The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty

by Caroline Alexander

  On the other hand, as was swiftly becoming evident, the interest shown in Peter’s case amounted to more than just better living conditions. Captain Pasley’s pronouncements on the bleakness of Peter’s case notwithstanding, his efforts on his nephew’s behalf had been tireless; he already acquired a legal adviser, John Delafons, who was a senior purser with the reputation for being an authority on naval courts-martial. Under Delafons’s friendly direction, Peter had promptly sent a petition to the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty requesting the favor of a speedy trial. As Peter told Nessy, this had been done so as to “have the desired effect of speedily making my guilt or Innocence known to the world”; all parties had been strictly advised, as they repeatedly reminded one another, that Peter’s correspondence, ingoing and outgoing, would be closely read by outside parties. Nonetheless, even without matters spelled out, Nessy was quick to perceive that a speedy trial had advantages to Peter other than allowing him to clear his name. As she herself discreetly wrote, “Mr. Bligh is gone to the South Sea—but we must hope for the best.” The best was obviously that the trial would take place before Bligh returned.

  On July 10, amid a haze of early morning rain, Captain Sir Andrew Snape Hamond and Captain John Colpoys hoisted their pennants on their respective ships, the Bedford and the Hannibal. Colpoys was one of the hardest-serving captains around, having been at sea in active service for an unbroken period of thirty-seven years, even though he had just turned fifty. Before being appointed to the Hannibal in 1790, he had served in the East and West Indies, the North American station, the Channel and the Mediterranean.

  Sir Andrew Snape Hamond was a protégé of the great Lord Howe—Richard “Black Dick” Howe, the former First Lord of the Admiralty, commander of the Channel fleet, and the recently appointed Vice Admiral of England. Hamond, a fearless and brilliant tactician, had proved himself worthy of such a mentor, as he pulled off a number of audacious feats during the American war. Handsome and aristocratic, Hamond exuded an air of dashing impetuosity. Now in his midfifties, he had been captain of the third-rate Bedford for just under a year; he too, as Pasley reassured Peter, was another “particular friend.”

  The Hannibal and Bedford got under way to join the rest of Lord Hood’s fleet on patrol. Since Hood’s presence was absolutely required to convene the court-martial, the movements of the fleet were followed with close attention. Although the interested parties were still in dreadful suspense, it was possible to forecast a trial sometime within the next few months.

  Nessy Heywood’s desire to fly to her brother had been thwarted by the concerned advice of all her male relatives, Peter included, who were concerned that the sight of her brother in leg irons would send her into shock. In any case, “no female relations would be permitted,” as Peter told her; and Nessy at length was forced to concede, as Mr. Heywood had advised her, that it was best for Peter to remain “cool & composed,” a state of mind that seems to have been tacitly and universally acknowledged as impossible to maintain with Nessy present. A vague plan to send out Peter’s brother James was also scotched, on the grounds of his well-known “Warmth of Temper”; as Nessy told Peter, even the appearance of “the least Imprudence or want of Caution” was to be dreaded while he was in his present precarious situation.

  Instead, Peter and Nessy attempted to catch up with each other’s lives through their now faithful correspondence. While his first, lengthy letter had given the outline of his many tumultuous adventures, even on the quiet home front there was news to report. Peter would find his family in a new house, Nessy told her brother, one with a fine view of the sea. As for the family parlor, it was now chiefly decorated with Nessy’s organ, “upon which I practice with unceasing assiduity that I may entertain my loved Peter; & which while sorrowing for his mournful & tedious absence was my chief amusement & consolation. . . .” Grandfather Spedding had died but not left an expected bequest; Henry, Peter’s thirteen-year-old brother, was in Jamaica, after a fearful, tempestuous passage; old Birket, the family servant, was still alive, God bless her; an uncle had had the good fortune to win £15,000 in the lottery; Peter’s drawing of Nader Shah was now hung over the mantelpiece—just why this young teenager should have chosen to immortalize the sacker of Delhi and plunderer of the Peacock Throne is not addressed.

  It was probably around this time that Peter received the last letter his father had written to him, at the end of 1788. While recounting local and national news, such as the death and health of various Manx neighbors and the crisis caused by the insanity that had recently gripped the King, the letter was mostly a painful exercise in desperate pride as Peter John Heywood attempted to provide his son with a believable if wholly false explanation of why the Duke of Atholl had fired him. Enclosed with the letter were twelve tiny woodcock wing feathers to be used as delicate brushes for Peter’s miniaturist paintings. These appear to have been the only legacy his father left Peter. The letter closed with a request to give his “respectful Compliments to Captain Bligh.”

  For his part, Peter sent to his family skillful sketches of the wreck of the Pandora and the camp established on the white-hot key, all those months and miles ago in the Pacific. In answer to Nessy’s request, he also attempted a portrait of himself wearing one of the straw hats he had woven to pass the time in Batavia.

  “I had no Looking Glass, therefore drew it from Recollection; & ’tis now one year at least since I saw my own Face,” he told her. Nessy did not recognize the thin, pale face of this miniature and was shocked at the news that her brother stood only five foot seven and one half inches in his stocking feet.

  “I am surpized you are not taller,” exclaimed Nessy, who was perhaps handicapped by a conventional sense of what a young hero should look like. “I fully expected you wou’d have been 5 Feet 10 at least.” The brother who had left with the Bounty was a well-proportioned young man, with a fair complexion and light brown hair.

  “[L]et me ask you this,” Peter rejoined with some energy, recalling the horror of Pandora’s Box. “[S]uppose the last two years of your growth had been retarded by close Confinement nearly deprived of all kinds of necessary Aliment—shut up from the all-chearing Light of the sun for the space of five months—& never suffered to breathe the fresh Air . . . without any kind of Exercise to stretch & supple my Limbs—. . . how tall shou’d you have been my dear sister?”

  As the dismal, overcast summer wore on, naval life at Portsmouth continued with serene indifference to the fate of the captives. The lords of the Admiralty paid a visit to the Hector on business unrelated to the Bounty’s men. Down in the gun room, the ten prisoners would have been unlikely to have missed the sounds of pomp and ceremony overhead, the thirteen-gun salute and tramp of smart boots. In fact there were many salutes given this summer, twenty-four guns for the Duke and Duchess of York as they left Portsmouth Dockyard, nineteen guns as the lords of the Admiralty passed the Hector on their way to Spithead, salutes on the arrival of various captains and foreign dignitaries. Above and below deck, the mundane routine of a working ship carried on, deliveries and stowage of provisions, washing of decks, and administration of punishment. A court-martial of the boatswain of the Edgar “for charges of embezzlement of stores” was held on August 1.

  Shackled as they were, the prisoners spent most of their time sitting and waiting for news, reports, visitors and any diversion. Peter at least whiled away the days drawing sketches and reading the books that were delivered to him by his many well-wishers. But all this was difficult in the bare, dim room whose only light fell in long, low horizontal bars through the gun ports. And Montagu’s special care notwithstanding, the weeks of impotent waiting had begun to take a toll.

  “I fear owing to Perturbation of Mind I felt I may have inserted some weak & foolish Nonsense unworthy of a Man,” Peter apologized to Nessy for words written in a previous letter. Nessy for her part was also becoming increasingly wrought and inclined to be less sympathetic than before to Mr. Bligh for branding her “amiable Brother w
ith the vile appellation of Mutineer. . . .

  “His cruelty and Barbarity in loading you with so approbrious an Epithet is therefore the more unpardonable or will so far from injuring you my dearest Peter recoil upon himself,” wrote Nessy in loyal but incoherent passion. She derived much satisfaction from the report of a family friend that “every lady” believed in Peter’s innocence. From time to time, the voices of Peter’s other brothers and sisters intruded, expressing deference to Nessy as much as support of Peter; there was little question who was running the family show.

  “My Dearest Brother,” wrote Isabella Heywood, in a brief epistle, “[m]y sister Nessy has permitted me to express my joy in your arrival.” “[W]e envy Nessy the pleasure she will have in being with you,” wrote Eliza. This was long after the official family determination had been made not to allow Nessy to travel to the mainland, but evidently Nessy kept hope alive in the Douglas parlor.

  In early August, the Hector’s lieutenant of marines informed the prisoners that the Dutch East Indiaman carrying their old shipmate Thomas Hayward had been spoken off the Isle of Wight. The ship was bound up channel to Holland, but Hayward was expected in England shortly via a packet. His arrival would mean that all the “evidences” for the court-martial were returned.

  The sobering news was shortly followed by a letter from Nessy containing a trumpet blast of her poetry (“Come gentle Muse, I woo thee once again . . .”). And it may be that her poetic effort, combined with the arrival of his former shipmate, stirred memories in Peter, for only days later he sent his sister a long and remarkable poem that he, in his turn, had written in Tahiti. Weaving together regret for events past and submission to his eventual fate, the poem is above all a passionate hymn to Tahiti. The poem, Peter explained to Nessy, had been composed following a dream whose powerful effect he would never forget. Remarkably, the dream had occurred on February 6, 1790, which, as Peter had only recently learned, had been the very day of his father’s death.

  “I hammer’d at it while at ’Taheite,” Peter wrote of his poem, “& after writing it I learnt it by Heart.” The poem described his soulful and solitary walks along Matavai’s black beach at night, under the stately fronded palms when the only companions to his thoughts had been the “wakeful crickets” and moon-reflecting sea. Here in the paradise of the world Peter had nursed his “secret Melancholy,” the painful knowledge that he was an exile.

  Of all the flatt’ring Hopes which reign’d within

  His Breast, when first his native Home he left,

  Now baffled all! by one Man’s fatal Sin,

  Hopeless alas!

  In Peter’s dream, a divine presence had answered his lamentations with the reminder that whatever might befall him was God’s will:

  Nor can there ever happen an Event,

  But Providence hath wisely it thought fit;

  And ’tis by his Omnisciency, meant

  Some greatly good, and useful End to hit.

  To this dream, Peter now wrote to Nessy, “I owe . . . all my present serenity, & it was this alone which enabled me to support the many Troubles I have had to encounter.” This state of religious submission was what Peter strove to maintain throughout the harrowing weeks ahead. He would be bombarded with advice, encouragement, solace and the prattle of Nessy’s bright optimism; but through it all Peter attempted to enter some quiet, dark, interior place that he had long prepared for himself—and to brace for the worst.

  From early August, Portsmouth enjoyed a rare spell of fair, mild weather. Captain Montagu had his people busy working up junk, or old cordage, into swabs, sitting on deck to enjoy the fine clear days. The Prince of Liechtenstein came on board for a brief visit, and was solemnly received with thirteen guns. On Sundays, divine service was performed by the ship’s chaplain, the Reverend Mr. Cole; the prisoners too were permitted benefit of clergy.

  Tuesday, August 14, had closed on the Hector with the usual firing of the evening gun, and when dawn broke the next day it revealed the fleet at anchor off the Isle of Wight: Lord Hood had returned. By Thursday the entire fleet was anchored at Spithead, the very names of the great men-of-war conjuring all that was destructive and powerful from the realms of nature, man and god—the Bedford, Orion, Brunswick, Hannibal, Alfred, Niger, Juno, Racehorse, Rattlesnake, Tisiphone, Spitfire and Orestes, and Lord Hood’s flagship, the Duke.

  At the arrival of the fleet salutes thundered from all the ships at anchorage, and the noise of human traffic bounced around the water—the cries and splashing of boats come to service the ships, the halloos and oaths and laughter. For the prisoners in the dark belly of the Hector, the arrival of Lord Hood represented the turning point in the long, openended ordeal of waiting. Their trial would take place within the following month.

  Hood had received the Admiralty’s notification to prepare for the court-martial only two days earlier, when a ship bearing the orders had intercepted the fleet off the Lizard. The orders had stipulated that Hood return to Spithead with certain ships under his command, but this notice had come too late, as three of the stated ships had already been dismissed to their home stations on entering the Channel. However, as Hood informed the Admiralty when he arrived at Spithead, he had taken the liberty to make up the deficiency and “to supply their places by the Hannibal Orion and Alfred.” By such random chance were the participating judges assembled.

  The Hannibal was, of course, still under the command of the able Captain Colpoys. The Orion’s captain, John Duckworth, although now forty-four, was still in the very early stages of what would eventually become a distinguished career. The son of a clergyman, Duckworth had gone to sea at the age of eleven. Short, stout and muscular, he was said to be “never happy but when actively employed.” His career to date had been somewhat erratic. During the American war, Duckworth, then a first lieutenant, on arriving off Rhode Island, had fired a friendly and enthusiastic salute, unwittingly blasting a transport ship in so doing and causing five men to be killed. The ensuing court-martial was a messy affair, due to a number of irregularities of protocol. Nevertheless, Duckworth was acquitted. Promoted to post-captain at the age of thirty-two, he gained the reputation with his men of being a humane and compassionate commander, serving the food from his own table to the ship’s invalids. He also was known for keeping pigs on board, and an anecdote told of his reaction when one was swept overboard in heavy weather.

  “Back the yards, back the yards; lower a boat, there’s a pig overboard; my pig—pig—pig will be drowned,” Duckworth had stammered.

  “It’s our pig,” a watching midshipman had interjected.

  “What—what? their pig—their pig: Keep on your course . . . we must not risk—risk—risk men’s lives for a pig. . . .”

  The captain of the Alfred, by contrast, was nearing the end of a not particularly remarkable career at fifty-two. Captain John Bazely’s most distinguished service to date appears to have been as lieutenant of the Alert during the American war, when, after a dogged chase and much damage sustained, he once overpowered a rebel ship of superior force. His appointment to the Alfred was very recent—indeed, this would be the last but one ship on which he would serve.

  The other captains of the fleet who would sit on the court-martial were Sir Roger Curtis, of the Brunswick, and Richard Goodwin Keats, of the Niger. Curtis was one of the most versatile and able officers in the service. While he was only a commander, and the youngest in his squadron at that, his abilities and “spirit” had caught the eye of Admiral Lord Howe and he had served as captain of the admiral’s flagship. Subsequently promoted to post-captain, Curtis had distinguished himself at the siege of Gibraltar in 1781. Later appointed ambassador to the Emperor of Morocco and the Barbary States, he proved a clever and adroit diplomat. Back in Gibraltar, Curtis subdued a mutiny on one of the ships of the fleet “with great bravery and presence of mind.”

  A popular anecdote was told of a coach journey Curtis made to Portsmouth in civilian attire. Sharing the carriage was a young mate w
ho delighted in regaling his fellow passengers with nautical jargon. Playing the lubber, Curtis had asked him leading questions: How could sailors see at night? Did they tie their ships up to posts in the darkness? Rolling his eyes, and with many a contemptuous “damn me,” the young mate had put his companion straight. Soon after arriving in Portsmouth, the mate bumped into Sir Roger, now dressed in full naval splendor, with gold laced hat and an attentive retinue. Enjoying the mate’s discomfiture, Curtis invited him to “splice the main brace” with him that evening. While Hamond remained a protégé of the great Lord Howe, Curtis—witty, worldly and entertaining—became one of the admiral’s closest and most confidential friends. Curtis was familiar with the Bounty case, having been one of the judges at Bligh’s court-martial on the loss of the ship.

  Keats, the Niger’s captain, now thirty-five, was another clergyman’s son. His swift rise through the ranks had been greatly aided by the fact that while he was a lieutenant on the Prince George, Prince William Henry (later King William IV) had served as a midshipman under his watch. Keats had so far seen action in the siege of Gibraltar and North America.

  Lord Hood’s flagship, the Portsmouth guardship Duke, was captained by John Knight, the son of a rear admiral. Under his father’s tutelage, Knight had gone to sea at about the age of ten and had served almost twenty years in or off North America, as both surveyor and belligerent. After taking part in the attack on Bunker Hill, he “had the misfortune to fall into the hands of the enemy” and was held prisoner in Massachusetts for several months. On being released he had joined Hood in the West Indies, where he had seen many “skirmishes,” including a brilliant encounter with superior French forces off St. Kitts, which had concluded with Knight’s receiving his defeated enemy’s sword. Physically Knight had the features and bearing of a gentleman, but the fiery, covetous eye of a buccaneer. He had joined the Duke only in June, days before the arrival of the Bounty “pirates” in the Gorgon.