Fryer informed Bligh of Purcell’s disobedience when Bligh returned to the ship with other members of the shore parties, who would have watched the encounter closely. Facing the broad Pacific and backed by a mountainous land so remote that only four ships from the outside world had ever previously touched it, Bligh had only his own authority with which to confront the carpenter.
“[M]y directions and presence had as little effect,” Bligh recorded ominously. Purcell had refused to back down. Confinement of Purcell until such time as he could be brought to court-martial would rob Bligh of the carpenter’s skills and, in theory, other able-bodied work. Or so Bligh himself reasoned as he matter-of-factly devised a novel form of punishment: “I therefore Ordered the different Persons evidence to be drawn out and attested, and then gave Orders that untill he Worked he should have no provisions, and promised faithfully a severe Punishment to any Man that dared to Assist him.”
Bligh was satisfied with the result of this action, “which immediatly brought [him] to his senses. . . . It was for the good of the Voyage that I should not make him or any Man a prisoner,” Bligh concluded his account of the event. “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.”
James Morrison gives an oblique, deliberately evasive reference to the confrontation, from which it is impossible to cull hard facts. But a single statement is unambiguous: here, says Morrison, in Adventure Bay “were sown seeds of eternal discord between Lieut. Bligh & the Carpenter, and it will be no more than true to say, with all the Officers in general.” Fryer was probably one of these other officers; Bligh’s observation that he had to repeat his orders to the master (“I repeated my injunctions to the Comm’g Officer Mr. Fryer”) is subtly troubling. Christian was in charge of the wood party, whose task of rafting timber through heavy surf seems to have been particularly difficult; now under personal obligation to Bligh, had he too been found lacking?
Bligh’s log ticked on, with descriptions of native encounters, lists of shrubs and herbaceous plants, and careful surveys of adjacent land. For him, the crisis with the carpenter had been satisfactorily addressed and the incident was closed.
The Bounty left the wooded shores of Adventure Bay on September 5 and headed into more wet, misty weather. A few days out, the southern lights, “as Red as blood,” inflamed the clouded sky. At night, phosphorescent medusae, long tentacled jellyfish, glowed from beneath the sea. South of New Zealand, the ship unexpectedly came upon “a parcell of Rocky Islands,” devoid of all greenery, but patched with late snow—a discovery. Their position was duly laid down by Bligh and logged. “I have called them the Bountys Isles,” he recorded solemnly.
The Bounty plowed onward through often dark, cloudy weather and thick fogs, punctuated with gales of rain. Bligh’s log checked off each day’s consumed miles: 177, 175, 141. From England to Tahiti, the Bounty would eventually log 28,086 miles. Between his duties on deck, Bligh retired amid the pots to his cabin, and there, while his ship thrummed through the Pacific swells, carefully wrote up his log, made his natural history observations, and refined his charts and sketches. The odds and ends of plants he had collected at the Cape for Tahiti held majestic sway over the great cabin, where he checked them approvingly from time to time. There are few more touching images in his ship’s saga than this, the industrious lieutenant conscientiously acting the role of Captain Cook in his own miniature ship.
Crowded in their own quarters, the Bounty’s men stoked the galley stove that both dried their wet clothing and filled the air with choking smoke. The entire company was again on two-thirds rations of bread, or unpalatable hardtack, sensibly so, as the remainder of the voyage was unpredictable. In accordance with naval regulations, the men would receive monetary compensation for such reductions on return to England.
Now nine months out, friendships and factions had been formed. Among the young gentlemen, Peter Heywood and George Stewart had become firm friends. Fletcher Christian and young Heywood also had so much in common it was natural they too sought each other out, and Christian appears to have taken Heywood under his wing, helping him, Heywood claimed, with his mathematical and classical studies. Heywood was greatly admiring of his older friend, who had impressed the entire company with his athletic feats: Christian could balance a musket on the palm of his outstretched arm and could make a standing jump from inside one barrel to another. Of the first ship on which he had served, the Eurydice, it had been reported to Christian’s family that the young man had ruled over his inferiors “in a superior pleasant Manner,” that he had made “Toil a pleasure”; Christian’s stint before the mast under Bligh in the West Indies may have enhanced his instinctive, easy dealings with the lower deck, and all evidence suggests he was well liked on the Bounty.
In accordance with naval custom, and as Cook had done in turn for him, Bligh had his young gentlemen and other officers join him in rotation at his table. The habit was to be somewhat revised on this last leg.
“During this passage Mr. Bligh and His Mess mates the Master & Surgeon fell out, and seperated,” wrote Morrison, with his infallible eye for trouble, “each taking his part of the stock, & retiring to live in their own Cabbins, after which they had several disputes & seldom spoke but on duty; and even then with much apperant reserve.” When Bligh invited his young gentlemen to dine, they joined his solitude.
The causes of the disputes with Fryer and the disagreeable Huggan are described at length by Bligh in his private and official logs. On the morning of October 9, as the Bounty cut through a rare smooth sea, Bligh sent the ship’s several expense books to Fryer for the master’s usual bimonthly inspection and signature. The books were shortly returned to Bligh accompanied by a certificate drafted by Fryer, “the Purport of which,” Bligh recorded, “was that he had done nothing amiss during his time on board.” Unless Bligh signed the certificate, Fryer would not sign the books.
Summoning the master, Bligh informed him that he “did not approve of his doing his duty conditionally,” at which Fryer abruptly left. This time, Bligh’s instincts were sure and his reaction swift. Ordering all hands on deck, he read the Articles of War, “with particular parts of the Instructions relative to the Matter.” Fryer was instructed to sign the books or “express his reasons [for not complying] at full length at the bottom of the Page.”
“I sign in obedience to your Orders, but this may be Cancelled hereafter,” Morrison reported that Fryer intoned as he signed. Morrison’s sly suggestion was that Bligh had been caught fiddling the books, which if true would have cost him his career. But his very public actions defy this interpretation: Bligh was not about to countenance a furtive quid pro quo with his Master. “[T]his troublesome Man saw his error & before the whole Ships Company signed the Books” was Bligh’s report.
There are indications that Fryer might have had reason for concern about his performance as master—Bligh’s glancing reference to his need to repeat orders about Purcell at Adventure Bay being one. More immediately, Fryer may have had in mind the events of just three days earlier—events Bligh described with shock and anger in his private log but omitted in the official log he presented to the Admiralty.
On this day, William Elphinstone, one of the master’s mates, came to Bligh with wholly unexpected news: James Valentine, a twenty-eight-year-old able seaman, had incurred a bad infection after being bled by surgeon Huggan for an ailment contracted at Adventure Bay. Bligh was informed that Valentine was delirious “and had every appearance of being in a dying state.”
“This shock was scarce equal to my astonishment,” Bligh almost gasped, “as the Surgeon had told me he was getting better, and had never expressed the least uneasyness about him.” When summoned, Huggan explained that, oh yes—he had meant to tell Bligh the night before at dinner, only Bligh had a guest (the officer of the watch) and he had not thought it proper to say anything at the time, but, yes, it was true: James Valentine had only hours to live.
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sp; Where was the ship’s master? Where was the acting lieutenant? Above all, where was the assistant surgeon? How had it transpired that Bligh had only learned, belatedly and almost by happenstance, of so serious a development? Bligh immediately visited the stricken man, who was “seized with a violent hollow Cough and spit much.” He had been treated by Huggan with blisters, applied to his breast, for what the surgeon had diagnosed as an asthmatic complaint.
On October 10, the day after the altercation with Master Fryer, Bligh recorded the death of Seaman Valentine in his official log.
“This poor man was one of the most robust People on board,” he reflected, “and therefore the Surprize and shock was the greater to me.” Forgoing the customary auction of the deceased man’s effects, Bligh directed that his meager possessions be given to the two men who had cared for him on his deathbed “with great care and Affection.” On the following day, as the ship progressed under light breezes and fine rain, Valentine’s remains were committed to the deep.
Bligh’s perfect record of health was now irrevocably spoiled, and it had been spoiled by his beastly sot of a surgeon, aided by the apparent indifference of his officers. Four days after Valentine’s death, three of the older seamen who had formerly complained of “the Rheumatism” were diagnosed with symptoms of scurvy. Bligh was beside himself with frustration and disbelief; had he himself not written in his dissertation on the healthful “Mode of Management” that “the Scurvy is realy a disgrace to a ship”?
Bligh embarked upon a frantic application of his most trusted defenses—portable soup and essence of malt, the latter served at a ratio of three tablespoons to a quart of water, “[t]his being the Surgeons opinion was sufficient”; despite his misgivings and distaste for Huggan, Bligh was still dependent on his professional opinion, such as it was.
Was it scurvy, or was it something else? Throughout the rest of the voyage, all the way to Tahiti, the question hounded Bligh, who returned to it again and again in his log. On October 17, he dosed up the three men who had complained of rheumatism with malt, sauerkraut, and less usefully, vinegar and mustard—everything, it would seem, that he could think of. The next day he examined other men “who the Doctor supposed had a taint of the Scurvy” but found only the symptoms of prickly heat. The Bounty was now back up to the twenty-fifth parallel, after all, and temperatures had risen well into the seventies.
On the afternoon of the nineteenth, as the ship ambled along in fair but windless weather, John Mills, the forty-year-old gunner’s mate from Aberdeen, and William Brown, the assistant gardener, refused to participate in the mandatory evening dancing. Perhaps the higher temperature was taking a toll, or perhaps the men were just fed up with what they regarded as tedious nonsense. On being informed, Bligh’s response was to stop the offenders’ grog, “with a promise of further punishment on a Second Refusal”; the stopping of grog had been one of Cook’s stratagems.
“I have always directed the Evenings from 5 to 8’ O’Clock to be spent in dancing,” Bligh registered with a tone of aggrieved self-righteousness in his log, “& that every Man should be Obliged to dance as I considered it conducive to their Health.”
Only hours later, Bligh had to log a second entry about the incident: “Wm Brown complaining of some Rheumatic Complaints which he has had these three Weeks past, the Doctor insists upon it that it is Scurvey.” So Brown, it seems, had turned to the doctor for moral support. Bligh himself, however, could discover no such symptoms. Determinedly, he pushed forward with his “decoctions” of essence of malt, noting, “I have Ordered the Doctor to issue it himself.”
“If able,” he had added in the original entry of his private log, which also noted that Huggan had been “constantly drunk these last four days.” Toward the end of this frustrating Sunday, all hands were mustered for the usual inspection.
“I think I never saw a more healthy set of Men and so decent looking in my life,” Bligh exclaimed in exasperation to his log. Bligh knew what scurvy looked like and could find no symptoms—no “eruptions or swellings,” no bleeding gums or loose teeth. Yet the real interest in this protracted incident, of course, has less to do with whether or not there was scurvy on the Bounty than whether or not Bligh was being toyed with. Was Huggan getting back at Bligh for his anger over Valentine’s death with a vindictive but unassailable diagnosis of the disease Bligh most feared—a gambit instantly appreciated and exploited by the appreciative and all-knowing seamen?
On October 23, Huggan sent Bligh an updated sick list, with his own name on it under the complaint “Rheumatism.” Twenty-four hours later, he issued a revised list that gave his complaint as “Paralytic Affection.” Later in the same day, however, as Bligh noted, Huggan was “discovered to be able to get out of bed and look for liquor,” his paralysis notwithstanding. With this, Bligh’s patience snapped and he gave orders for the surgeon’s filthy cabin to be searched and all liquor removed, an “operation that was not only troublesome but offensive in the highest degree.” Successfully deprived of alcohol, Huggan made a shaky appearance on deck the next day, tenuously sober. The timing of his recovery was excellent, as the Bounty was less than a day away from Matavai Bay and only hours away from sighting land. Bligh urgently wished his surgeon to perform one important medical office before landfall. Ever since the first European ship had arrived at Tahiti, sailors had infected the islanders with “the venereals”; the French claimed the English were responsible for the devastation the disease had wrought, while the English pointed out that the Tahitians themselves had implicated the French. Bligh wanted Huggan “to examine very particularly every Man and Officer” for any sign of the disease before arriving at the island. Huggan did so and, to the universal joy of the company, declared “every person totally free from the Venereal complaint.”
The next day brought the Bounty to Tahiti.
TAHITI
Beneath the island’s volcanic pinnacles, the Bounty passed around the surf-pounded reef beyond Point Venus. Already she was hailed by throngs of canoes; and when Bligh called out that he had come from Britain, or “Pretanee,” the delighted islanders swarmed onto the ship, “and in ten Minutes,” wrote Bligh, “I could scarce find my own people.”
The old-timers—Nelson, the gardener, William Peckover, the gunner, Armorer Joseph Coleman and Bligh himself—greeted and were greeted with warm recognition. The remainder of the crew now learned that the stories that had filled their ears throughout the long, hard outward voyage—about the island’s beauty, its sexually uninhibited women, its welcoming people—were not tall tales, or sailors’ fantasy. Beyond the ship, its undulating slopes and valleys, gullies and dramatic peaks casting shifting green-blue shadows in the morning sun, rose the vision of Tahiti. Below, the blue sea around them was clogged with cheerful canoes that had come laden with gifts of plantains, coconuts and hogs. And filling the deck, milling and laughing around them, were the tall, clean-limbed, smooth-skinned Tahitians. The Bounty men—bowlegged, pockmarked, scarred and misshapen, toothless and, despite Bligh’s best efforts, very dirty—regarded the improbably handsome, dark-haired islanders with both appetite and awe. Their brown skin gleaming with perfumed oil, garlanded with flowers, and flashing smiles with strong white teeth such as few Englishmen had ever seen, these superior men and women were also friendly and accessible. Significantly, all cases of scurvy were quickly cured; even Morrison allowed “that in a few days of arrival there was no appearance of sickness or disorder in the ship.”
The following day, October 27, maneuvering around canoes and people, Bligh successfully worked the Bounty into Matavai Bay, and dropped anchor. Under the escort of a chief named Poeno, Bligh was taken to Point Venus, the peninsula that formed the northeast point of Matavai Bay, from where in 1769, Cook had observed the transit of Venus. Standing under the graceful and now familiar coconut palms, the surf breaking against the lava-black beach, Bligh seems to have drawn a deep breath of happiness.
It had been Bligh’s original plan to conceal Captain C
ook’s death from the Tahitians; Cook was held in such high esteem that a portrait of him, left as a gift eleven years earlier, was still in good repair. But some three months before the Bounty’s arrival, another foreign ship—apparently the first since Cook’s departure—had brought news of his terrible death at the hands of the Sandwich Islanders. Nonetheless, David Nelson—with or without Bligh’s prompting is unclear—introduced Bligh as “Cook’s son” to the local dignitaries; they are reported to have received this news with much satisfaction, although subsequent interactions suggest this was not perhaps taken by them as a literal truth.
On November 1, Bligh set out on a scouting trip to Oparre, a district to the west of Matavai. In order to uproot and carry off the large number of breadfruit he sought, he needed the permission of all the various chiefs with jurisdiction over the areas in which he would be working. A visit to pay his respects to the Ari’i Rahi, the six-year-old king of Oparre, took him inland toward the hills, “through the delightful breadfruit flats of Oparre,” which were cut by a serpentine river. In the course of the day, the two parties entertained each other, the Tahitians offering an impromptu heiva, or dancing festival, Bligh a demonstration of his pocket pistol.
Before returning to his ship, Bligh contemplated the scenes of the day—the sparkling streams and green glades of the interior, and the dramatic sweep of the palm-rimmed lava beach of Matavai Bay. “These two places,” he reflected, “are certainly the Paradise of the World, and if happiness could result from situation and convenience, here it is to be found in the highest perfection. I have seen many parts of the World,” he continued in this remarkably personal entry, “but Otaheite is capable of being preferable to them all.”
The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty Page 13
