of anxiety and even resentment to the younger man 58 In her account of the voyage Caroline Alexander describes the loan as a significant act of friendship but one which Bligh ensured Christian did not forget 57 After leaving False Bay on 1 July Bounty set out across the southern Indian Ocean on the long voyage to their next port of call Adventure Bay in Van Diemen s Land now called Tasmania They passed the remote Ile Saint Paul a small uninhabited island which Bligh knew from earlier navigators contained fresh water and a hot spring but he did not attempt a landing The weather was cold and wintry conditions akin to the vicinity of Cape Horn and it was difficult to take navigational observations but Bligh s skill was such that on 19 August he sighted Mewstone Rock on the south west corner of Van Diemen s Land and two days later made anchorage in Adventure Bay 59 Matavai Bay Tahiti as painted by William Hodges in 1776 The Bounty party spent their time at Adventure Bay in recuperation fishing replenishment of water casks and felling timber There were peaceful encounters with the native population 59 The first sign of overt discord between Bligh and his officers occurred when the captain exchanged angry words with the carpenter William Purcell over the latter s methods for cutting wood 60 n 6 Bligh ordered Purcell back to the ship and when the carpenter stood his ground Bligh withheld his rations which immediately brought him to his senses according to Bligh 60 Further clashes occurred on the final leg of the journey to Tahiti On 9 October Fryer refused to sign the ship s account books unless Bligh provided him with a certificate attesting to his complete competence throughout the voyage Bligh would not be coerced He summoned the crew and read the Articles of War at which Fryer backed down 62 There was also trouble with the surgeon Huggan whose careless blood letting of able seaman James Valentine while treating him for asthma led to the seaman s death from a blood infection 63 To cover his error Huggan reported to Bligh that Valentine had died from scurvy 64 which led Bligh to apply his own medicinal and dietary antiscorbutic remedies to the entire ship s company 65 By now Huggan was almost incapacitated with drink until Bligh confiscated his supply Huggan briefly returned to duty before Bounty s arrival in Tahiti he examined all on board for signs of venereal disease and found none 66 Bounty came to anchor in Matavai Bay Tahiti on 26 October 1788 concluding a journey of 27 086 nautical miles 50 163 km 31 170 mi 67 Tahiti Edit Bligh s first action on arrival was to secure the co operation of the local chieftains as well as the King of Tahiti Pōmare I The paramount chief Tynah remembered Bligh from Cook s voyage fifteen years previously and greeted him warmly Bligh presented the chiefs with gifts and informed them that their own King George wished in return only breadfruit plants They happily agreed with this simple request 68 Bligh assigned Christian to lead a shore party charged with establishing a compound in which the plants would be nurtured 69 A Polynesian woman painted in 1777 by John Webber Whether based ashore or on board the men s duties during Bounty s five month stay in Tahiti were relatively light Many led promiscuous lives among the native women altogether eighteen officers and men including Christian received treatment for venereal infections 70 while others took regular partners 71 Christian formed a close relationship with a Polynesian woman named Mauatua to whom he gave the name Isabella after a former sweetheart from Cumberland 72 Bligh remained chaste himself 73 but was tolerant of his men s activities unsurprised that they should succumb to temptation when the allurements of dissipation are beyond any thing that can be conceived 74 Nevertheless he expected them to do their duty efficiently and was disappointed to find increasing instances of neglect and slackness on the part of his officers Infuriated he wrote Such neglectful and worthless petty officers I believe were never in a ship such as are in this 70 Huggan died on 10 December Bligh attributed this to the effects of intemperance and indolence he never would be prevailed on to take half a dozen turns upon deck at a time through the whole course of the voyage 75 For all his earlier favoured status Christian did not escape Bligh s wrath He was often humiliated by the captain sometimes in front of the crew and the Tahitians for real or imagined slackness 70 while severe punishments were handed out to men whose carelessness had led to the loss or theft of equipment Floggings rarely administered during the outward voyage now became increasingly common 76 On 5 January 1789 three members of the crew Charles Churchill William Muspratt and John Millward deserted taking a small boat arms and ammunition Muspratt had recently been flogged for neglect Among the belongings Churchill left on the ship was a list of names that Bligh interpreted as possible accomplices in a desertion plot the captain later asserted that the names included those of Christian and Heywood Bligh was persuaded that his protege was not planning to desert and the matter was dropped Churchill Millward and Muspratt were found after three weeks and on their return to the ship were flogged 76 From February onwards the pace of work increased more than 1 000 breadfruit plants were potted and carried into the ship where they filled the great cabin 77 The ship was overhauled for the long homeward voyage in many cases by men who regretted the forthcoming departure and loss of their easy life with the Tahitians Bligh was impatient to be away but as Richard Hough observes in his account he failed to anticipate how his company would react to the severity and austerity of life at sea after five dissolute hedonistic months at Tahiti 78 The work was done by 1 April 1789 and four days later after an affectionate farewell from Tynah and his queen Bounty left the harbour 77 Towards home Edit In their Bounty histories both Hough and Alexander maintain that the men were not at a stage close to mutiny however sorry they were to leave Tahiti The journal of James Morrison the boatswain s mate supports this 79 80 n 7 The events that followed Hough suggests were determined in the three weeks following the departure when Bligh s anger and intolerance reached paranoid proportions Christian was a particular target always seeming to bear the brunt of the captain s rages 82 Unaware of the effects of his behaviour on his officers and crew 14 Bligh would forget these displays instantly and attempt to resume normal conversation 79 On 22 April 1789 Bounty arrived at Nomuka in the Friendly Islands now called Tonga intending to pick up wood water and further supplies on the final scheduled stop before the Endeavour Strait 83 Bligh had visited the island with Cook and knew that the inhabitants could behave unpredictably He put Christian in charge of the watering party and equipped him with muskets but at the same time ordered that the arms should be left in the boat instead of carried ashore 83 Christian s party was harassed and threatened continually but were unable to retaliate having been denied the use of arms He returned to the ship with his task incomplete and was cursed by Bligh as a damned cowardly rascal 84 Further disorder ashore resulted in the thefts of a small anchor and an adze for which Bligh further berated Christian and Fryer 85 In an attempt to recover the missing property Bligh briefly detained the island s chieftains on the ship but to no avail When he finally gave the order to sail neither the anchor nor the adze had been restored 86 By 27 April Christian was in a state of despair depressed and brooding 87 n 8 His mood was worsened when Bligh accused him of stealing coconuts from the captain s private supply Bligh punished the whole crew for this theft stopping their rum ration and reducing their food by half 88 89 Feeling that his position was now intolerable Christian considered constructing a raft with which he could escape to an island and take his chances with the natives He may have acquired wood for this purpose from Purcell 87 90 In any event his discontent became common knowledge among his fellow officers Two of the young gentlemen George Stewart and Edward Young urged him not to desert Young assured him that he would have the support of almost all on board if he were to seize the ship and depose Bligh 91 Stewart told him the crew were ripe for anything 87 Mutiny EditSeizure Edit Fletcher Christian and the mutineers seize HMS Bounty on 28 April 1789 Engraving by Hablot Knight Browne 1841 In the early hours of 28 April 1789 Bounty lay about 30 nautical miles 56 km 35 mi south of the island of Tofua 92 After a largely sleepless night Christian had decided to act He understood from his discussions with Young and Stewart which crewmen were his most likely supporters and after approaching Quintal and Isaac Martin he learned the names of several more With the help of these men Christian rapidly gained control of the upper deck those who questioned his actions were ordered to keep quiet 93 At about 05 15 Christian went below dismissed Hallett who was sleeping on the chest containing the ship s muskets and distributed arms to his followers before making for Bligh s cabin 94 Three men took hold of the captain and tied his hands threatening to kill him if he raised the alarm 95 Bligh called as loudly as he could in hopes of assistance 96 The commotion woke Fryer who saw from his cabin opposite the mutineers frogmarching Bligh away The mutineers ordered Fryer to lay down again and hold my tongue or I was a dead man 94 Bligh was brought to the quarterdeck his hands bound by a cord held by Christian who was brandishing a bayonet 97 some reports maintained that Christian had a sounding plummet hanging from his neck so that he could jump overboard and drown himself if the mutiny failed 94 Others who had been awakened by the noise left their berths and joined in the general pandemonium It was unclear at this stage who were and who were not active mutineers Hough describes the scene Everyone was more or less making a noise either cursing jeering or just shouting for the reassurance it gave them to do so 97 Bligh shouted continually demanding to be set free sometimes addressing individuals by name and otherwise exhorting the company generally to knock Christian down 98 Fryer was briefly permitted on deck to speak to Christian but was then forced below at bayonet point according to Fryer Christian told him I have been in hell for weeks past Captain Bligh has brought this on himself 94 Christian originally thought to cast Bligh adrift in Bounty s small jolly boat together with his clerk John Samuel and the loyalist midshipmen Hayward and Hallett This boat proved unseaworthy so Christian ordered the launching of a larger ship s boat with a capacity of around ten However Christian and his allies had overestimated the extent of the mutiny at least half on board were determined to leave with Bligh Thus the ship s largest boat a 23 foot 7 0 m launch was put into the water 99 During the following hours the loyalists collected their possessions and entered the boat Among these was Fryer who with Bligh s approval sought to stay on board in the hope he later claimed that he would be able to retake the ship 94 but Christian ordered him into the launch Soon the vessel was badly overloaded with more than twenty persons and others still vying for places Christian ordered the two carpenter s mates Norman and McIntosh and the armourer Joseph Coleman to return to the ship considering their presence essential if he were to navigate Bounty with a reduced crew Reluctantly they obeyed beseeching Bligh to remember that they had remained with the ship against their will Bligh assured them Never fear lads I ll do you justice if ever I reach England 100 Samuel saved the captain s journal commission papers and purser s documents a compass and quadrant but was forced to leave behind Bligh s maps and charts fifteen years of navigational work 94 With the eighteen men who had remained loyal to Bligh the launch was supplied with about five days food and water and Purcell s tool chest 101 Bligh mentions in his journals that a sextant and any time keeper was refused by the mutineers but boatswain s mate James Morrison stated Christian handed over his personal sextant saying There Captain Bligh this is sufficient for every purpose and you know the sextant to be a good one 102 The ship s K2 chronometer was left on Bounty 103 but Peckover had his own pocket watch that Bligh used to keep time 96 At the last minute the mutineers threw four cutlasses down into the boat 94 Of Bounty s complement 44 after the deaths of Huggan and Valentine 19 men were crowded into the launch leaving it dangerously low in the water with only seven inches of freeboard 101 The 25 men remaining on Bounty included the committed mutineers who had taken up arms the loyalists detained against their will and others for whom there was no room in the launch At around 10 00 the line holding the launch to the ship was cut a little later Bligh ordered a sail to be raised Their immediate destination was the nearby island of Tofua clearly marked on the horizon by the plume of smoke rising from its volcano 104 Bligh s open boat voyage Edit Map showing Bounty s movements in the Pacific Ocean 1788 1790 Voyage of Bounty to Tahiti and to location of the mutiny 28 April 1789 Course of Bligh s open boat journey to Coupang Timor between 2 May and 14 June 1789 Movements of Bounty under Christian after the mutiny from 28 April 1789 onwards Fletcher Christian Aged 24 years 5 9 High Dark swarthy complexion The beginning of Bligh s list of mutineers written during the open boat voyage Now in the collection of the National Library of Australia Bligh hoped to find water and food on Tofua then proceed to the nearby island of Tongatapu to seek help from King Poulaho whom he knew from his visit with Cook in provisioning the boat for a voyage to the Dutch East Indies 105 Ashore at Tofua there were encounters with natives who were initially friendly but grew more menacing as time passed On 2 May four days after landing Bligh realised that an attack was imminent He directed his men back to the sea shortly before the Tofuans seized the launch s stern rope and attempted to drag it ashore Bligh coolly shepherded the last of his shore party and their supplies into the boat In an attempt to free the rope from its captors the quartermaster John Norton leapt into the water he was immediately set upon and stoned to death 106 The launch escaped to the open sea where the shaken crew reconsidered their options A visit to Tongatapu or any island landfall might incur similarly violent consequences their best chance of salvation Bligh reckoned lay in sailing directly to the Dutch settlement of Kupang in Timor using the rations presently on board n 9 This was a journey of some 3 500 nautical miles 6 500 km 4 000 mi to the west beyond the Endeavour Strait and it would necessitate daily rations of an ounce of bread and a quarter pint of water for each man The plan was unanimously agreed 108 109 From the outset the weather was wet and stormy with mountainous seas that constantly threatened to overwhelm the boat 110 When the sun appeared Bligh noted in his daily journal that it gave us as much pleasure as a winter s day in England 111 Bligh endeavoured to continue his journal throughout the voyage observing sketching and charting as they made their way west To keep up morale he told stories of his prior experiences at sea got the men singing and occasionally said prayers 112 The launch made the first passage by Europeans through the Fiji Islands 113 but they dared not stop because of the islanders reputation for cannibalism 114 n 10 On 17 May Bligh recorded that our situation was miserable always wet and suffering extreme cold without the least shelter from the weather 116 A week later with the skies clearing birds began to appear signalling a proximity to land 117 On 28 May the Great Barrier Reef was sighted Bligh found a navigable gap and sailed the launch into a calm lagoon 118 Late that afternoon he ran the boat ashore on a small island which he named Restoration Island where the men found oysters and berries in plentiful supply and were able to eat ravenously 119 120 Over the next four days the party island hopped northward within the lagoon aware that their movements were being closely monitored by natives on the mainland 121 Strains were showing within the party following a heated disagreement with Purcell Bligh grabbed a cutlass and challenged the carpenter to fight Fryer told Cole to arrest their captain but backed down after Bligh threatened to kill him if he interfered 122 On 2 June the launch cleared Cape York the extreme northern point of the Australian continent Bligh turned south west and steered through a maze of shoals reefs sandbanks and small islands The route taken was not the Endeavour Strait but a narrower southerly passage later known as the Prince of Wales Channel At 20 00 that evening they reached the open Arafura Sea 123 still 1 100 nautical miles 2 000 km 1 300 mi from Kupang 124 The following eight days encompassed some of the toughest travel of the entire journey and by 11 June many were close to collapse The next day the coast of Timor was sighted It is not possible for me to describe the pleasure which the blessing of the sight of this land diffused among us Bligh wrote 125 On 14 June with a makeshift Union Jack hoisted they sailed into Kupang harbour 116 In Kupang Bligh reported the mutiny to the authorities and wrote to his wife Know then my own Dear Betsey I have lost the Bounty 126 Nelson the botanist quickly succumbed to the harsh Kupang climate and died 127 On 20 August the party departed for Batavia now called Jakarta to await a ship for Europe 128 the cook Thomas Hall died there having been ill for weeks 129 Bligh obtained passages home for himself his clerk Samuel and his servant John Smith and sailed on 16 October 1789 130 Four of the remainder the master s mate Elphinstone the quartermaster Peter Linkletter the butcher Robert Lamb and the assistant surgeon Thomas Ledward all died either in Batavia or on their journeys home 131 132 Bounty under Christian Edit After the departure of Bligh s launch Christian divided the personal effects of the departed loyalists among the remaining crew and threw the breadfruit plants into the sea 133 He recognised that Bligh could conceivably survive to report the mutiny and that anyway the non return of Bounty would occasion a search mission with Tahiti as its first port of call Christian therefore headed Bounty towards the small island of Tubuai some 450 nautical miles 830 km 520 mi south of Tahiti 134 Tubuai had been discovered and roughly charted by Cook except for a single small channel it was entirely surrounded by a coral reef and could Christian surmised be easily defended against any attack from the sea 135 Tubuai where Christian first attempted to settle the island is almost totally surrounded by a coral reef Bounty arrived at Tubuai on 28 May 1789 The reception from the native population was hostile when a flotilla of war canoes headed for the ship Christian used a four pounder gun to repel the attackers At least a dozen warriors were killed and the rest scattered Undeterred Christian and an armed party surveyed the island and decided it would be suitable for their purposes 136 However to create a permanent settlement they needed compliant native labour and women The most likely source for these was Tahiti to which Bounty returned on 6 June To ensure the co operation of the Tahiti chiefs Christian concocted a story that he Bligh and Cook were founding a new settlement at Aitutaki Cook s name ensured generous gifts of livestock and other goods and on 16 June the well provisioned Bounty sailed back to Tubuai On board were nearly thirty Tahitian men and women some of whom were there by deception 137 138 For the next two months Christian and his forces struggled to establish themselves on Tubuai They began to construct a large moated enclosure called Fort George after the British king to provide a secure fortress against attack by land or sea 137 Christian attempted to form friendly relations with the local chiefs but his party was unwelcome 139 There were persistent clashes with the native population mainly over property and women culminating in a pitched battle in which 66 islanders were killed and many wounded 140 Discontent was rising among the Bounty party and Christian sensed that his authority was slipping He called a meeting to discuss future plans and offered a free vote Eight remained loyal to Christian the hard core of the active mutineers but sixteen wished to return to Tahiti and take their chances there Christian accepted this decision after depositing the majority at Tahiti he would run before the wind and land upon the first island the ship drives After what I have done I cannot remain at Tahiti 139 In order to flee Bounty cut the ropes to two anchors in the bay one was recovered by Pandora 141 while the other was rediscovered in 1957 142 Mutineers divided Edit When Bounty returned to Tahiti on 22 September the welcome was much less effusive than previously The Tahitians had learned from the crew of a visiting British ship that the story of Cook and Bligh founding a settlement in Aitutaki was a fabrication and that Cook had been long dead 143 Christian worried that their reaction might turn violent and did not stay long Of the sixteen men who had voted to settle in Tahiti he allowed fifteen ashore Joseph Coleman was detained on the ship as Christian required his skills as an armourer 144 That evening Christian coaxed aboard Bounty a party of Tahitians mainly women for a social gathering With the festivities underway he cut the anchor rope and Bounty sailed away with its captive guests 145 Coleman escaped by diving overboard and reached land 144 Among the abducted group were six elderly women for whom Christian had no use he put them ashore on the nearby island of Mo orea 146 Bounty s complement now comprised nine mutineers Christian Young Quintal Brown Martin John Williams John Mills William McCoy and John Adams known by the crew as Alexander Smith 147 and twenty Polynesians of whom fourteen were women 148 The sixteen sailors on Tahiti began to organise their lives 149 One group led by Morrison and Tom McIntosh began building a schooner which they named Resolution after Cook s ship 150 Morrison had not been an active mutineer rather than waiting for recapture he hoped to sail the vessel to the Dutch East Indies and surrender to the authorities there hoping that such action would confirm his innocence Morrison s group maintained ship s routine and discipline even to the extent of holding divine service each Sunday 151 n 11 Churchill and Matthew Thompson on the other hand chose to lead drunken and generally dissolute lives which ended in the violent deaths of both Churchill was murdered by Thompson who was in turn killed by Churchill s native friends 153 Others such as Stewart and Heywood settled into quiet domesticity Heywood spent much of his time studying the Tahitian language 149 He adopted native dress and in accordance with the local custom was heavily tattooed on his body 154 Retribution EditHMS Pandora mission Edit When Bligh landed in England on 14 March 1790 news of the mutiny had preceded him and he was feted as a hero In October 1790 at a formal court martial for the loss of Bounty he was honourably acquitted of responsibility for the loss and was promoted to post captain As an adjunct to the court martial Bligh brought charges against Purcell for misconduct and insubordination the former carpenter received a reprimand 155 156 In November 1790 the Admiralty despatched the frigate HMS Pandora under Captain Edward Edwards to capture the mutineers and return them to England to stand trial 157 Pandora arrived at Tahiti on 23 March 1791 and within a few days all fourteen surviving Bounty men had either surrendered or been captured 158 Edwards made no distinction between mutineers and those who claimed they had been detained on Bounty unwillingly 159 all were incarcerated in a specially constructed prison erected on Pandora s quarterdeck dubbed Pandora s Box 160 Pandora remained at Tahiti for five weeks while Edwards unsuccessfully sought information on Bounty s whereabouts The ship finally sailed on 8 May to search for Bounty among the thousands of southern Pacific islands 161 Apart from a few spars discovered at Palmerston Island no traces of the fugitive vessel were found 162 Edwards continued the search until August when he turned west and headed for the Dutch East Indies 163 Ironically one of the islands Pandora sailed to but did not land at was Pitcairn Island had Edwards checked his charts and found that this uncharted island was at the correct latitude but wrong longitude for Pitcairn Island he could very well have fulfilled his mission by capturing the last nine Bounty mutineers Edwards search for the remaining mutineers ultimately proved fruitless When passing Vanikoro on 13 August 1791 Edwards observed smoke signals rising from the island Edwards single minded in his search for Bounty and convinced that mutineers fearful of discovery would not be advertising their whereabouts ignored the smoke signals and sailed on Wahlroos argues that the smoke signals were almost certainly a distress message sent by survivors of the Laperouse expedition which later evidence indicated were still alive on Vanikoro at that time three years after their ships Boussole and Astrolabe had foundered Wahlroos is virtually certain that Edwards whom he characterizes as one of England s most ruthless inhuman callous and incompetent naval captains missed his chance to become one of the heroes of maritime history by solving the mystery of the lost expedition 164 HMS Pandora foundering 29 August 1791 1831 etching by Robert Batty from a sketch by Heywood On 29 August 1791 Pandora ran aground on the outer Great Barrier Reef The men in Pandora s Box were ignored as the regular crew attempted to prevent the ship from foundering When Edwards gave the order to abandon ship Pandora s armourer began to remove the prisoners shackles but the ship sank before he had finished Heywood and nine other prisoners escaped four Bounty men George Stewart Henry Hillbrant Richard Skinner and John Sumner drowned along with 31 of Pandora s crew The survivors including the ten remaining prisoners then embarked on an open boat journey that largely followed Bligh s course of two years earlier The prisoners were mostly kept bound hand and foot until they reached Kupang on 17 September 165 166 The prisoners were confined for seven weeks at first in prison and later on a Dutch East India Company ship before being transported to Cape Town 167 On 5 April 1792 they embarked for England on a British warship HMS Gorgon and arrived at Portsmouth on 19 June There they were transferred to the guardship HMS Hector to await trial The prisoners included the three detained loyalists Coleman McIntosh and Norman to whom Bligh had promised justice the blind fiddler Michael Byrne or Byrn Heywood Morrison and four active mutineers Thomas Burkett John Millward Thomas Ellison and William Muspratt 168 Bligh who had been given command of HMS Providence for a second breadfruit expedition had left England in August 1791 169 and thus would be absent from the pending court martial proceedings 170 Court martial verdict and sentences Edit Admiral Lord Hood who presided over the Bounty court martial The court martial opened on 12 September 1792 on HMS Duke in Portsmouth Harbour with Vice Admiral Lord Hood Commander in Chief Portsmouth presiding 171 Heywood s family secured him competent legal advisers 172 of the other defendants only Muspratt employed legal counsel 173 The survivors of Bligh s open boat journey gave evidence against their former comrades the testimonies from Thomas Hayward and John Hallett were particularly damaging to Heywood and Morrison who each maintained their innocence of any mutinous intention and had surrendered voluntarily to Pandora 174 The court did not challenge the statements of Coleman McIntosh Norman and Byrne all of whom were acquitted 175 On 18 September the six remaining defendants were found guilty of mutiny and were sentenced to death by hanging with recommendations of mercy for Heywood and Morrison in consideration of various circumstances 176 On 26 October 1792 Heywood and Morrison received royal pardons from King George III and were released Muspratt through his lawyer won a stay of execution by filing a petition protesting that court martial rules had prevented his calling Norman and Byrne as witnesses in his defence 177 He was still awaiting the outcome when Burkett Ellison and Millward were hanged from the yardarm of HMS Brunswick in Portsmouth dock on 28 October Some accounts claim that the condemned trio continued to protest their innocence until the last moment 178 while others speak of their manly firmness that was the admiration of all 179 There was some unease expressed in the press a suspicion that money had bought the lives of some and others fell sacrifice to their poverty 180 A report that Heywood was heir to a large fortune was unfounded nevertheless Dening asserts that in the end it was class or relations or patronage that made the difference 180 In December Muspratt heard that he was reprieved and on 11 February 1793 he too was pardoned and freed 181 Aftermath Edit Much of the court martial testimony was critical of Bligh s conduct by the time of his return to England in August 1793 following his successful conveyance of breadfruit to the West Indies aboard Providence professional and public opinion had turned against him 182 He was snubbed at the Admiralty when he went to present his report and was left on half pay for nineteen months before receiving his next appointment 183 In late 1794 the jurist Edward Christian brother of Fletcher published his Appendix to the court martial proceedings which was said by the press to palliate the behaviour of Christian and the Mutineers and to criminate Captain Bligh 184 Bligh s position was further undermined when the loyalist gunner Peckover confirmed that much of what was alleged in the Appendix was true 185 Bligh commanded HMS Director at the Battle of Camperdown in October 1797 and HMS Glatton in the Battle of Copenhagen in April 1801 14 In 1805 while commanding HMS Warrior he was court martialled for using bad language to his officers and reprimanded 186 In 1806 he was appointed Governor of New South Wales in Australia after two years a group of army officers arrested and deposed him in the Rum Rebellion After his return to England Bligh was promoted to rear admiral in 1811 and vice admiral in 1814 but was not offered further naval appointments He died aged 63 in December 1817 14 Of the pardoned mutineers Heywood and Morrison returned to naval duty Heywood acquired the patronage of Hood and by 1803 at the age of 31 had achieved the rank of captain After a distinguished career he died in 1831 182 Morrison became a master gunner and was eventually lost in 1807 when HMS Blenheim foundered in the Indian Ocean Muspratt is believed to have worked as a naval steward before his death in or before 1798 The other principal participants in the court martial Fryer Peckover Coleman McIntosh and others generally vanished from the public eye after the closing of the procedures 187 Pitcairn Edit Bounty Bay on Pitcairn Island where HMS Bounty was burned on 23 January 1790 Fletcher Christian s House 1831 engraving of John Adams Wooden House Pitcairn Island 1908 photograph of Wooden House Built by the Mutineers of the Bounty Pitcairn Island Settlement Edit After leaving Tahiti on 22 September 1789 Christian sailed Bounty west in search of a safe haven He then formed the idea of settling on Pitcairn Island far to the east of Tahiti the island had been reported in 1767 but its exact location was never verified After months of searching Christian rediscovered the island on 15 January 1790 188 nautical miles 348 km 216 mi east of its recorded position 188 This longitudinal error contributed to the mutineers decision to settle on Pitcairn 189 Descendants of the mutineers John Adams and Matthew Quintal on Norfolk Island 1862 From Left to right John Adams 1827 1897 son of George Adams John Quintal 1820 1912 son of Arthur Qunital George Adams 1804 1873 son of John Adams Arthur Quintal 1795 1873 son of Matthew Quintal On arrival the ship was unloaded and stripped of most of its masts and spars for use on the island 185 It was set ablaze and destroyed on 23 January either as an agreed upon precaution against discovery or as an unauthorised act by Quintal in either case there was now no means of escape 190 Pitcairn Island proved an ideal haven for the mutineers uninhabited and virtually inaccessible with plenty of food water and fertile land 188 For a while the mutineers and Tahitians existed peaceably Christian settled down with Isabella a son Thursday October Christian was born as were other children 191 Christian s authority as leader gradually diminished and he became prone to long periods of brooding and introspection 192 Gradually tensions and rivalries arose over the increasing extent to which the Europeans regarded the Tahitians as their property in particular the women who according to Alexander were passed around from one husband to the other 190 In September 1793 matters degenerated into extreme violence when several of the mutineers possibly including Christian Williams Martin Mills and Brown were killed by Tahitians in a series of murders Both Adams and one of the Tahitian women Teehuteatuaonoa later claimed that Christian was killed in this massacre 193 However Adams stories were inconsistent over the years he also claimed that Christian had died of sickness or suicide 194 At any rate his gravesite has never been found 195 According to Teehuteatuaonoa Christian was shot and killed from behind while in the act of clearing away some ground for a garden 196 In fighting continued thereafter and by 1794 the six Tahitian men were all dead killed either by the widows of the murdered mutineers or by each other 197 Two of the four surviving mutineers Young and Adams assumed leadership and secured a tenuous calm which was disrupted by the drunkenness of McCoy and Quintal after the former distilled an alcoholic beverage from a local plant 188 Some of the women attempted to leave the island in a makeshift boat but could not launch it successfully Life continued uneasily until McCoy s suicide in 1798 A year later after Quintal threatened fresh murder and mayhem Adams and Young killed him and were able to restore peace 198 Discovery Edit Parts of Bounty s rudder recovered from Pitcairn Island and preserved in a Fiji museum HMAS Bounty bell HMAS Bounty ballast bar After Young succumbed to asthma in 1800 Adams took responsibility for the education and well being of the nine remaining women and nineteen children Using the ship s Bible from Bounty he taught literacy and Christianity and kept peace on the island 189 This was the situation in February 1808 when the American sealer Topaz came unexpectedly upon Pitcairn landed and discovered the by then thriving community 199 200 Adams gave Bounty s Azimuth compass and Marine chronometer to Topaz s captain Mayhew Folger News of the discovery did not reach Britain until 1810 when it was overlooked by an Admiralty preoccupied by war with France In 1814 two British warships HMS Briton and HMS Tagus chanced upon Pitcairn Among those who greeted them were Thursday October Christian and George Young Edward Young s son 201 The captains Sir Thomas Staines and Philip Pipon reported that Christian s son displayed in his benevolent countenance all the features of an honest English face 202 On shore they found a population of 46 mainly young islanders led by Adams 202 upon whom the islanders welfare was wholly dependent according to the captains report 203 After receiving Staines and Pipon s report the Admiralty decided to take no action In the following years many ships called at Pitcairn Island and heard Adams various stories of the foundation of the Pitcairn settlement 203 Adams died in 1829 honoured as the founder and father of a community that became celebrated over the next century as an exemplar of Victorian morality 188 Explorer Luis Marden rediscovered the remains of Bounty in January 1957 204 After spotting remains of the rudder 205 which had been found in 1933 by Parkin Christian and is still displayed in the Fiji Museum in Suva he persuaded his editors and writers to let him dive off Pitcairn Island After several days of dangerous diving Marden found the remains of the ship a rudder pin nails a ships boat oarlock fittings and a Bounty anchor that he raised 205 206 Later in life Marden wore cuff links made of nails from Bounty He also dived to the wreck of Pandora and left a Bounty nail with that vessel Some of the Bounty s remains such as the ballast stones are still partially visible in the waters of Bounty Bay The last of Bounty s four pounder cannon was recovered in 1998 by an archaeological team from James Cook University and was sent to the Queensland Museum in Townsville Queensland Australia to be stabilised through lengthy conservation treatment via electrolysis over a period of nearly forty months The gun was subsequently returned to Pitcairn Island where it has been placed on display in a new community hall Over the years many recovered Bounty artefacts have been sold by islanders as souvenirs in 1999 the Pitcairn Project was established by a consortium of Australian academic and historical bodies to survey and document all the remaining material as part of a detailed study of the settlement s development 207 Cultural impact EditBiographies and history Edit Bligh published his journal several months after his return to London Titled Narrative of the Mutiny on the Bounty it was a bestseller 208 He published an expanded account A Voyage to the South Sea in 1792 Bligh s narrative called the voyage one of uninterrupted prosperity and made no mention of personal differences with the crew 209 The journal was heavily edited by Joseph Banks who told Bligh We shall abridge considerably what you wrote to satisfy the public and place you in such a point of view as they shall approve 210 Bligh s narrative was unchallenged until the court martial of the captured Bounty crewmembers in September 1792 In their testimony the crew alleged that Bligh had cut their rations and Christian had been in hell due to his frequent quarrels with the captain 211 By contrast Bligh s journal had claimed that he and Christian were on friendly terms and he believed the lure of Tahiti had caused the mutiny The perception of Bligh as an overbearing tyrant began with Edward Christian s Appendix of 1794 212 The Appendix was based on interviews with Fryer Hayward Purcell John Smith Heywood Muspratt and Morrison It argued that the day before the mutiny Bligh had accused Christian of stealing his coconuts and reduced the crew s yam ration to three quarters of a pound as punishment 213 This left the crew greatly discontented and their discontent was increased from the consideration that they had plenty of provisions on board and the captain was his own purser 214 As purser it was in Bligh s interest to be frugal so that he could supplement his salary by selling back surplus provisions on his return 215 Apart from Bligh s journal the first published account of the mutiny was that of Sir John Barrow published in 1831 Barrow was a friend of the Heywood family his book mitigated Heywood s role while emphasising Bligh s severity 216 The book also instigated the legend that Christian had not died on Pitcairn but had somehow returned to England and been recognised by Heywood in Plymouth around 1808 1809 217 An account written in 1870 by Heywood s stepdaughter Diana Belcher further exonerated Heywood and Christian and according to Bligh biographer Caroline Alexander cemented many falsehoods that had insinuated their way into the narrative 216 Among historians attempts to portray Bligh more sympathetically are those of Richard Hough 1972 and Caroline Alexander 2003 Hough depicts an unsurpassed foul weather commander I would go through hell and high water with him but not for one day in the same ship on a calm sea 218 Alexander presents Bligh as over anxious solicitous of his crew s well being and utterly devoted to his task However Bligh s reputation as the archetypal bad commander remains the Baltimore Sun s reviewer of Alexander s book wrote poetry routed science and it has held the field ever since 219 In film and theatre Edit Poster for the 1935 film Mutiny on the Bounty starring Charles Laughton as Bligh and Clark Gable as Christian In addition to many books and articles about the mutiny in the 20th century five feature films were produced The first was a 1916 silent Australian film subsequently lost 220 The second also from Australia titled In the Wake of the Bounty 1933 was the screen debut of Errol Flynn in the role of Christian 220 The impact of this film was overshadowed by that of the MGM version Mutiny on the Bounty 1935 based on the popular namesake novel by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall and starring Charles Laughton and Clark Gable as Bligh and Christian respectively The film s story was presented says Dening as the classic conflict between tyranny and a just cause 221 Laughton s portrayal became in the public mind the definitive Bligh a byword for sadistic tyranny 219 The two subsequent major films Mutiny on the Bounty 1962 with Trevor Howard and Marlon Brando and The Bounty 1984 with Anthony Hopkins and Mel Gibson largely perpetuated this image of Bligh and that of Christian as tragic hero In 1998 in advance of a BBC documentary film aimed at Bligh s rehabilitation the respective descendants of Bligh and Christian feuded over their contrary versions of the truth Dea Birkett the programme s presenter suggested that Christian versus Bligh has come to represent rebellion versus authoritarianism a life constrained versus a life of freedom sexual repression versus sexual licence 222 In 2017 Channel 4 undertook a recreating of the voyage of Bligh featuring the former soldier Ant Middleton 223 A musical Mutiny played at the Piccadilly Theatre in London s West End for sixteen months from 1985 224 It was co written by David Essex based on the novel Mutiny on the Bounty and starred Essex as Christian Morecambe and Wise produced a spoof play what Ernie wrote called Monty on the Bonty starring Arthur Lowe as Bligh 225 Museums Edit Both Pitcairn Island Museum and Bounty Museum on Norfolk Island use objects and memorabilia to interpret the history of the mutineers 226 227 228 229 Notes and references EditNotes Edit James Cook commanded his first voyage in HMS Endeavour as a newly promoted lieutenant and was not promoted to the rank of captain until after his second voyage 5 6 However Cook always insisted on the support of a marine detachment of at least twelve 7 The latter part of this voyage was without Cook who was killed by Hawaiians in 1779 12 13 Dates are given as recorded by Bligh in Bounty s log where applicable which was kept according to the nautical navy or sea time then used by the Royal Navy each day begins at noon and continues until noon the next day twelve hours ahead of regular civil natural or land time The nautical 15 October for example equates to the land time period between noon on the 14th and noon on the 15th 37 An early example of Bligh s esteem for Christian was indicated at Tenerife where Bounty stopped between 5 and 11 January On arrival Bligh sent Christian ashore as the ship s representative to pay respect to the island s governor 46 47 This was not a formal naval promotion but it gave Christian the authority of a full lieutenant on the voyage and greatly increased his chances of a permanent lieutenant s commission from the Admiralty on his return 49 50 Suggestions that Bligh was an exceptionally harsh commander are not borne out by evidence His violence was more verbal than physical 14 as a captain his overall flogging rate of less than one in ten seamen was exceptionally low for the time 61 He was known for shortness of temper and sharpness of tongue but his rages were generally directed at his officers particularly when he perceived incompetence or dereliction of duty 61 Morrison s journal was probably written with the advantage of hindsight after his return to London as a prisoner Hough argues that Morrison could not have maintained a day by day account of all the experiences he underwent including the mutiny his capture and the return to England 81 The historian Leonard Guttridge suggests that Christian s psychological state may have been further affected by the venereal disease contracted in Tahiti 87 Bligh listed these provisions in his journal as 150 pounds 68 kg of bread 28 gallons 130 litres of water 20 pounds 9 1 kg of pork and a few coconuts and breadfruit salvaged from Tofua There were also three bottles of wine and five quarts of rum 107 The strait through which the loyalists passed pursued by natives is still called Bligh Water 115 Morrison and his men created a seaworthy schooner When Pandora arrived in Tahiti in March 1791 in search of mutineers the schooner was confiscated and commandeered to act as Pandora s tender The schooner subsequently disappeared in a storm and was presumed lost but was returned safely to Batavia by a skeleton crew 152 References Edit Winfield 2007 p 355 Hough 1972 p 64 Alexander 2003 p 70 Alexander 2003 pp 49 71 David 2004 Alexander 2003 p 72 Alexander 2003 p 71 McKinney 1999 p 16 McKinney 1999 pp 17 20 Hough 1972 p 65 a b Alexander 2003 p 43 a b Darby 2004 McKinney 1999 pp 7 12 a b c d e Frost 2004 Alexander 2003 p 47 Hough 1972 pp 58 59 Hough 1972 pp 66 67 Alexander 2003 p 73 Alexander 2003 p 48 a b McKinney 1999 pp 164 166 Alexander 2003 p 51 a b Hough 1972 p 74 a b Alexander 2003 p 56 McKinney 1999 pp 20 22 a b Hough 1972 pp 75 76 Dening 1992 p 70 Alexander 2003 pp 63 65 Hough 1972 pp 67 68 Alexander 2003 p 68 McKinney 1999 p 23 McKinney 1999 pp 17 23 164 166 Wahlroos 1989 p 304 a b McKinney 1999 pp 17 23 37 164 166 Dening 1992 pp 28 32 Alexander 2003 p 69 a b Bligh 1792 pp 158 160 Hough 1972 pp 76 77 Alexander 2003 frontispiece Hough 1972 p 78 McKinney 1999 p 180 Alexander 2003 pp 70 71 Alexander 2003 pp 72 73 Hough 1972 pp 78 80 McKinney 1999 pp 25 26 McKinney 1999 pp 13 14 28 Hough 1972 p 83 a b Hough 1972 p 88 Alexander 2003 p 86 a b Alexander 2003 p 79 a b Bligh 1792 p 27 Bligh 1792 p 25 Alexander 2003 pp 86 87 McKinney 1999 p 31 Hough 1972 p 87 Dening 1992 p 22 Bligh 1792 p 30 Alexander 2003 p 90 Bligh 1792 p 33 Hough 1972 pp 95 96 a b Alexander 2003 pp 92 94 Dening 1992 p 69 a b Hough 1972 pp 97 99 a b Alexander 2003 pp 97 98 a b Dening 1992 p 127 Hough 1972 pp 100 101 Wahlroos 1989 pp 297 298 Dening 1992 p 71 Alexander 2003 pp 101 103 Alexander 2003 pp 103 104 McKinney 1999 p 47 Alexander 2003 pp 105 107 Hough 1972 p 115 a b c Hough 1972 pp 122 125 Alexander 2003 p 112 Guttridge 2006 p 26 Guttridge 2006 p 24 Bligh 1792 p 162 Bligh 1792 p 102 a b Alexander 2003 pp 115 120 a b Alexander 2003 pp 124 125 Hough 1972 p 128 a b Hough 1972 p 133 Alexander 2003 p 126 Hough 1972 pp 312 313 Hough 1972 pp 131 132 a b Hough 1972 pp 135 136 Alexander 2003 pp 129 130 Hough 1972 pp 138 139 Alexander 2003 pp 132 133 a b c d Guttridge 2006 pp 27 29 Alexander 2003 p 136 Hough 1972 p 144 Hough 1972 pp 13 14 147 Hough 1972 pp 14 16 Hough 1972 p 148 Hough 1972 pp 17 21 a b c d e f g Guttridge 2006 pp 29 33 Alexander 2003 p 140 a b Bligh s account of events on 28 April 1789 from Log of the Proceedings of His Majestys Ship Bounty Lieut Wm Bligh Commander from Otaheite towards Jamaica a b Hough 1972 pp 21 24 Hough 1972 p 26 Hough 1972 pp 149 151 Hough 1972 pp 158 159 a b Alexander 2003 pp 140 141 McKinney 1999 p 73 Bligh William Letter from Captain William Bligh to Sir Harry Parker RGO 14 24 490 Cambridge Digital Library University Of Cambridge Retrieved 21 May 2020 Hough 1972 pp 161 162 Bligh 1792 p 165 Hough 1972 pp 165 169 Bligh 1792 p 176 Hough 1972 pp 169 172 Alexander 2003 p 148 Hough 1972 p 175 Bligh 1792 p 186 Guttridge 2006 pp 33 35 Alexander 2003 p 150 Hough 1972 p 174 Stanley 2004 pp 597 598 a b Hough 1972 p 189 Hough 1972 p 179 Alexander 2003 p 151 Hough 1972 pp 180 182 Bligh 1792 p 200 Hough 1972 pp 184 185 Guttridge 2006 p 35 Hough 1972 pp 186 187 Alexander 2003 p 152 Bligh 1792 p 227 Alexander 2003 p 154 Bligh 1792 pp 239 240 Hough 1972 p 213 Bligh 1792 p 257 Alexander 2003 pp 163 164 Bligh 1792 p 264 Hough 1972 p 215 Alexander 2003 pp 12 13 Guttridge 2006 p 36 Hough 1972 pp 192 195 Hough 1972 pp 194 196 a b Dening 1992 p 90 Hough 1972 pp 196 197 a b Hough 1972 pp 199 200 Alexander 2003 p 14 HMS Pandora Encyclopedia Pitcairn Islands Study Center Pacific Union College Retrieved 31 October 2012 National Geographic December 1957 Luis Marden I Found the Bones of the Bounty Hough 1972 pp 201 203 a b Alexander 2003 p 15 Alexander 2003 p 250 Alexander 2003 pp 368 369 Dening 1992 p 84 Hough 1972 pp 204 205 a b Hough 1972 p 229 Dening 1992 pp 215 217 Hough 1972 pp 220 221 Alexander 2003 pp 10 19 29 30 Alexander 2003 p 8 Tagart 1832 p 83 Hough 1972 pp 216 217 Alexander 2003 p 173 Alexander 2003 p 7 Alexander 2003 p 11 Alexander 2003 p 9 Dening 1992 pp 238 239 Hough 1972 pp 226 227 Alexander 2003 pp 15 18 Hough 1972 pp 227 229 Wahlroos Sven Mutiny and Romance in the South Seas Salem House Publishers c o Harper amp Row New York NY 1989 Alexander 2003 pp 22 26 Hough 1972 pp 227 230 Alexander 2003 pp 27 30 31 Alexander 2003 pp 32 35 Hough 1972 p 218 Dening 1992 pp 43 44 Hough 1972 p 276 Alexander 2003 pp 204 205 Alexander 2003 p 272 Alexander 2003 pp 240 245 Hough 1972 p 281 Alexander 2003 p 283 Dening 1992 p 46 Alexander 2003 pp 300 302 Dening 1992 p 48 a b Dening 1992 pp 37 42 Alexander 2003 p 302 a b Hough 1972 p 284 Alexander 2003 pp 318 379 Alexander 2003 pp 340 341 a b Hough 1972 p 286 Hough 1972 p 290 Alexander 2003 pp 377 378 a b c d Government of Pitcairn 2000 a b Stanley 2004 pp 288 296 a b Alexander 2003 p 369 Hough 1972 pp 243 246 Hough 1972 pp 245 246 Christian Harrison 2021 Men Without Country Sydney Ultimo Press p 280 ISBN 9781761150050 Christian Harrison 2021 Men Without Country Sydney Ultimo Press p 290 ISBN 9781761150050 Christian Harrison 2021 Men Without Country Sydney Ultimo Press p 290 ISBN 9781761150050 Christian Harrison 2021 Men Without Country Sydney Ultimo Press p 282 ISBN 9781761150050 Guttridge 2006 p 86 Hough 1972 pp 266 267 Alexander 2003 pp 347 348 An transcription of Floger Log entry Concerning the Bounty and Pitcairn Island pp 36 40 Alexander 2003 pp 351 352 a b Barrow 1831 pp 285 289 a b Alexander 2003 p 355 Pitcairn Miscellany https www miscellany pn a b The Bounty s Last Relics Life Vol 44 no 6 10 February 1958 pp 38 41 Retrieved 31 October 2012 Bounty anchor at the town square Archived from the original on 26 October 2012 Retrieved 31 October 2012 Erskine 1999 Christian Harrison 2021 Men Without Country Sydney Ultimo Press p 146 ISBN 9781761150050 Christian Harrison 2021 Men Without Country Sydney Ultimo p 203 ISBN 9781761150050 Christian Harrison 2021 Men Without Country Sydney Ultimo Press p 205 ISBN 9781761150050 Christian Harrison 2021 Men Without Country Sydney Ultimo Press p 200 ISBN 9781761150050 Alexander 2003 pp 343 344 Christian Harrison 2021 Men Without Country Sydney Ultimo Press p 202 ISBN 9781761150050 Christian Harrison 2021 Men Without Country Sydney Ultimo Press p 202 ISBN 9781761150050 Christian Harrison 2021 Men Without Country Sydney Ultimo Press p 91 ISBN 9781761150050 a b Alexander 2003 pp 401 402 Barrow 1831 pp 309 310 Hough 1972 pp 302 303 a b Lewis 2003 a b Dening 1992 p 344 Dening 1992 p 346 Minogue 1998 Mutiny Channel 4 Mutiny Essex BBC Cult Classic TV Morecambe and Wise Bounty Folk Museum History amp Culture Norfolk Island www norfolkisland com au Retrieved 29 March 2023 Johnson Henry 2010 Brushing up on Mutineers Music with Art at Fletcher s Mutiny Cyclorama Norfolk Island Music in Art 35 1 2 119 132 ISSN 1522 7464 JSTOR 41818611 Smith Holly 15 April 2011 Sydney amp Australia s New South Wales Hunter Publishing Inc ISBN 978 1 58843 775 4 Planet Lonely 1 October 2016 The Travel Book A Journey Through Every Country in the World Lonely Planet ISBN 978 1 78657 398 8 Sources Edit Online Edit Darby Madge 2004 Bligh Sir Richard Rodney 1737 1821 Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online ed Oxford Oxford University Press doi 10 1093 ref odnb 2648 Subscription or UK public library membership required David Andrew 2004 Cook James 1728 1779 Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online ed Oxford Oxford University Press doi 10 1093 ref odnb 6140 Subscription or UK public library membership required Erskine Nigel 1999 Reclaiming the Bounty Archaeology Boston Archaeological Institute of America 52 3 Retrieved 18 May 2015 Frost Alan 2004 Bligh William 1754 1817 Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online ed Oxford Oxford University Press doi 10 1093 ref odnb 2650 Subscription or UK public library membership required History of Pitcairn Island Pitcairn Islands Study Center Pacific Union College 2000 Retrieved 30 April 2015 Used by permission from the government published Guide to Pitcairn Mutiny Essex The Guide to Musical Theatre www guidetomusicaltheatre com Retrieved 30 January 2020 News Edit Lewis Mark 26 October 2003 The Bounty Fletcher Christian was the villain The Baltimore Sun Baltimore Maryland Retrieved 20 May 2015 Minogue Tim 22 March 1998 Blighs v Christians the 209 year feud The Independent London Retrieved 20 May 2015 Archives Edit Bligh William Log of the Proceedings of His Majestys Ship Bounty Lieut Wm Bligh Commander from Otaheite towards Jamaica signed Wm Bligh 5 April 1789 13 March 1790 Log Book Bligh Family Papers Series 414397 File Safe 1 47 NSW Aus State Library Collection State Library of New South Wales Books Edit Alexander Caroline 2003 The Bounty London Harper Collins ISBN 978 0 00 257221 7 Barrow Sir John 1831 The Eventful History of the Mutiny and Piratical Seizure of HMS Bounty Its Causes and Consequences London John Murray OCLC 4050135 Bligh William 1792 A Voyage to the South Sea etc London Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty OCLC 28790 Dening Greg 1992 Mr Bligh s Bad Language Passion Power and Theatre on the Bounty Cambridge Cambridge University Press ISBN 978 0 521 38370 7 Guttridge Leonard F 2006 1992 Mutiny A History of Naval Insurrection Annapolis Maryland Naval Institute Press ISBN 978 1 59114 348 2 Hough Richard 1972 Captain Bligh and Mr Christian The Men and the Mutiny republished in 1984 by Corgi as The Bounty London Hutchinsons ISBN 978 0 09 112860 9 McKinney Sam 1999 1989 Bligh The Whole Story of the Mutiny Aboard H M S Bounty Victoria British Columbia TouchWood Editions ISBN 978 0 920663 64 6 Stanley David 2004 South Pacific Eighth ed Chico California Moon Handbooks ISBN 978 1 56691 411 6 Tagart Edward 1832 A Memoir of the late Captain Peter Heywood R N with Extracts from his Diaries and Correspondence London Effingham Wilson OCLC 7541945 Wahlroos Sven 1989 Mutiny and Romance in the South Seas a Companion to the Bounty Adventure Topsfield Massachusetts Salem House Publishers ISBN 978 0 88162 395 6 Winfield Rif 2007 British Warships in the Age of Sail 1714 1792 Design Construction Careers and Fates Barnsley Seaforth Publishing ISBN 978 1 84415 700 6 Further reading EditFryer John 1979 Walters Stephen S ed The Voyage of the Bounty Launch John Fryer s Narrative Guildford Genesis Publications ISBN 978 0 904351 10 1 Ledward Thomas Denman Letter of 15 October 1789 briefly giving an account of the Mutiny and his status in Timor Printed in Notes and Queries Oxford Journal 26 December 1903 pp 501 502 Morrison James 1935 Rutter Owen ed The Journal of James Morrison etc London Golden Cockerel Press OCLC 752837769 Proud Jodie Zammit Anthony 2006 From Mutiny to Eternity The Conservation of Lt William Bligh sBountyLogbooks PDF AICCM Symposium 2006 Canberra Australian Institute for the Conservation of Cultural Material Archived from the original PDF on 29 July 2018 Retrieved 1 May 2015 External links EditMutiny on the Bounty at Wikipedia s sister projects Media from Commons Quotations from Wikiquote Texts from Wikisource Data from Wikidata Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Mutiny on the Bounty amp oldid 1147486419, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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