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

by Caroline Alexander

  On September 12, when the court-martial was at last convened, Captain Bligh was navigating the Endeavour Strait en route to the West Indies; once again, he had made a successful collection of Tahitian breadfruit. Thus Nessy’s fondest, guilty hope was to be fulfilled: as unorthodox as it might be, the chief witness for the prosecution would not, after all, be present at the mutineers’ court-martial.

  COURT-MARTIAL

  At eight A.M. on September 12, the Duke hoisted the signal for a court-martial, and then fired a single gun for it to assemble. At half past eight, the ten Bounty prisoners were led from their quarters in the Hector’s gun room and embarked into one of the her boats, where a guard of marines stood at stiff attention.

  Conspicuous in their red coats, the marines remained at attention throughout the short journey, which still took the oarsmen over an hour in the choppy, ragged weather. Under a low, gray, dispiriting sky, the prisoners were carried among the great ships at anchor toward the outer harbor, where the Duke was moored. Here, they were solemnly taken on board with much formality, and finally led to the captain’s great cabin at the stern of the ship, where their judges were assembled, along with the various counsel and the men to be called upon as evidences, or witnesses.

  In theory, Lord Hood, as President, acted the role of counsel for the prisoners; once the trial was under way, it was he who was to intervene and caution them as to when they should or should not respond. But the actual running of the court was delegated to a Judge Advocate, Moses Greetham, who had also served the same role on the courts-martial of Bligh and William Purcell and so was more intimately familiar with the Bounty affair than most. Greetham opened the trial by reading the “Circumstantial letter,” a preamble laying out the particulars of the case before the court—the history of the Bounty’s breadfruit commission, the large cargo of plants “in a very flourishing State,” the seizure of the ship off Tofua by Fletcher Christian, officer of the watch, and the voyage of the Pandora to bring the mutineers to justice. It was particularly noted that the men captured on Tahiti were divided into two groups: persons who “came on board the Pandora,” and those who “were taken a few Days afterwards on another Part of the Island.” Listed as the former were “Peter Heywood, George Stewart, Joseph Coleman, and Richard Skinner.” Stewart and Skinner had, of course, died in the Pandora.

  The preamble concluded, Greetham swore in the judges. Standing with heads uncovered, left hand on the Act of Parliament that vested authority in the proceedings, right hand on the Bible, each captain solemnly responded to the pronouncement of his name: “I, Andrew Hamond,” “I, George Montagu,” “I, John Bazely” . . . The roll completed, the captains took their seats. Arrayed behind a long table, with the great cabin window at the backs, the twelve men formed an awe-inspiring wall of blue dress coats, gold lace and buttons. The prisoners before them, who had arrived from the East Indies in the nankeen clothing of their own make, were a ragged lot, Peter Heywood excepted. He was in the smart new suit and mourning crepe suggested by Mrs. Bertie. Some—perhaps most—of the men standing humbly before the court were undoubtedly destined to be found guilty, and all Heywood’s associates understood the need for Peter to stand apart from his ill-fated fellows as conspicuously as possible.

  Only two days earlier, Peter had given notice that he would submit at the court-martial itself a last formal petition to Lord Hood, “By the Advice of my Friends,” that he be tried alone. This issue had been broached earlier, and Hood had deferred the decision to the Admiralty’s legal advisers, who in their wisdom had replied that the matter was entirely up to the court. Hood himself had particularly strong feelings on the subject that did not bode well for any of the accused.

  “The Bounty’s Mutineers being charged with and were guilty of the same atrocious Crime, committed at the same moment,” he had stated on record, well before the court had even convened. It was true, as he acknowledged, that Lieutenant Bligh noted that three and possibly four men (if including Michael Byrn) had been held against their will; yet, as he now observed, “two of these three fled from the Pandora’s Officer, and did not surrender themselves until compelled from necessity.” Additionally, as Hood pointed out, each individual prisoner would be able to put questions on his own behalf to each witness giving evidence for the prosecution, and would later be able to call on witnesses when presenting his defense, so that his case would be in no way compromised. After some discussion, Hood’s view prevailed and it was announced to the court that “the whole of the Prisoners must be tried together.”

  Before any evidences were presented, Greetham read to the court Bligh’s long and vivid report from Coupang. This and excerpts from his official log would be Bligh’s only contribution to the trial. Now Bligh’s angry and amazed words conjured the day of mutiny, his own humiliating bondage, the shouts and threats on the Bounty’s deck, and the horror of the overloaded launch.

  Beyond the listening blue-coated captains, Portsmouth Harbour could be seen through the great paneled window that formed almost the entire stern wall of the cabin. Dirty weather, “squally with some rain,” as it would be logged for this day, swept past the window. Outside on deck, the Duke’s master fussed with the small bower anchor whose cable was found to be worn. Back on the Hector, deeper in the harbor, carpenters on loan from the dockyard had come to dismantle bulkheads that had previously been installed in the captain’s cabin for an earlier court-martial. Otherwise, the day’s main event was the opening of a cask of pork.

  Along one side of the great cabin, facing the captains, were crowded the witnesses and interested onlookers. Many of these were officers from the Duke and other nearby ships. Perhaps nothing could so poignantly underscore how small a venture, how desperately unimportant, the Bounty had been than this casual assemblage of captains and lieutenants who thronged the big men-of-war. The Duke alone carried five lieutenants; by contrast, Lieutenant Bligh had been the Bounty’s single commissioned officer. Gathered with the naval officers were also such well-known personages as Sir Archibald Macdonald, the Attorney-General; Lord McCartney, the new envoy to China; Sir Nash Grose and William Ashurst, both distinguished judges of the Court of the King’s Bench; and Secretary of State George Rose. Lieutenant Hallett’s father, John Hallett, was also in attendance. Captain Pasley—perhaps to his relief—had been unable to attend.

  Because Bligh’s letter to the Admiralty from Coupang had been written to report the circumstances of the loss of his ship, it was not a detailed report of the mutiny itself; the actual criminal act with which the ten men before the court were charged amounted to very little of the entire document. In this very general overview, the only individuals specified by Bligh were “Fletcher Christian, who was Mate of the Ship and Officer of the Watch,” and “the Ships Corporal [Charles Churchill]”; these designated perpetrators were “assisted by others,” none of whom were named. Toward the end of his report, Bligh broke the company down into two lists, “[t]he people who came in the Boat” with him and “the people who remained in the Ship” with Christian. The latter list, of course, included the names of all the men now standing before the blue-coated judges: Peter Heywood, James Morrison, Charles Norman, Thomas McIntosh, Joseph Coleman, Thomas Burkett, Thomas Ellison, John Millward, Michael Byrn and William Muspratt. With the exception of Norman, McIntosh and Coleman, whom Bligh had specifically stated as having been held by the mutineers against their will, there was no further reference of any kind to any other individual’s role or culpability.

  Bligh’s official log, on the other hand, was more explicit: “Just before Sun rise Mr. Christian, Mate, Chas. Churchill, Ships Corporal, John Mills, Gunners Mate, and Thomas Burkett, Seaman, came into my Cabbin while I was a Sleep and seizing me tyed my hands with a Cord behind my back,” read the entry for Tuesday, April 28, 1789. Outside his cabin Alexander Smith, John Sumner and Matthew Quintal stood sentinel. All of the men named save for Burkett were dead or had departed with Christian. Here, as in his report, Bligh had affixed his lists of l
oyalists and mutineers, but with additional commentary—particularly expansive in his private log: “Christian the Capt. of the Mutineers is of a respectable family in the North of England, & from my connection with a part of them I had taken this Young Man to bring him forward in life”; Heywood was “also of a respectable family in the North of England and a Young Man of Abilities as well as Christian, and is connected with a most respected officer in our service captain Thos. Pasley. . . . These two became therefore objects of my attention, and with much unwearied zeal I instructed them, for I considered them very worthy of every good I could render to them, and they really promised as professional Men to be an honor to their Country.”

  Crowded together in the great cabin, witnesses and defendants alike must have been stirred by the vivid readings that had evoked their shared adventures. All had set out optimistically on the grand voyage to the South Pacific; all had lived to savor the unimagined beauty of Tahiti; all were survivors of their respective ordeals at sea. Now, with the conclusion of the preamble, the witnesses—Fryer, Cole, Purcell, Peckover, Hallett and Hayward, joined by Captain Edwards and Lieutenants Corner and Larkan from the Pandora—were asked to withdraw. Each witness was to be examined in isolation from his colleagues. This scrupulous precaution was somewhat redundant, given that both Captain Pasley and Aaron Graham had met with at least the first four men, in great part specifically to ensure that their defense would not be surprised by inconsistencies in their stories. This informal preliminary interview may have necessitated some gentle “memory jogging.”

  The first witness to be summoned was John Fryer. Since the court-martial on the loss of the Bounty in October 1790, Fryer had been the superintending master of the Thunderer, at Chatham Dockyard, upriver from Sheerness. A son, Harrison, had been born during his absence on the Bounty, and more recently his wife had borne him a daughter. John Fryer had recently turned forty.

  The lengthy prepared statement that Fryer now read to the court commenced with the Bounty tacking off Tofua as he took the first watch on the fine, promising night of April 28, 1789. Beguiled by the new fair weather, with the slender moon showing in its first quarter, Bligh and Fryer had exchanged civil, almost friendly words. At the end of his watch, Fryer had gone to bed. His cabin was opposite Bligh’s toward the ship’s stern and, like Bligh’s, opened onto the companionway leading to the upper deck. At dawn, Fryer was awoken by the noise of shouting and then, more clearly, by the voices of John Sumner and Matthew Quintal, able seamen, telling him that he was a prisoner, that if he did not hold his tongue he was a dead man. Raising himself up on his elbow, Fryer saw Bligh, clad only in his nightshirt, being led up the ladder that stood between their cabins with his hands tied behind him and Christian holding the cord.

  Fryer’s tenacious ear for dialogue retained a memory of the abusive language hurled at Bligh by the mutineers: “damn his Eyes . . . put him into the Boat, and let the Bugger see if he can live upon three fourths of a Pound of Yams a day”; “recollect that Mr Bligh has brought all this upon himself”; “the Boat is too good for him.” Still a prisoner in his cabin, Fryer made futile attempts to reason with the mutineers, and he next learned that Bligh was to be turned out into a boat.

  “I hope they are not going to send Captain Bligh adrift by himself,” Fryer reported he had exclaimed with horror. The mutineers had answered, “No—his Clerk Mr. Samuel, Messrs. Hayward and Hallett are going with him.”

  According to Fryer, it was in part his own strenuous efforts that had won the bigger launch for Bligh, instead of the wormy-bottomed cutter first planned—subsequent witnesses would make the same claim for themselves. After much pleading, he was allowed on deck to speak with Christian, and found the mutineer standing guard over Bligh by the mizzenmast, the tail of the cord that bound his captain in one hand, a bayonet in the other.

  “ ‘Mr. Christian, consider what you are about—’

  “‘[H]old your tongue Sir,’ he said, ‘I have been in Hell for Weeks past—Captain Bligh has brought all this on himself.’ I told him that Mr. Bligh and his not agreeing was no reason for taking the ship. ‘Hold your tongue Sir,’ he said. I said, ‘Mr. Christian you and I have been on friendly terms during the Voyage, therefore give me leave to speak, let Mr. Bligh go down to his Cabin and I make no doubt but that we shall all be friends again in a very short time.’ He then repeated, ‘Hold your tongue, Sir, it is too late.’ ”

  After further threats, Fryer was led back down to his cabin.

  “At the Hatchway I saw James Morrison the Boatswain’s Mate, he was at that time getting a tackle to hook upon the Launch’s Stern, apparently so I said to him ‘Morrison I hope you have no Hand in this Business?’ He replied, ‘no Sir I do not know a Word about it,’ or Words to that effect. ‘If that’s the case,’ I said in a low Voice, ‘be on your Guard, there may be an opportunity of recovering ourselves.’ His answer was ‘go down to your Cabin, Sir’ ”; and, echoing Christian, “ ‘it is too late.’ ”

  Seaman John Millward, like Morrison one of the prisoners, had been placed as armed guard over Fryer; but Fryer said he “seemed friendly, I winked at him and made a motion for him to knock the Man down that was next to him, which was John Sumner. Millward immediately cocked his Piece and dropt it, pointed towards me saying at the same time, ‘Mr. Fryer be quiet, no one will hurt you.’ ”

  “Millward, your Piece is cocked,” Fryer replied, showing a rare glint of dry humor, “you had better uncock it as you may shoot some Person.” By way of response, Millward lifted his gun and said, “There is no one who wishes to shoot you.”

  “No,” Sumner had affirmed, “that was our Agreement not to commit Murder.”

  All the while, Bligh’s clerk, the quietly redoubtable Mr. Samuel, had been busy getting things out of his master’s cabin. After some discussion, Fryer had succeeded in being taken down to the cockpit, directly below, where Nelson, the botanist, and Peckover were confined.

  “ ‘Mr. Fryer what have we brought on ourselves?’ Mr. Peckover the Gunner said, ‘what is best to be done Mr. Fryer?’ I told him that I had spoke to Captain Bligh desiring him to keep his Spirits up”—the same words Fryer had written to Peter in his captivity—“that if I staid on board the Ship I hoped soon to follow him.” The conversation had been interrupted by Henry Hilbrant, the Hanoverian cooper who was next door in the breadroom, getting hardtack for the boat. Fryer was ordered back to his cabin, but on the way learned that Christian had decided to give Bligh the bigger, safer launch, “not for his sake but the safety of those who were going with him.”

  “I then asked if they knew who was going into the Boat with Captain Bligh, they said no, but believed a great many. I then heard Christian say, ‘Give every Man a dram out of Captain Bligh’s Case, that is under Arms.’ ” This, thought Fryer, was an optimistic turn, as the pirates would shortly become drunk and the ship could be retaken.

  Later, Christian summoned Fryer and ordered him into the boat.

  “I said ‘I will stay with you if you will give me leave.’ ‘No Sir,’ he replied, ‘go directly into the Boat.’

  “ ‘Mr. Fryer, stay in the Ship,’ ” Bligh now called from the gangway. His hands had been untied.

  “ ‘No by God Sir,’ Christian said, ‘go into the Boat or I will run you through,’ pointing his Bayonet at my breast.” Seeing that there was no way out, Fryer pleaded that Robert Tinkler, his young brother-in-law, be allowed to come with him, and at great length, Christian reluctantly agreed. It transpired that Churchill had it in mind to make Tinkler his servant.

  Once Fryer and Bligh joined the launch, the verbal abuse increased. “[T]he People at the same time making use of very approbrious Language—I heard several of them say, ‘shoot the Bugger.’” In the launch, the men begged for firearms; pleas for better navigational equipment had already been denied. On board the Bounty, the captain’s liquor was flowing freely, and the men in the launch agreed it would be safer to gain some distance. There was very little wind and so they too
k to the oars, seeking to get out of range of the guns.

  “As soon as the Boat was cast off I heard Christian give Orders to loose the Top Gallant Sails, they steered the same course as Captain Bligh had ordered W.N.W.—and continued to do so for the time we saw them.” This was the last Fryer had seen of the Bounty.

  Fryer was able to give a list of all those he had seen under arms, which of the prisoners included only Thomas Burkett and John Millward. Joseph Coleman had “called out several times to recollect that he had no hand in the Business—Thomas M’Intosh, Carpenter’s Mate, another of the Prisoners, and Charles Norman another of the Prisoners were leaning over the rail apparently to me to be crying—Michael Byrn another of the Prisoners in one of the Boats crying—I heard him say that if he went into the Boat, that the People who were in her would leave him when they got on Shore as he could not see to follow them. . . . Mr Peter Heywood another of the Prisoners I did not perceive on Deck at the seizure of the Ship.”