Mutiny on the Bounty

For other uses, see Mutiny on the Bounty (disambiguation).

The mutiny on 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 reasons behind the mutiny are still debated. Bligh and his crew stopped for supplies on Tofua, where a crew member was killed. 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. The mutineers variously settled on Tahiti or on Pitcairn Island.

Quotes

• Tho the Ship was an excellent Sea Boat, it was as much as she could do to live in this tremendous sea where the Elements seem to wage Continual War.
  • James Morrison, Bosun’s Mate, describing the rough seas around Cape Horn (March 1788); Journal on HMS Bounty and at Tahiti (1792), p. 7 (original in the Mitchell Library)

• I can only conjecture that [the Mutineers] have ideally assured themselves of a more happy life among the Tahitians than they could possibly have in England, which joined to some female connection, has most likely been the leading cause of the whole business.
  • William Bligh, Logbook of HMS Bounty (28 April 1789), p. 356; reported in Peter FitzSimons, Mutiny on the Bounty (Hachette Australia, 2018), ch. 8, epigraph

• It is said that by the express command of His Majesty two new sloops of war are to be instantly fitted to go in pursuit of the pirates who have taken possession of the Bounty. An experienced officer will be appointed to superintend the little command, and the sloops will steer a direct course to Tahiti where, it is conjectured, the mutinous crew have established their rendezvous.
  • The London Chronicle (1 April 1791)

• I find that two months after I left Tahiti in the ‘Bounty’, Christian returned in her to the great astonishment of the natives. Doubting that things had gone well with me the first questions they asked were: ‘Where is Bry?’ ‘He is gone,’ he replied, ‘to England’. ‘In what ship?’ asked the natives. ‘In Toote’s ship.’
  • William Bligh, Logbook of HMS Providence (9 April 1792); reported in Ida Lee, Captain Bligh’s Second Voyage to the South Sea (London: Longman’s, Green and Co., 1920), p. 43

• It was in those violent Tornadoes of temper when he lost himself, yet, when all, in his opinion, went right, could a man be more placid and interesting ...? Once or twice indeed I felt the unbridled licence of his power of speech, yet never without soon receiving something like an emollient plaister to heal the wound.
  • George Tobin, who accompanied Bligh in HMS Providence (1791–3); reported in George Mackaness, Fresh Light on Bligh (Dubbo: Review Publications, 1976), p. 33

• Mr. Bligh most certainly brands my amiable brother with the vile appellation of ‘Mutineer,’ but he has not dared to charge you with any crime that could have authoriz’d such an epithet; on the contrary, he has declared, under his own hand, that he had the highest esteem for you till the fatal moment of the Mutiny, and that your conduct during the whole course of the voyage was such as gave him the greatest pleasure and satisfaction.
  • Nessy Heywood, letter to her brother Peter Heywood, as he awaited trial (31 July 1792); Innocent on the Bounty, ed. Donald A. Maxton and Rolf E. Du Rietz (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co., Inc., 2013), p. 78

• My dear Nessy, cherish your hope and I will exercise my patience.
  • Peter Heywood, letter to his sister (October 1792); Edward Tagart, Memoir of the Late Captain Peter Heywood, R.N. (1832), p. 142

• Awake, Bold Bligh! The foe is at the gate!
  Awake Bold Bligh! Alas! it is too late!
  • Lord Byron, The Island (1823)

• Fiercely beside thy cot the mutineer
  Stands, and proclaims the reign of rage and fear.
  Thy limbs are bound, the bayonet at thy breast;
  The hands, which trembled at thy voice, arrest;
  Dragged o’er the deck, no more at thy command
  The obedient helm shall veer, the sail expand.
  • Lord Byron, The Island (1823)

• The gallant Chief within his cabin slept,
  Secure in those by whom the watch was kept:
  His dreams were of old England’s welcome shore,
  Of toils rewarded, and of danger o’er;
  ...
  The worst was over, and the rest seemed sure,
  And why should not his slumber be secure?
  Alas! his deck was trod by unwilling feet,
  And wilder hands would hold the vessel’s sheet;
  Young hearts, which languished for some sunny isle,
  Where summer years and summer women smile;
  Men without country, who, too long estranged,
  Had found no native home, or found it changed,
  And, half uncivilised, preferred the cave
  Of some soft savage to the uncertain wave –
  • Lord Byron, The Island (1823)

• Their sea-green isle, their guilt-won Paradise,
  No more could shield their Virtue or their Vice:
  Their better feelings, if such were, were thrown
  Back on themselves, – their sins remained alone.
  Proscribed even in their second country, they
  Were lost.
  • Lord Byron, The Island (1823)

• But Christian, of a higher order, stood
  Like an extinct volcano in his mood;
  Silent, and sad, and savage, – with the trace
  Of passion reeking from his clouded face.
  • Lord Byron, The Island (1823)

• He that only rules by terror
     Doeth grievous wrong.
  Deep as hell I count his error.
     Let him hear my song.
  Brave the Captain was; the seamen
     Made a gallant crew,
  Gallant sons of English freemen,
     Sailors bold and true,
  But they hated his oppression;
     Stern he was and rash,
  So for every light transgression
     Doom’d them to the lash.
  Day by day more harsh and cruel
     Seem’d the Captain’s mood.
  Secret wrath like smother’d fuel
     Burnt in each man’s blood.
  • Alfred, Lord Tennyson, The Captain (1865)

• Men did not desert because they hated their commanders, or salt pork, or weevily biscuits; they deserted for love.
  • John Beaglehole, Captain Cook and Captain Bligh, The Dr W. E. Collins Lecture delivered at the University on 3 August 1967 (The Victoria University of Wellington, 1967), p. 19

• There never was a mutiny of the Bounty. Rather there was a revolt of one man against another, Christian against Bligh ...
  • Glynn Christian, Fragile Paradise (London: Book Club Associates, 1983), p. 14