Under examination from the court, Fryer recalled that in the several times he had been up on deck, he had seen no more than eight to ten people, and that most activity at those times seemed to have centered on hoisting the boats.
“Do you think that the Boats could be hoisted out by eight or ten People?” Professional seamen all, the captains understood the import of such details. “No,” was Fryer’s response, which established that the list of men he had seen under arms was in no way a complete list of the mutineers; other compliant participants must have been involved. Further questioning established that Millward and Burkett seemed to be taking orders from the mutineers—whether reluctantly or not was another matter. Also, Fryer had seen Ellison, “who was a Boy at that time,” up upon the yards in obedience to Christian’s order to loose the topgallants.
Fryer did not recall any of the prisoners before the court abusing Bligh from the ship: “I saw Millward upon the Taffrel Rail with a Musquet in his Hand; there was so much Noise and Confusion in the Boat that I could not hear one man from the other.”
“Was the remark you made of your not having seen Peter Heywood on Deck during that Day of the 29th of April [sic] made at Timor or since you knew that he had been apprehended by the Pandora?” In answer to this astute question, Fryer conceded that he had made the remark since “I knew he was apprehended, but,” he added, “I had frequently told Captain Bligh in our Conversations that I had not seen the Youngsters on Deck” (“the captain & me were surprised by Misters Christian, Stewart, Young & Haywood & the Master at Arms,” Fryer had earlier written to his wife).
“What did you suppose to be Mr. Christian’s meaning when he said he had been in Hell for a fortnight?” came another question from the court.
“From the frequent Quarrels that they had had, and the Abuse which he had received from Mr. Bligh,” Fryer responded with, one suspects, eager alacrity.
“Had there been any very recent Quarrel?”
“The Day before Mr. Bligh challenged all the young Gentlemen and People with stealing his Cocoa nuts.” Within the context of the courtroom, this now seemed a very slight pretext for a mutineer and would-be murderer of nineteen souls to have been “in Hell.”
Each defendant having the right to cross-examine each of the prosecution’s witnesses, the first to step forward now was Peter Heywood. However, instead of directing questions at Fryer, he handed the judges a prepared statement informing them that he would defer his questions until the occasion of his own defense; he would prefer “an examination in Chief, than a cross examination of Witnesses in the usual Manner,” and did not wish to delay the court at this time. The effect of the statement, which was read aloud by Greetham, was not remarked upon.
Of the few who did venture questions at this point, the most effective was James Morrison, the boatswain’s mate and well-educated diarist.
“Do you recollect when you spoke to me, what particular Answer I made?” Morrison asked Fryer, seeking to neutralize the dangerously ambiguous exchange the master had reported having with him in the companionway. “[A]re you positive that it was me who said, ‘Go down to your Cabin’?” Yes was Fryer’s response; he was indeed positive.
Morrison tried another tactic. “Do you recollect that I said ‘I will do my endeavour to raise a Party and rescue the Ship’?” Fryer had no memory of such words at all; but Morrison’s ploy was a good one, and the court itself picked up this leading thread, asking Fryer directly whether “Morrison’s speaking to you, and telling you to keep below, [might] be from a laudable Motive.”
“Probably it might,” was now Fryer’s response, adding that had he remained with the ship Morrison “would have been one of the first that I should have opened my Mind to.”
With the conclusion of the cross-examination, Fryer was retired and led outside and back onto the upper deck. The story of the great boat journey and bitter comments about Bligh would be handed down to his growing family over the years to come. He would be called upon in the days immediately ahead as a witness for one defendant or the other, and undoubtedly he had friends and associates to visit in the area, former shipmates from other less memorable voyages; but when such visits and the telling of yarns was over, John Fryer traveled back to Chatham Dockyard to resume his mundane duties. Here, on this gray September day, with the long view of the harbor stretching ahead and Spithead at his back, Fryer’s role as master of the Bounty concluded.
Below, in the Duke’s great cabin, William Cole, the boatswain, was sworn in. On that morning of the mutiny, he told the court, in his cabin down in the fore hold, he was awoken by the voice of Matthew Quintal informing Purcell that Christian had taken the ship. Jumping out of his hammock, Cole had exclaimed to the carpenter, “For God’s sake I hope you know nothing of this.” As he was getting dressed, Cole discussed the situation with Lawrence Lebogue, who was apparently in the next-door storeroom with the spare sails, and then hastened on deck. On his way, in passing through the midshipmen’s berths in the deck above, Cole saw Heywood “leaning over his own Hammock in the larboard Birth” and Edward Young doing the same in his starboard berth. Coming up the fore hatchway onto the upper deck, Cole noticed five men under arms, none of them any of the defendants. But looking aft, he saw Bligh, with hands tied behind him, under the guard of three armed sentinels, one of whom was Thomas Ellison; Burkett, another of the prisoners, was watching from the quarterdeck.
Greatly alarmed, Cole jumped back down the hatchway and ran to the seamen’s quarters to awaken Morrison, Millward and McIntosh, all prisoners before the court.
“I asked them if they knew anything of it and they told me not, Millward the Prisoner, said he was very sorry for it, he said he had a hand in the foolish Piece of Busines before, and that he was afraid they would make him have a Hand in that also.” The former foolish business had been his desertion at Tahiti with Charles Churchill and William Muspratt. Millward’s fears were quickly confirmed when Churchill suddenly walked in on this furtive conference and “called out to Millward, desired him to come upon Deck immediately to take a Musquet.” Dressing as he went, Millward complied; Churchill, of course, was armed.
Going back on deck, Cole went directly aft to ask Christian what he intended to do.
“[H]e then ordered me to hoist the Boat out and shook the Bayonet, threatening me and damning me if I did not take Care.” Minutes later, Fryer came on deck and tried to plead with Christian, telling him that “if he did not approve of the Captain’s behaviour to put him under an Arrest and proceed on the Voyage”; to which Christian had replied “that if that was all he had to say to go down to his Cabin again for he had been in Hell for Weeks and Weeks past.” One of the men standing by sardonically excused Fryer, noting that he had a wife and family, “but that would be all forgot in a few Months.” This comment could refer only to the amnesia-inducing seductiveness of Tahiti, and was evidence that at the earliest stage of the mutiny Tahiti—as much as the deposition of William Bligh—had been the mutineers’ objective. Equally important, Cole’s testimony next revealed that Hayward, Hallett and Bligh’s clerk, Samuel, were to be sent in the boat, which accorded with Fryer’s recollection.
The launch was at this time out of commission, only a shell with thwarts and hardware still to be assembled. While it was being made ready, Christian continued to issue his threats and ordered rum to be brought up and served to all who were under arms. Michael Byrn, the blind fiddler, was in the worm-eaten cutter lying beside the launch, “but how he came into her I do not know.” Bligh’s servant, John Smith, obediently brought rum while Christian continued to call out to the loyalists, “ ‘Take care you carry nothing away’—threatening and shaking the bayonet.”
Cole continued, “I saw Mr Peter Heywood one of the Prisoners, who was standing there lending a Hand to get the Fore Stay fall along, and when the Boat was hooked on he spoke something to me, but what it was I do not know, for Christian was threatening me at the time and Mr. Heywood then went below and I do not remem
ber seeing him—afterwards, whilst we were in the Ship.” As the sails, masts, oars “and other Necessaries” were lowered into the boat, Churchill and Quintal walked about saying, “Damn them, they have enough.”
“At this time looking about I saw William Muspratt one of the Prisoners with a Musquet in his Hand, I don’t recollect seeing him before I heard Churchill call out to keep somebody below, but who it was I do not know.”
As people were forced into the boat, a stream of supplies and possessions was lowered into her. Coleman was in the act of joining the boat when Christian ordered him to be detained, along with McIntosh and Norman.
“[T]hen they were forcing the People out of the Ship who were going and who were not on their Side—and I went into the Boat,” Cole told the listening court. Peckover, Nelson, Hayward and Hallett had followed, and finally Bligh.
“Coleman and Norman were standing at the Gangway crying all this Time, after they were ordered not to go into the Boat and McIntosh was standing there also and would have wished to come into the Boat—and Byrn was in the Cutter all the time crying.” Why he was in the cutter was never answered—it appears the fiddler had simply got into the wrong boat. From the ship, John Sumner yelled at Cole to hand up his boatswain’s call, or whistle.
“I asked him at the same time in the Indian tongue if he would give me anything for it,” Cole had replied, thus nonchalantly opening a window on yet another way the men had been changed by Tahiti. Why he had replied “in the Indian tongue” was not clear. Poor John Norton, who would shortly be stoned to death on Tofua, begged to be given a jacket, only to be told by one of the mutineers, “You Bugger if I had my Will I would blow your Brains out.” Not all the bad language, then, had been directed at Bligh. With this threat, the men in the boat decided it was time to cast free of the Bounty. As they did so, Coleman called out from the ship, crying and begging notice “that he had no Hand in it, if ever any Body should live to get to England he beg’d them to remember him to a Mr. Green in Greenwich.” Cole’s last sight of the ship “was seeing Thomas Ellison loosing the Main top Gallant Sail.”
“Did you see any attempt made by any one of the Prisoners to put an End to the Mutiny?” Cole was asked by the court when his own testimony was complete; to which he had replied, “None.”
“You have said that Coleman, Norman and McIntosh were detained in the ‘Bounty’ against their Will—Have you reason to believe that any other of the Prisoners were detained against their Inclinations?” the court now asked.
“I believe Mr. Heywood was,” replied Cole. “I thought all along he was intending to come away—I did not think anything else, he had no Arms and he assisted to get the Boat out and then went below.”
“What was the Cause of Coleman, Norman and Michael Byrn’s—crying as you have represented them to be?”
“They wanted to come away,” Cole answered, then added with something approaching disdain, “as to Byrn I do not know why he was crying. I suppose for no other reason he was blind and could not see.”
“You have said that Coleman, Norman and McIntosh assisted at the Tackle fall in getting the Launch out,” the court now pressed. The tackle fall was the hoisting end of the block-and-pulley assembly, by which the launch was swung out and lowered from the ship. “[D]id you suppose they meant to be of use to Captain Bligh and to accompany him in the Boat or that they were well disposed to the Mutineers and wished to get rid of their Captain?”
“I believe they wished to go with him.”
“Do you suppose that Peter Heywood acted from the same motive when he assisted at the Tackle fall?”
“I had no reason to think otherwise, he assisted at the Tackle fall.”
“Where about was Muspratt when you saw him under Arms?”
“Just abaft the Fore Hatchway.” Muspratt’s berth had been down in the fo’c’sle with the other seamen; while others had been closely watched, he seemed to have enjoyed freedom of movement.
It was now approaching four o’clock. Inside the cabin, lamps had been lit as dusk fell. It had been a long, intense day and although the cross-examination of Cole still remained, the court was adjourned until the following morning. Onlookers stirred and murmured to one another; the captains sat back in their chairs. The scarlet-coated marine guard gathered the prisoners and led them up the companionway and out into what remained of the day. Lights were showing throughout the harbor and in the distance from Gosport and Portsmouth town. In the longboat the prisoners were conveyed into the harbor to where the Hector was moored, her stern windows glowing like a lantern in the dusk above the water.
At eight A.M. on the following day, a Thursday, the ten prisoners were once again ferried to the Duke; this conspicuous routine, announced by the firing of the court-martial gun, was to continue throughout the following week. Once again the weather was bleak and blustery, making heavy work for the oarsmen.
The prisoners had been able to mull over Cole’s testimony, and when the court resumed Michael Byrn sprang into action, aggressively launching a series of questions at Cole intended to demonstrate that he, like Coleman, Norman and McIntosh, had shown goodwill to Bligh by helping to launch the boat. Cole, however, would have none of it.
“When you and Mr. Purcell came up did I not say the People are in Arms and the Captain’s a Prisoner?” demanded Byrn, at the end of his exasperating and so far pointless interrogation.
“I do not remember seeing him,” Cole sniffed, addressing himself as protocol demanded to the court and not to Byrn. “[H]e may be there, he is a Person whom I should take very little Notice of upon such an Occasion being nearly blind.” Once again, Morrison was more successful. “Do you recollect when you came upon Deck after you called me out of my Hammock, that I came to you abaft the Windlass, and said, ‘Mr. Cole, what is to be done?’ and that your Answer was, ‘By God, James, I do not know, but go and help them with the Cutter’?” “Yes,” said Cole, he did remember this.
Cole’s testimony completed, he was asked to withdraw and William Peckover was sworn in. It was Peckover who had sought to accompany Bligh back to Tahiti in the Providence and been summarily rejected.
Peckover’s testimony began with a bang, with the “confused Noise” that had yanked him out of sleep in his cabin in the hold, next to the breadroom. As he was pulling on his trousers, he met Nelson at the door, who told him that “the Ship was taken from us.”
“We are a long way from land” was his amazed response; he was thinking they were victims of the Friendly Islanders.
“Mr. Nelson answered, ‘It is by our own People and Mr. Christian at their head,’—or ‘has got the command,’ I don’t know which—‘but we know whose fault it is,’ or, ‘we know who is to blame’—I do not know which of those Expressions it was,” Peckover reported coyly. Attempting to go on deck, the men were at first stopped by two of the mutineers holding fixed bayonets. Shortly afterward, the dogged Mr. Samuel came up and informed the two men that he, Hallett and Hayward were going in the small cutter with Bligh, and asked advice on what he should bring with him.
“I told him that if I was in his Place, I should take but very few things” was Peckover’s somewhat insensitive response. While the fated Samuel was stuffing a pillowcase with shirts and socks, Fryer came down to the quarters in the cockpit and asked Peckover what he intended to do.
“[I replied] that I wished to get Home if I possibly could, for by staying behind we should be reckoned as Pirates.” It was a while before Peckover, Nelson and Samuel were allowed to leave their quarters and go on deck. When he was finally summoned up, Peckover saw “Captain Bligh, and Mr. Christian standing alongside of him, with a naked Bayonet.” He also saw Burkett “in Arms on the Quarter Deck” and Muspratt upon the fo’c’sle; the fact that Muspratt had been free to move about while others were detained was once again noteworthy. Now he appeared to Peckover to be busy with something in the woodpile.
Stepping onto the gangway, Peckover had gone over the ship’s side and into the launc
h, which was already filled with about ten or twelve people. Some five minutes later, the rest of the boat’s passengers appeared with Bligh. When the overfilled boat was veered astern of the Bounty, Burkett leaned over the side of the ship and called down to Peckover, asking if he wanted anything.
“I told him, I had only what I stood in, a Shirt, and a pair of Trowsers; he told me if I would send my Keys up, he would go and get me some Cloaths.” Mistrustful, Peckover had replied that he had lost his keys. Nonetheless, Burkett duly returned some ten minutes later “with a Handkerchief and different Cloaths,” which he tossed into the boat. Coleman called out that he wished to come, and begged Peckover to “call upon a friend in Greenwich and acquaint him of the matter.” Cole now pressed Bligh to cast off, and so the boat had drifted away from the Bounty.
Questioned by the court, Peckover stated, and then was asked to repeat, the names of all those he had seen under arms—of those so named, only Thomas Burkett was a prisoner.
“What were your particular reasons for submitting, when you saw but four Men under Arms?” asked the court. The strangely passive, bloodless acquiescence to the handful of mutineers confounded these veterans of many battles as much as it had Christian.
The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty Page 28
