[CHAPTER IX]
Bligh and the "Bounty"
Cook's first and second expeditions had drawn special attention to the bread-fruit as an article of food. The English planters in the West Indies thought that the bread-fruit tree would be a valuable addition to their food supply; for, owing to the foolish economics of slave labour, periodical famines occurred in Jamaica and other West India islands from one cause and another. Accordingly, in 1787 the British Admiralty dispatched William Bligh, in command of a king's ship named the Bounty, to the Pacific Ocean to obtain young bread-fruit trees, and then convey them to the West Indies. Bligh had commenced his experiences in Australia by accompanying Captain Cook on his second expedition in 1772 as sailing-master or navigating officer of the Resolution. In 1772, and after Cook had started on his third expedition, Bligh was promoted to be a commander and sent out in H.M.S. Providence to Tahiti in connection with Cook's last voyage. On 23 December, 1787, he left England in the Bounty, but owing to the frightful storms off the extremity of South America his ship was unable to proceed direct to the Pacific and obliged to cross the Southern Atlantic to the Cape of Good Hope and remain there thirty-eight days to refit, to replenish the provisions and refresh the crew. Starting again from the Cape on 1 July, 1788, they reached Adventure Bay in Tasmania on 20 August, after a remarkably swift passage across the southern Indian Ocean. Another uneventful voyage of short duration took them to Tahiti.
With him there sailed a Mr. Nelson, a horticulturist, who had been with Cook in his third expedition and had planted shaddock trees in Tahiti (now found to be, eleven years afterwards, well grown and full of fruit). Nelson at once set to work with the assistance of the natives to dig up quantities of young bread-fruit plants. He obtained 1015, besides many specimens of other Tahitian plants. The Bounty, on 4 April, 1789, sailed away from Tahiti, "where for twenty-three weeks we had been treated with the utmost affection and regard, which seemed to increase in proportion to our stay". After calling at Anamuka in the Tonga archipelago the celebrated mutiny occurred. In the early morning of 28 April, when Bligh had just turned in for a sleep, he was suddenly awakened by Fletcher Christian, the master's mate (one of the officers on board, and probably a Manxman), who, accompanied by several gunners and seamen, tied his hands behind his back and threatened him with instant death if he spoke a word. In spite of his shoutings, however, he was not hurt, but dragged up on deck, where he found that twenty-five officers and men had mutinied against his command and had resolved to put him and seventeen others into an open boat and cast them adrift.
The cause of this mutiny undoubtedly was Bligh's own behaviour to officers and men, but above all to his officers, since leaving England. He was obviously a man of the most violent temper and of very coarse habits and mean disposition. Being purser as well as commander, he evidently tried to make money out of the rations issued to officers and men. He was perpetually charging his officers with stealing coconuts or yams. He would subject the midshipmen to the most cruel punishments, almost enough, one would think, to have killed them; and it is obvious that mutiny was in the hearts of many on board long before it actually broke out. Bligh gave as his explanation that during the long stay at Tahiti most of the men on board had contracted attachments towards the native women and wished to return and settle down there permanently. But it has been remarked that if this was the case they might have all deserted in a body whilst on the island, or have mutinied before the ship left these waters instead of doing so after leaving the Tonga archipelago at a distance of three weeks' sailing from Tahiti. The mutiny was undoubtedly precipitated by Bligh's complete loss of temper whilst the ship was in the Tonga archipelago, and his threats to make the life of all on board "a perfect hell" for the rest of the voyage, which, by way of the Dutch Indies and the Cape of Good Hope to Jamaica, would have been a tremendously long one.
Bligh, together with the sailing-master, the acting surgeon, the botanist, and several other officers and petty officers, in all nineteen persons, were thrust into a launch which, when loaded with passengers and goods, was brought so near to the surface of the water as to endanger her sinking with only a moderate swell of the sea. Yet in this crazy boat Bligh and his companions sailed for a distance of 4000 miles till they landed at Timor—one of the most noteworthy sea adventures on record. Before they left the Bounty they were given 150 pounds of bread, 32 pounds of pork, 6 quarts of rum, 6 bottles of wine, 28 gallons of water, and four empty barrels. Thus provisioned they sailed for the island of Tofoa, intending to obtain bread-fruit and coconuts. When the natives met them, Bligh, wisely or unwisely, accounted for his plight by telling them that the Bounty had capsized and that they alone were saved. They were therefore regarded rather contemptuously as shipwrecked sailors, and only received small quantities of bread-fruit, bananas, and coconuts. Moreover, an attempt was made to seize the boat, in which one of the seamen was killed. In terrible distress they implored Bligh, who with all his faults had great force of character, to get them back to England somehow. He told them that their nearest hope of salvation was the Island of Timor, 4000 miles distant, more or less, and that if they were to reach that they must obey his orders implicitly and maintain the most absolute discipline. They agreed.
