Mutiny on the Bounty

by Peter Fitzsimons

  My Carpenter on my expressing my disapprobation of his conduct with respect to orders he had received from me concerning the Mode of working with the Wooding Party behaved in a most insolent and reprehensible Manner. I therefore ordered him on board, there to assist in the general duty of the Ship, as I could not bear the loss of an able working and healthy man, otherwise I should have committed him to close confinement until I could have tried him.33

  Two days later, Bligh is again on shore with the better part of the crew replenishing their supplies of fresh water, gathering wood, and fishing, with their catch including ‘many sizeable Rock Cod’34 for lunch. The watering party, meanwhile, is busy filling empty casks from a stream at the east end of the beach, with none working harder, once they get the barrels back to the ship, than the Master, Mr Fryer, and a Mate and a Quartermaster, who work with ropes and a pulley to manhandle each barrel up on to the deck, before getting it below. It is difficult work, soon requiring help from Mr Purcell … Mr Purcell … I say, Mr Purcell, are you there?

  And that is where the trouble starts. For when, in the late afternoon, Bligh returns to the Bounty, it is to be told by Fryer that Purcell had been very clear.

  From this day forth, he refuses to do any duties that are not specifically to do with carpentry.

  Oh … really?

  Well, let his Captain see about that. Storming towards Purcell’s cabin, Bligh is soon able to remind the Carpenter that he will damn’d well do, sir, whatever you are damn’d well ord’rd to do, sir.

  ‘But my directions and presence had as little effect …’35 Bligh records.

  For the cocky Purcell puffs up his strong carpenter’s chest and declares, ‘I will do anything in my line of duty; but as to this duty, I can not comply.’36

  Shocked at such obstinance, for the second time in three days, Bligh nevertheless moves quickly. He calls for nearby crew to witness Purcell’s refusal to follow his orders, with the obvious purpose of later relying on their testimony in what will now definitely be a court martial.

  Of course, now, there is ample justification to clap Purcell in irons and leave him in his quarters until they return to England.

  However …

  It was for the good of the Voyage that I should not make him or any Man a prisoner. The few I have even in the good state of health I keep them, are but barely sufficient to carry on the duty of the Ship, it could then answer no good purpose to lose the use of a healthy strong young man in my situation. I therefore laid aside my power in that particular for the good of the Service I am on, although it continued in force with equal effect.37

  But there is an alternative, which just might work. For now, he adds an order, to all and sundry.

  ‘Until Mr Purcell works once more,’ he says firmly, ‘he shall have no provisions. I faithfully promise a severe punishment to any man that dares to assist him.’38

  Well then. When Bligh puts it like that, and Purcell can see days of starvation ahead, it has an amazingly transformative effect on his commitment to co-operate with orders, if not his mood, which has fallen still further.

  And yet, while the initial problem with Purcell’s lack of co-operation is solved, the overall effect on the ship’s atmosphere is far more enduring.

  Writing later, Morrison will be clear.

  ‘Here also were sown seeds of eternal discord between … Bligh and his officers. He confined the carpenter and found fault with the inattention of the rest to their duty, which produced continual disputes, everyone endeavouring to thwart the others in their duty.’39

  Given Bligh’s prickly presence, his propensity for bursts of temper that make the very sails billow with rage, each terrified officer has one clear goal – to stay out of Bligh’s way. And when things do go wrong, the key is to make sure the blame falls on another. It can even be worth deliberately sabotaging the efforts of another, so as to use up some of the Captain’s rage.

  There is at least one upside.

  ‘This made the men exert themselves to divert the storm from falling on them by a strict attention to their duty, and in this they found their account and rejoiced, in private, at their good success.’40

  In the meantime, 11 days after arriving, on the evening of 1 September, they suddenly see fires in the night ‘within the limits of the bay … on the low land near Cape Frederick Henry … at daylight … we saw several of them about the beach of the lowland with our glasses’.41

  Bligh’s ‘earnest wish to visit them’42 is without effect, though, as the southern swell of the ocean on this day is so heavy, so pounding the surf, there is no way they can land a boat on that part of the cape where they have seen the fires.

  The next day, however, the Cutter is able to get within shouting distance of the shore, at which point Bligh, accompanied by the botanist, David Nelson, spot one of their own crewmen, Nelson’s assistant, William Brown, who has come this far overland, and he has good news: he has met with some of the Natives, and they are reasonably friendly.

  Shortly thereafter, they can hear their voices, ‘like the cackling of geese’,43 and a group of 20 or so come out of the wood. While the women – with their impossibly black faces – hang back at the tree-line, the men, much bolder, drop their spears and come down to perch on the rocks by the shore. As one, every man on the boat looks closely at this particularly striking race, all of them, ‘perfectly naked’.

  The colour of these people are naturally black. Their skin was scarified about their shoulders and breast. They were of middling stature or rather below it. One of them had his body discoloured with red ochre, but all the others had laid an additional coat of black over their faces and shoulder, and it was laid on so thick that it totally prevented me at this distance, to say anything exact of their features.44

  Most striking, however, Bligh notes, is the rapidity of their language.

  They made a prodigious clattering of speech, extending their arms over their heads. I made signs for them to come nearer which they did, and placed themselves close to the break of the sea. I could not take up one single word they uttered, their speech being so remarkably quick.45

  Bligh and Nelson, of course, have met the Natives of Van Diemen’s Land before, but as this is all new for Morrison, he sits there in the boat transfixed, observing closely for his later notes on their appearance.

  Their heads were all close shorn, so that we could not tell whether they were woolly or not but thought that the short remains looked more like wool then [sic] hair, their Countenances were by no means agreeable, and their teeth black and uneven: they were quite naked, and appeared harmless miserable Creatures. Amongst them was one very much deformed which Mr. Nelson declared to be the same he had seen here on a former Voyage … they talked a good deal which none of us understood, and would frequently Jump up & shout seemingly pleased.46

  Taking the boat in as close as they dare, to within 20 yards of the rocky shore, they are at least close enough to the Natives that Bligh is able to hurl to the shore the presents he has brought for them. Lifting the beads and nails up to show them what he has, he then wraps them in paper, and throws them on to the beach. The Natives won’t touch them, until such time as the boat starts to move away. Then, and only then, do they open the parcels, and place the objects on their heads.

  On seeing this, Bligh records, ‘I then returned again when they laid everything aside and would not show us they took notice of what we had given them.’47

  Bligh throws a few more beads and nails on shore, to no avail – for they will not pick them up while Bligh is watching – and so he makes signs for them to come to the ship. They make signs, in turn, for him to come on shore. Returning to the Bounty, Bligh hears Brown’s account of visiting a small Native camp.

  He saw some miserable wigwams, in which were nothing but a few kangaroo skins spread on the ground, and a basket made of rushes.48

  Of his overall impressions, Bligh pronounces himself far from impressed:

  … upon the whole they are perhap
s the most wretched and stupid People existing, yet they are with this no doubt the most inoffensive.49

  In Bligh’s lexicon, ‘the most inoffensive’ is as close as he gets to a compliment.

  Yes, their ‘wretchedness’ may be judged from the fact that they live in this most isolated part of the world, in inhospitable circumstances, while their ‘stupidity’ is evidenced by the fact that they place no value on the trinkets that make other Natives swoon with desire.

  The Tahitians, Bligh knows from his last visit there, become ecstatic over a single red feather – using them on their canoes to please the Gods of war, and on the marro oora girdles of their Kings, as a sign of their sanctity. But these Natives just throw far more impressive trinkets away.

  Against that, when Bligh does get a closer look at their living circumstances, he is impressed by their sophistication.

  Their wigwams are calculated to repose themselves at full length, the ground being made level and strewed all over with grass, and the roof so disposed with large pieces of bark as to render it perfectly dry on the inside in rainy weather.50

  Despite himself, Bligh is much struck with the sheer ingenuity.

  Their Wigwams are made with little trouble and afford great convenience.51

  But, the Natives are welcome to it. Van Diemen’s Land itself is little more than a green wilderness, nothing in the way of comfort to a civilised man. It is with a sense of relief that at noon on 5 September 1788, Cap’n Bligh leaves this Godforsaken spot on earth, sailing ‘with a light breeze’52 for the southern tip of the South Island of New Zealand before heading up its east coast.

  6 October 1788, just off the coast of New Zealand, Valentine’s Day

  Captain Bligh’s foul mood?

  Simple. He has been very badly let down not by one, but by two men.

  The first, and most flagrant betrayal, has come from Able Seaman Valentine, who appears ready to irretrievably ruin Bligh’s hitherto perfect record by … dying. Bligh had been earnestly hoping to have the record show that he had completed his mission by taking his ship 25,000 miles and not losing a single member of his crew to ill-health – a sure sign to the Admiralty of his diligence in providing for his men.

  And the second one who has let him down, making Bligh even angrier, is his drunken sot of a surgeon, Dr Huggan, who has been until now hiding from Bligh how grave the situation is with Valentine. If Bligh had known earlier he personally could have taken measures to save him. But, through a combination of constant drunkenness, sheer shattering incompetence and shivering fear of the Captain’s wrath, Huggan has deliberately kept the true state of Valentine’s health to himself. Bligh had only known that Valentine had suffered a ‘slight indisposition’53 at Adventure Bay in Van Diemen’s Land, for which he was bled. Back then, Huggan had assured the Captain that the sailor would soon recover. Instead, alas – and unbeknownst to Bligh – because Huggan had taken no precautions, Valentine’s arm is now infected and terribly inflamed. In odd moments of sobriety, Huggan has tried to cure the inflammation by bleeding it some more, only to observe through his drunken haze that, ‘the inflammation increased considerably’ and now young Valentine is in his hammock, barely conscious. He is ‘seized with a hollow cough and … shortness of breath which continued to increase’.54

  Bligh had remained oblivious, right up until this very morning, when he is visited in his cabin by Master’s Mate William Elphinstone bearing grave news: ‘James Valentine is delirious and has every appearance of being in a dying state, Captain.’55

  How could this be?

  ‘The shock,’ Bligh would chronicle, ‘was scarce equal to my astonishment.’56

  One of his crew is at death’s door, and he is being told, not by the Surgeon – with whom Bligh dines every day, and whose responsibility it is to prevent precisely this – but a Master’s Mate? And yes, what was the most recent thing Huggan had told Bligh on the subject? That’s right, only that Valentine was ‘getting better’. But in all those seven weeks since the first concern for Valentine had risen at Van Diemen’s Land, the Surgeon had ‘never expressed the least uneasyness about him’.57

  Dr Huggan is sent for immediately, and even by Bligh’s standards the dressing-down he receives is noteworthy for its sheer fury.

  There is no explanation, beyond the obvious – through drunkenness and then fear, Huggan has first botched the care of Valentine, and now hidden the hideous consequences until it is too late to do anything.

  ‘I intended to tell you of it last night,’ Huggan offers lamely. ‘But as you were not alone I did not think it proper.’

  Not alone, sir?

  I dined with the Officer of the Watch, just as I do every evening – whether that is Mr Christian, Mr Fryer or Mr Peckover. You thought the news you had to bear could not be shared with them? In the meantime, I dine with you, Dr Huggan, every day! Well, Dr Huggan, what do you have to say to that? Bligh continues, in such a blazing fury, that he will even go on to mildly chastise himself in his Log noting that he was ‘perhaps severe for [Huggan’s] remissness’.58

  All Dr Huggan can offer in his own defence is that it was not until the previous night that he had recognised the severity of Valentine’s condition. And now, even more bizarrely, he rouses himself to officially inform Bligh of the very thing that the Captain has been berating him for not telling him, weeks ago.

  ‘I must inform you,’ he says gravely, and almost as if this might make things right between them, ‘that Mr Valentine has not many hours to live.’59

  Bizarre!

  ‘The strangeness of this declaration,’ Bligh records, ‘as the Man had been daily fed from our Table and he not knowing the tendency of [Valentine’s] symptoms gave me very unfavourable Ideas.’60

  The chief one of said ‘Ideas’ is that Huggan is so drunkenly incompetent that far from being the salvation of sick sailors, he is overseeing their damnation – precisely as he, Bligh, had warned the Admiralty a year ago. And now a man is knocking on death’s door thanks to this fat, negligent, incompetent drunkard, meaning that the record of Bligh as Captain will be blackened. It is infuriating to a man who is always only seconds away from a fury in the first place.

  •

  Now, while the news of Valentine and the sheer incompetence of the wretched Dr Huggan have both tilled the soil for Bligh’s rage, it is John Fryer who reaps the full harvest of the skipper’s apoplexy three days later.

  The message comes from Samuel, a blinking mess of a man perpetually hovering around the Captain, waiting to jump at the next bark.

  For yes, if you can believe it, Captain Bligh, the Master, Mr Fryer, is outright refusing to sign the ‘expense books’ – the books which record the ship’s economies – and ‘the monthly books for August and September’,61 which have already been signed by Bligh himself, just as they have been signed by the Carpenter, Mr Purcell, and the Bosun, Mr Cole. And now Mr Fryer will not add his signature to affirm the Captain’s record of events, and that all is in order?

  Bligh’s blood boils. It is Fryer’s duty to sign the damn’d book! God damn the scoundrel!

  Adding malicious insult to already heavy injury?

  Mr Fryer has actually gone well beyond a simple refusal to sign. He has a demand. And a piece of paper for the Captain. As Bligh records contemptuously in his Log: ‘The Clerk was then returned with a certificate for me to sign, before the Book could [be signed], the purport of which was that [Fryer] had been doing nothing amiss during his time on board.’62

  The hideous hide of the man!

  But what, precisely, is he playing at? Is it an attempt at blackmailing the Captain? If you agree to not mention my misdemeanours, I will sign your dubious books? Bligh will enter into no such bargain.

  ‘As I did not approve of his doing his duty conditionally I sent for him and told him of the consequence.’63

  Bligh wants Fryer to sign the books. He may make particular comments upon the pages, if he must, but he will sign them. Now.

  Well, in that
case. ‘I will not sign the books upon such conditions,’64 replies Fryer, before turning on his heel very ‘abruptly’ and leaving the Captain standing. The Master has the air about him, it has to be said, of one who believes that he is the one holding the gun. After all, Bligh, if the Master does not sign the books, then the Admiralty will be all over your books like starving ants over a piece of mouldy bread! Fryer is clearly betting that Bligh will prefer discretion to discipline …

  ‘Order all hands to be turned up,’65 Bligh barks, at which point Samuel scurries down the passageways and up the ladder to the deck like a scalded cat, spreading Bligh’s orders.

  Within minutes, all hands, all men and officers, are on deck, surrounding Bligh, Fryer, and an upturned barrel on which lies the unsigned books, a pen and a small bottle of ink.

  Sign the books, Mr Fryer.

  Fryer refuses, with a sullen shake of his head. His long, statue-like face remains stoical, his chin high.

  Very well then. Bligh has no choice but to read aloud the relevant passages from the Articles of War.

  Bligh’s point is clear. These Articles spell out, with wording as stark as a cat o’ nine tails, precisely what awaits any man who fails to do his duty, or nakedly disobeys Captain’s orders. Obviously all traitors, spies, mutineers and sodomites will hang, but they are not the only ones.

  For this brings us to you and your situation, Mr Fryer, as Bligh, with a gleam of pure malice, of fierce intent – just push me on this, Mr Fryer, just give me a chance to see this out – loudly reads out Article 14, with just his rumbling voice, the flapping of the sails and the swish of the ocean passing by to be heard: ‘If when action, or any service shall be commanded, any person in the fleet shall presume or to delay or discourage the said action or service, upon pretence of arrears of wages, or upon any pretence whatsoever, every person so offending, being convicted thereof by the sentence of the court martial, shall suffer death, or such other punishment, as from the nature and degree of the offense a court martial shall deem him to deserve.’66