To none of these many specious charges did Bligh pay public attention; instead, he had doggedly carried on, from commission to commission. On hearing of his old commander’s death, George Tobin, now post-captain but a former lieutenant of the Providence, wrote to Bligh’s nephew, Francis Godolphin Bond, offering both his condolences and a humane assessment of the man they had both served: “He has had a long and turbulent journey of it,” wrote Tobin, “—no one more so, and since the unfortunate Mutiny in the Bounty, has been rather in the shade. Yet perhaps was he not altogether understood. . . . He had suffered much and ever in difficulty by labour and perseverance extricated himself.”
Bligh was buried beside his wife in the same tomb in St. Mary’s churchyard, Lambeth. Over the years, the churchyard fell out of use and became overgrown, and eventually was used as a rubbish dump. At length, some 170 years after Bligh’s death, a renovation was begun and the covered graves and tombs at last dug out. In clearing the ground, excavators moved a large oblong block—and found themselves looking at the entrance to a vault. Four steps led down into an arched brick chamber, where stood a number of lead coffins, embellished with garlands and swags. The two standing side by side, less than two feet apart, contained the remains of William and Betsy Bligh, while tiny coffins at the back held the remains of twin sons, who had lived but a single day. The wooden coffin lids had collapsed, revealing the adult skeletons; that of Bligh still held tufts of mortal hair. Stunned, the intruders quickly conferred; photographs of Captain Bligh of the Bounty would fetch a very good price . . .
“No,” recalled one, “we couldn’t possibly do it.” Replacing the lids, they exited the vault, and sealed it. (Duty; they had done their duty. . . . )
Cleared and scrubbed, the inscription on the handsome monument could be read again. Beneath a miniature graven shield, crested with a knight’s hand holding a battle axe, read a succinct summation of Bligh’s life:
Sacred
to the memory of
William Bligh, Esquire, F.R.S.
Vice Admiral of the Blue,
The celebrated Navigator
who first transplanted the Bread Fruit Tree
From Otaheite to the West Indies,
bravely fought the battles of his country;
and died beloved respected and lamented
on the 7th day of December 1817
aged 64.
Surmounting the whole, in letters that had once been gold, was a simple phrase:
“In coelo quies”—There is peace in heaven.
A NOTE ON SOURCES
ABBREVIATIONS
PRELUDE
All of the correspondence quoted is held by the Mitchell Library (hereafter ML), State Library of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia (hereafter SLNSW). That with Duncan Campbell is found at “William Bligh, Letters 1782-1805,” Safe 1/40 (letters of December 10, 1787; December 22, 1787; January 9, 1788; February 17, 1788; May 20, 1788). Bligh’s correspondence with Banks is found in SLNSW: the Sir Joseph Banks Electronic Archive (February 17, 1788, Series 46.21). Bligh’s letter to his wife from Coupang is found in ML, “Bligh, William—Family correspondence,” ZML Safe 1/45, pp. 17-24.
Bligh’s correspondence from the Dutch East Indies to Campbell, Banks, and Elizabeth Bligh is published in facsimile in Paul Brunton, ed., Awake Bold Bligh! (Sydney, 1989).
PANDORA
The descriptions of Peter Heywood’s last day on Tahiti and his capture are found in a letter to his mother, written in Batavia on November 20, 1791, and preserved in an album of correspondence relating to his court-martial that was kept by his sister Hester (Nessy) Heywood. There are five known copies of this album; the one cited throughout this book is “Correspondence of Miss Nessy Heywood,” E5. H5078, the Newberry Library, Chicago. This is also the source for Peter Heywood’s poetry. Peter’s Isle of Man tattoo is referred to by William Bligh in his descriptive list of the mutineers, of which there are several versions; the earliest being that given in his notebook, held by the National Library of Australia, Canberra (NLA MS 5393) and published in facsimile, John Bach, ed., The Bligh Notebook (Sydney, 1987). Other details about the mutineers—their ages and places of origin—are taken from the Bounty Muster Book, Admiralty papers, Public Record Office (hereafter Adm.) 36/10744.
Early news of the mutiny is found in numerous contemporary newspapers: English Chronicle or Universal Evening Post (March 13-16, 1790), the General Evening Post (March 16- 18, 1790), the London Chronicle (March 16, 1790) and the World (March 16, 1790), to cite only a few. The possibility of the Bounty’s being apprehended by the Spanish is reported in British Mercury, no. 20, May 15, 1790 (p. 212). The report that news of the Bounty mutiny had inspired Botany Bay convicts to attempt escape is found in the London Chronicle, April 21-24, 1792.
The transcription of the court-martial of the mutineers of the Narcissus is found in Adm. 12/24, and is in itself fascinating: in 1782, as newly appointed captain to the 20-gun Narcissus, Edwards was patrolling the eastern coast of North America when word came through the quartermaster that a mutiny was planned for that night. Swiftly, all officers had armed themselves, come on deck, and together forced the apprehension of the would-be mutineers. In the ensuing court-martial it was revealed that some forty-six men had signed up for the mutiny with the intention of securing the captain in irons and making for “Philadelphia or the first rebel fort.” Once within sight of land, the plan had been to put the captain and officers into the longboat with a compass, sail the ship to port, sell her, and divide the spoils. The code word signifying that the mutiny had commenced was to have been “wine.”
Edwards’s papers are found in Adm. 1/1763, which includes his correspondence with the Admiralty before Pandora left England, his long official report, and his official correspondence following his return home. Other pertinent papers are found in Admiralty Library Manuscript MSS 180, “The Papers of Edward Edwards,” held at the Royal Naval Museum and Admiralty Library in Portsmouth (and read on microfilm provided by ML: reel FM4 2098 [AJCP reel M 2515]), which includes the log of the Pandora (and of the open-boat journey and voyage to Batavia); Edwards’s extracts from the journals of Peter Heywood and George Stewart; a memorandum written by Edwards at Tahiti; a statement written by Edwards on the loss of the Pandora; as well as the original sailing orders he received from the Admiralty and an account of his career. These papers were lost until 1966, having spent many years in a brown-paper parcel in a forgotten corner of the Admiralty Library (H. E. Maude, “The Edwards Papers,” Journal of Pacific History 1 [1966], pp. 184-85).
Surgeon George Hamilton published his account of the Pandora voyage in A Voyage Round the World, in His Majesty’s Frigate Pandora (London, 1793). Hamilton’s account and Edwards’s report have been published together as Edwards and Hamilton, Voyage of H.M.S. “Pandora” Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the “Bounty” in the South Seas, 1790-91, Being the Narratives of Captain Edward Edwards, R.N., the Commander, and George Hamilton, the Surgeon (London, 1915).
Biographical material about Edwards is found in “The Pandora Again!,” United Service Magazine, no. 172 (March 1843), pp. 411-20.
The history of seaman John Brown and the Mercury, the ship that left him on Tahiti, is found in Lieutenant George Mortimer, Observations and Remarks Made During a Voyage to the Islands of Teneriffe, Amsterdam, Maria’s Islands Near Van Diemen’s Land, Otaheite, Sandwich Islands, Owhyhee, the Fox Islands on the North West Coast of America, Tinian, and from thence to Canton, in the Brig Mercury, Commanded by John Henry Cox, Esq. (London, 1791).
James Morrison wrote two accounts of the mutiny and its aftermath, both held by the Mitchell Library: an extensive “journal” (about which more later), “Journal on HMS Bounty and at Tahiti, 1792,” ZML Safe 1/42; and the much briefer “Memorandum and particulars respecting the Bounty and her crew,” Safe 1/33.
For the Articles of War, see N. A. M. Rodger, Articles of War: The Statutes which Governed Our Fighting Navies, 1661, 1749, and 1886 (Homewell, Ha
mpshire, 1982).
The wreck of the Pandora is currently being excavated by the Queensland Museum, Australia; it can be followed online at www.mtq.qld.gov.au.
The story of the Botany Bay convicts is well told in Frederick A. Pottle’s Boswell and the Girl from Botany Bay (London, 1938).
Edwards’s transactions with the Dutch authorities in the East Indies are documented in manuscript holdings of the Verenigde Oost-indische Compagnie (hereafter VOC), or United East India Company. These include ARA VOC 3917, pp. 1841 and 1843; VOC 827 (Resolutions of the Governor General and Council, November 8 and 18, 1791); VOC 3940, pp. 8 verso, 9, 32, 32 verso, and 52 (all in the Algemeen Rijksarchief, The Hague); and the Minuut Resolutie Nov.-Dec. 1791 (in the Arsip Nasional Republik, Jakarta). A glimpse of Edwards’s transactions at the Cape is found in Council of Policy, vol. C 202 Resolutions, Edwards, p. 185, in the Cape Town Archives Repository, Cape Town.
The fate of the Resolution is told by D. Renouard, “Voyage of the Pandora’s Tender,” 1791, ML, *D377. An edited version of this account was published as “The Last of the Pandoras,” United Service Magazine, no. 166 (September 1842), pp. 1-13. The schooner’s itinerary is reconstructed in H. E. Maude, “The Voyage of the Pandora’s Tender,” Mariner’s Mirror 50 (1964), pp. 217-35. Morrison gives an elaborate description of the schooner’s construction in his “journal.”
The Pandora’s complicated expenses are documented in Adm. 106/2217, Adm. 2/268, and Adm. 2/269.
Adm. 51/383 contains the Gorgon’s log; other relevant files are Adm. 36/11120, the Gorgon ’s muster, and Adm. 1/1001, Captain’s Letters, which includes the carpenter’s report on the state of the ship on her return to Spithead.
Mary Ann Parker, the wife of the Gorgon’s captain, wrote an account of her voyage to Botany Bay and back, by way of the Cape, of which she gives a vivid description. Mary Ann Parker, A Voyage round the World, in the Gorgon Man of War: Captain John Parker, Performed and written by his widow (London, 1795). Captain Parker died shortly after he and his wife returned to England and Mrs. Parker learned that one of her children had died in their absence. The preface to her book states that it has “been most unjustly and injuriously reported, that the Authoress is worth a considerable sum of money,” and goes on to explain that while Captain Parker had indeed been entitled to a share of prize money “accruing from success in the West-Indies,” his debts were larger than that sum.
Even in the random accounts cited in this chapter, one finds casual references to the presence of women on board. In the transcript of the Narcissus court-martial, for example, one of the men on trial offers a Mrs. Collins as his alibi, stating nonchalantly that “I lye near Mrs. Collins and her two children.” Similarly, in the account of the Mercury one learns that while on Tahiti, “Otoo happening to see a pair of [scissors] with a long chain suspended to them, given by our second mate to his wife, had a great desire to possess them, and demanded them of her; but she positively refused to give them up” (p. 32). An interesting examination of the role of usually unremarked women in the British navy is Suzanne J. Stark, Female Tars: Women Aboard Ship in the Age of Sail (Annapolis, 1996).
Lieutenant Clark’s journal is published as The Journal and Letters of Lt. Ralph Clark, 1787-1792 (Sydney, 1981). The description of the Botany Bay convicts is given in Watkin Tench, A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson, in New South Wales, including an accurate description of the situation of the colony; of the natives; and of its natural productions: taken on the spot, by Captain Watkin Tench (London, 1793). Another journal covering the Gorgon’s homeward voyage is James Scott (Sargeant of Marines), Remarks on a Passage to Botany Bay, 1787-1792, Dixson Library, SLNSW, MS Q43.
The anonymous poem is found in Bligh’s papers in the Mitchell Library: “A Copy of Verses on the Loss of his Majesty’s Ships Bounty And Pandora, the former by Mutany, the Latter by Accident upon the Coast of New holland near Endeavour Straits. A Sad Catastrophe to the Latter On the 29th of August 1791,” ML, Safe 1/44.
Hamond’s orders are found in the Captain’s Letters for 1792, Adm. 1/1001. Montagu’s log of the Hector is found in Adm. 51/448. Burkett’s service is confirmed in Adm. 36/10544 (Hector muster book) and Adm. 35/758 (paybook).
The account of Peter Heywood’s prayer book is given in the Reverend Thomas Boyles Murray, Pitcairn: The Island, the People and the Pastor, to which is added a short notice of the original settlement and present condition of Norfolk Island, 11th ed. (London, 1858), pp. 72-73.
Details of the Chatham’s visit are found in Edward Bell’s log of the Chatham, held by the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand (hereafter ATL): “Chatham, H.M.S., Journal of a voyage with Vancouver, 1792-4,” qMS-2071-2072. The story of Peggy and George Stewart was to be the inspiration of many poems, including Byron’s The Island or Christian and His Comrades (“There sat the gentle savage of the wild/In growth a woman, though in years a child . . .”).
BOUNTY
Patrick O’Brian’s biography of Banks is first-rate, as one would expect: Joseph Banks: A Life (Chicago, 1997). A good biographical summary is also given in J. C. Beaglehole, ed., The Endeavour Journal of Joseph Banks, 1768-1771 (Sydney, 1962). Beaglehole also wrote the definitive biography of James Cook, which, in its account of the Endeavour voyage, has a great deal to say about Banks. Banks as the “lion of London” is from Beaglehole’s The Life of Captain James Cook (Stanford, Calif., 1974), p. 273.
Banks’s Tahitian adventures were first published in John Hawkesworth, An Account of the Voyages Undertaken by the Order of His Present Majesty for making Discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere, And Successively Performed by Commodore Byron, Commodore Wallis, Captain Carteret and Captain Cook, in the Dolphin, the Swallow, and the Endeavour, drawn up from the journals which were kept by the several commanders, and from the papers of Joseph Banks, Esq., 3 vols. (London, 1773); vol. 2, pp. 79-249, covers the Endeavour’s Tahitian sojourn. Cook objected to this popular rendition of his voyage and subsequently insisted on publishing his own account of his later expeditions.
The facetious verses come from An Epistle from Mr. Banks Voyager, Monster-Hunter, and Amoroso, To Oberea, Queen of Otaheite (London, c. 1773). Banks’s own account of his interlude in Oberea’s canoe is given in his journal entry of May 28, 1769 (“I repaird to my old Freind Oborea who readily gave me a bed in her canoe much to my satisfaction. I acquainted my fellow travelers with my good fortune and wishing them as good took my leave. Oborea insisted that my cloths should be put in her custody . . .”).
The State Library of New South Wales holds one of the most important collections of Banks correspondence in the world; the Sir Joseph Banks Electronic Archive is available online at www.sl.nsw.gov.au/banks. Quoted here are Bligh’s letters to Banks of August 6, 1787 (46.02), November 5, 1787 (46.08), December 5, 1787 (46.13), December 6, 1787 (46.14), December 8, 1787 (46.15), January 9, 1788 (46.20), February 17, 1788 (46.21), and June 28, 1788 (46.25). The Natural History Museum, Botany Library, London, holds the Dawson Turner Copies (hereafter DTC), an extensive collection of transcriptions made of Banks’s correspondence.
A selection of Banks’s correspondence has been published by the Banks Archive Project: Neil Chambers, ed., The Letters of Sir Joseph Banks: A Selection, 1768-1820 (London, 2000). Warren Royal Dawson, ed., The Banks Letters: A Calendar of the Manuscript Correspondence of Sir Joseph Banks Preserved in the British Museum, the British Museum (Natural History) and Other Collections in Great Britain (London, 1958), offers a synopsis of more than seven thousand letters. There can be few other bibliographic catalogues that are in themselves as engrossing as this mammoth publication. As the opening sentence of the preface states, “There is scarcely an aspect of British public life in the reign of George III that is not represented at first hand in the Correspondence of Sir Joseph Banks.”
There were several mermaid sightings, of which that of William Munro, on June 9, 1809, is the most confidently stated: “. . . in the course of my walking on the Sh
ore of Sand-side Bay, being a fine warm day in Summer, my attention was arrested by the appearance of a figure, resembling an unclothed human female, sitting upon a rock extending into the Sea; and apparently in the action of combing its hair, which flowed around its shoulders” (DTC 17.322-324).
For Banks supplying Coleridge with Indian hemp, see Earl Leslie Griggs, ed., Collected Letters of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, vol. 2 (Oxford, 1956), pp. 918ff.
Valentine Morris’s letter to Banks, April 17, 1772, is in British Library, Additional Manuscripts, London (hereafter BL Add. MS), 33977.18.
The political background of the breadfruit expedition and the West India Committee’s lobby is described in “The Romance of the Bread-fruit,” The West India Committee Circular, no. 590 (May 12, 1921), pp. 197-99; and David MacKay, “Banks, Bligh and Breadfruit,” The New Zealand Journal of History 8 (1974), pp. 61-77.
The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty Page 50