Mutiny on the Bounty

by Peter Fitzsimons

  In the same letter Macquarie wrote it was ‘an undoubted fact that he is a very improper person to be employed in any situation of Trust or Command, and he is certainly detested by high, low, rich and poor’.9 Poor William Bligh, at sea when not at sea, returned home, perhaps dimly aware that history would remember him mostly as a tyrant twice overthrown, a little as the brilliant navigational genius he most certainly was, and not at all as the national hero he felt himself to be.

  At least, in his twilight years, he was given a final promotion, to Vice-Admiral of the Blue, before retiring from duty to live in Kent – sadly without Betsy for the last part, as she died in 1812, leaving him as the head of a household with four unmarried daughters.

  Whatever else, he was an old man with many extraordinary memories.

  Writing well over half a century later, in the 1870s, the Reverend Alfred Gatty would recount how, as a small boy, his parents had taken him to see the famous Captain Bligh. Ushered into the great man’s study, wee Alfred is suddenly in another world, one filled with maps, models, compasses, chronometers, and yes, Captain Bligh himself!

  Spellbound, the young lad sits on the old man’s knee as he tells tales from long ago, of places faraway, of heroes, pirates and scoundrels! Noticing an odd object hanging around Bligh’s neck, Alfred asks about it.

  What, this, lad?

  Why this, young fellow, is a musket-ball and I once used it to measure the tiny food rations we had each day for 18 men crammed into a tiny Launch, as we sailed towards a place thousands of miles away called Coupang.

  We were making good our escape from a villain by the name of Fletcher Christian and his band of brigands. Let me tell you the story.

  As the afternoon passes, and the shadows outside lengthen, the lamps are lit and Captain Bligh goes on, telling a thrilling tale that the lad will never forget: of an island kingdom filled with dusky maidens, a boy King who is carried on the backs of men and rules his own parents – Alfred likes that detail, particularly – of piracy, mutiny, starvation, wild Natives they only just escaped from, lashings, drownings and a great Captain who, betrayed by a man he thought a friend, triumphed anyway, against unbelievable odds, by completing a journey of 4000 miles in an open boat! (A feat that will never be surpassed.)

  It is an amazing story, of wild twists and turns, great heroes, terrible villains, extraordinary characters, unbelievable endings … and it is all true, every word of it.

  Though the grand old man of the sea settles easily into country life, by 1817, just seven years after returning from New South Wales, he has fallen ill, and while consulting his doctor in London’s famed Bond Street, collapses and dies. Where to spend eternity? Of course, right by dear Betsy, in the graveyard that lies behind St Mary’s Church at Lambeth.

  How significant was the Mutiny episode in his story? Significant enough that, presumably at his request, a small bread-fruit in stone adorns the top of his tomb. (In the meantime, one tragic irony of the whole bread-fruit saga was that, despite the extraordinary efforts of Bligh to complete that mission, and despite the plants flourishing in those climes, the slaves did not like the taste and it never did become the cheap source of food the slave masters had hoped for.)

  Nearby Bligh’s tomb, his and Betsy’s home is still standing, right opposite what is now the Imperial War Museum but what, back in the day, was Bethlehem Hospital for the Insane, otherwise known as ‘Bedlam’.

  Farewell, Captain Bligh. Whatever else we’ll say about you, you were the most compelling character in this stunning saga, a brilliant bastard like they don’t make anymore, a tornado of temper, a superb survivor and undoubtedly the finest navigator of your generation.

  And whoever took your coconuts that morning really has a case to answer …

  •

  Sir Joseph Banks, the puppetmaster behind so much of what happened on the Bounty, as well as the aftermath, remained an enormously influential figure in British society for a good 30 years after the Mutiny on the Bounty.

  What a life he led, what an influence he wielded. The dashing young scientist who cut such a swathe through the Tahitian maidens on his first visit with Captain Cook in 1769 went on to be perhaps the most influential man of science of his time and President of the Royal Society for an extraordinary 42 years.

  Today few realise how much this founding father of Australia was involved in the affair of the Bounty. Bligh was his hand-picked hero and it was Banks who rode shotgun on his career and reputation thereafter (in the process defending his own judgement). And he did it all very well. Like Bligh, he was a man of genius, but Banks had two invaluable skills that Bligh never had: diplomacy and discretion. He lived to the ripe old age of 77, finally dying at his home, in London, on 19 June 1820.

  •

  Perhaps even more remarkably, despite having only narrowly escaped the noose, and then being publicly associated with Edward Christian’s attempts to set the record straight about Bligh, Peter Heywood also rose in the ranks of the Royal Navy and was even promoted to Captain in 1803 at the age of 31, five years younger than Bligh was when he first gained that honour. (Tragically, the woman who had done so much to see Peter freed, his sister, Nessy Heywood, was not there to see his triumph, as she had died within 12 months of his liberation, a fever and inflammation of the lungs leading to an early grave. I weep.)

  Why was Peter Heywood such a good Captain, and promoted so rapidly? One can’t help but speculate …

  Perhaps, just as Michelangelo is celebrated for having said that it was easy to sculpt the statue of David, as all he had to do was start with a block of marble and chip away anything that didn’t look like the lad, so too did Heywood know that the art of man-management was to use Bligh as the example of what not to do. In any case, Heywood went on to a quarter-century of captaincy, with a distinguished career entirely untouched by reprimand or scandal, let alone anything that even looked like a mutiny.

  One episode in his career, however, bears particular repeating. It occurs in 1816, just months before his retirement, when he is in command of HMS Montagu. Having just dropped anchor at Gibraltar, he hears an intriguing story from one of his fellow Captains in one of the popular taverns. Apparently two Natives from a distant island in the Pacific had been kidnapped as slaves by a Spanish ship, only to escape. They have made their way here, and now are begging for help from the nearest British ship, the Calypso.

  Do tell?

  And what island in the Pacific are they from?

  I believe it is called Tahiti.

  Excited, Captain Heywood sends for the men, and the two wild-eyed escapees, so far from home, so brutalised by what has occurred, are brought to his cabin.

  What now? Are they to be shot, perhaps? Tied to the mast, and lashed some more?

  But no, strangely, this grand-looking man, this Captain of this enormous ship, rises as they enter, throws his arms wide and says: ‘Ma now, wa, Eho maa! Yowra t’Eatooa te hare a mye!’ (Welcome my friends! God save you in coming here!)10

  Yes, even after all this time, Heywood can still speak the Tahitian language, just as he still harbours wonderful memories of his time in the island paradise. What a pleasure, thus, to be able to welcome, speak to, and help two men from this place of his dreams. Later, he would recount:

  They could scarce believe their ears when I accosted them in a language so dear to them, and which, except by each other, they had not heard pronounced since they were torn from their country. They seemed at the moment electrified. A rush of past recollections at once filled their minds, and then, in a tone and with an expression peculiar to these people; and strikingly mournful, they sighed out together and in unison:

  ‘Attaye, huoy ay! Attaye huoy to tawa Venooa, my tye ay! Ita rota ye heo ay!’ (Alas! Alas! Our Good country, we shall never see it more!)

  I took each by the hand and told them, that if I lived they should be sent home to their country, and assured them, that in the mean time they should remain with me, and that I would be their countryman, the
ir friend and protector. Poor fellows! They were quite overwhelmed – their tears flowed apace – and they wept the thankfulness they could not express.11

  For now, the men stay in the Captain’s cabin late in the night, talking of Tahiti, of their experiences, of how Captain Heywood will get them home once more. Despite the unhappiness they have been through, the Englishman is struck forcefully by the realisation that these two Natives are so much more innately happy than the civilisation into which they have been dragged. Writing a letter to a friend that chronicles the encounter, he notes the depth of longing these men have to return to Tahiti, ‘and God knows … so do I, that is not to be wondered at’.12 His empathy and immediate sense of brotherhood with these two exiles is instant and profound: ‘But there is no describing the state of one’s mind in witnessing the sensibilities of another fellow being, with a conviction, at the same time, that they are true and unaffected. And good God! With what ease is that discovered. What an amazing difference there is between these children of nature and the pupils of art and refinement!’13

  Captain Heywood cannot help himself, and suddenly remembering what he had back then, now laments the state of the modern world ‘where polish teaches to conceal, except among the poor and untaught “savages” of the island which gave these men birth – where plenty and content are the portion of all, unalloyed by care, envy or ambition. Where labour is needless and want unknown. At least, such it was twenty-five years ago. And after all that is said and done among us great and wise people of the earth, pray what do we all toil for … but to reach, at last, the very state to which they are born – ease of circumstances and the option of being idle or as busy as we please? But if I go on this way you will say I am a savage, and so I believe I am, and ever shall be in some points, but let that pass … Upon the whole, there is more general happiness among them, than among any people I have met with on earth; so that I am very sure, the less we teach them of our arts and sciences, the better for themselves … But of this matter I have said more than enough, perhaps, and more than I intended.’14

  Heywood keeps his word, and does indeed ensure these two Tahitian men return to their island, though personally he will never set foot there again. Instead, he retires, returns to England and settles back to an easy life in his London home, surrounded by family, his aristocratic wife, Francis – they were married in 1816 – and fine friends. Peter Heywood died at home in England, in February 1831, aged 58, of a stroke. A decade before that he’d privately published a dictionary of the Tahitian language, though no copy has survived to the present day.

  •

  James Morrison also returned to naval service and, like Peter Heywood, continued to rise through the ranks. By 1806 he had achieved the rank of Master Gunner when, alas, the ship he was serving on, the Blenheim, sank with all hands off Madagascar in 1807.

  As to the journal that he had penned, that, too, very nearly sank without trace courtesy of the efforts of Sir Joseph Banks, who – with all the damaging information therein about Bligh – reportedly did everything possible to prevent its publication. He would have succeeded entirely, bar one thing. Peter Heywood had kept a copy of this means of his redemption, and long after he had died, his step-daughter was rummaging in the attic one afternoon when she came across it, started reading, and was instantly transfixed. And so it was that, 63 years after his death, the prose of James Morrison was finally put in the public domain by being published, and that step-daughter, Lady Belcher, became one of the first Bounty historians.

  Undoubtedly, however, Morrison’s greatest legacy was less his writing and much more his Tahitian-built boat, the Cutter Resolution. For after it had delivered those stranded sailors of the Pandora to safety at Samarang, it was sold to the Captain of HMS Providence, who placed it on board his ship. In 1797, when the Providence was wrecked off the coast of Formosa and sank, the Resolution knew its finest hour, going back and forth taking 112 shivering British sailors to safety, on dry land, instead of drowning. Sir John Barrow, one of the earliest chroniclers of the whole Bounty saga, loved the story of the Resolution and the wonderful postscript it provided, noting that, according to the men he spoke to, ‘she was a remarkably swift sailer, and being afterwards employed in the sea-otter trade, is stated to have made one of the quickest passages ever known from China to the Sandwich Islands’.15

  A good effort for a 30-foot vessel, knocked together with perspiration, elbow-grease, bread-fruit sap and hog lard.

  Bravo, James Morrison.

  •

  Memories of the other characters, of course, would also live on. George Stewart – who left Tahiti in Pandora’s box, with his beloved Peggy and infant daughter Charlotte in his wake – had a sister, Margaret. She was still alive in 1869, when at the age of 92, an ancient Victorian lady, she said of the tattooed 21-year-old young buck of a brother she’d last seen some 80 years earlier, ‘whether or not the Bounty was the first ship George sailed in I do not know, but, poor fellow, it was his last’.16

  •

  Another Royal Navy ship arrived in Pitcairn in November 1825, when Captain Frederick Beechey of HMS Blossom dropped anchor and came ashore, finding the Christian community thriving, as reported, and still presided over by Alec Smith, who, ‘in his sixty-fifth year, was unusually strong and active … He still retained his sailor’s gait, doffing his hat and smoothing down his bald forehead whenever addressed by the officers …’17

  Captain Beechey talked to him extensively, taking notes, and later provided a full report titled Narrative of a Voyage to the Pacific and Beering’s Strait, regarded as the most reliable report of events on Pitcairn as Smith, now assured he would never be prosecuted, ‘Apprehension for his safety formed no part of his thoughts’,18 was much more forthcoming about what had occurred.

  For his part, once he has established that Beechey is no danger, Alec Smith is even more delighted at his arrival as he now asks a favour of the Captain: ‘It would add much to my happiness if you would read a marriage ceremony for me and my wife. I cannot bear the thought of living with her without it being done.’19

  Sure enough, the following day, 17 December 1825, old Alec Smith and his bed-ridden, blind wife are able to stop living in sin, and are finally united in the eyes of God, as Captain Beechey conducts a Christian ceremony with all the trimmings. The Christian conscience of Alec can now be put to rest on this point, at least.

  In March 1829, the day after his 66th birthday, Alec was ailing badly. He is still unchallenged as the paterfamilias of the whole Pitcairn tribe, and no fewer than 140 Pitkerners are hoping he will pull through.

  Alas, alas, late in the day, as the light fades, he takes a turn for the worse. ‘He said in a whisper,’ a family member would recount, ‘as his countenance lighted up with joy “Let go the anchor” and fell back upon his pillow and died.’20

  And here endeth, friends, the final psalm beneath the palms, of an extraordinary life.

  •

  Jenny turned out to be one of the great sources, and shrewdest observers, of what happened at Tahiti, on the Bounty, and then at Pitcairn. Interviewed first for a daily Sydney newspaper and then for a United States naval magazine, she proved to be a fount of information, including providing the precious names of all the original women on Pitcairn and which of the men they were matched to, voluntarily or otherwise. Even her silence could be remarkably telling. For example, Jenny has a crystal-clear recollection of who killed who on the island, but does not name who so dismayed Fletcher Christian by shooting one button-admiring Native on the way there. I have drawn the conclusion it is Alec Smith, because she does not name who it was. There is only one Mutineer left alive when Jenny is interviewed; Alec Smith, her former partner and still a possible threat. Jenny is also atypically vague when it comes to naming who set fire to the Bounty. Alec Smith says it was Matt Quintal, but again I would wager that, at the very least, Alec Smith helped with this arson. Nearing the end of her life, in 1820, Jenny actually left Pitcairn on the American ship Sult
an, sailed to Chile, the Marquesas and then returned to Tahiti ‘after an absence of thirty one years’.21

  •

  Isabella – my favourite, with Nessy! – never took another lover after Fletcher’s death, and never remarried. She died on Pitcairn on 19 September 1841, likely of influenza. She was about 72 years old. An extraordinary woman, whose life had encompassed the historic visit of Captain Cook to Tahiti in 1777, the visit of Bligh, the revisit by the Mutineers, the flight to Pitcairn and establishment of their colony there, she was one of the last survivors of all those who sailed with Christian, the matriarch of 200 Pitkerners.

  •

  Isabella’s death left Teraura as the last person left standing from those who had first landed on Pitcairn from the Bounty, before it was burnt. Ned Young’s first wife, she had decapitated Tetaheite while he slept, and, aged 30, she married 15-year-old Thursday October Christian, thereby bearing grandchildren to the Mutineers as well as children. She died in 1850.

  •

  Master John Fryer and Captain Bligh never repaired their relationship. Years after returning to England, Fryer asked Bligh for a reference. Bligh declined. Fryer remained in the Royal Navy until 1812. He was never promoted. He died in 1817 aged 63.

  •

  Having survived the wreck of the Pandora, Thomas Hayward was lucky once more, four years later, when he also survived being shipwrecked in the Diomede off Ceylon. Alas, just two years later, when his first command, the Swift, sank in the South China Sea in 1797, Captain Hayward was lost with all his men. He was just 30 years old.

  •