Matthew Wallen’s letter to Banks of May 6, 1785, is in BL Add. MS 33978.11-12. Banks notes his own lack of good breadfruit specimens in a letter to Johann Georg Adam Forster, May 20, 1782, DTC 2.132-133.
For Banks’s approval of a distinct breadfruit expedition, see his letter to Lord Liverpool, March 30, 1787, DTC 5.143-146. For Lord Sydney’s letter to Banks of August 15, 1787, see DTC 5.208-209.
There are two standard and very good biographies of William Bligh: George Mackaness, The Life of Vice-Admiral William Bligh R. N., F. R. S., rev. ed. (Sydney, 1951); and Gavin Kennedy, Bligh (London, 1978), later revised and published as Captain Bligh: The Man and His Mutinies (London, 1989). Mackaness is the more detailed and exhaustive, Kennedy the more insightful. Bligh’s ships of service are listed on the flyleaves of a family Bible held by the Mitchell Library: “Bligh Family, Genealogy of, and Memoranda, 1754-1885,” ML A2049. Cook’s remarks on the duties of young officers serving him are found in Cook, A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean. Undertaken, By The Command of His Majesty, For Making Discoveries in the Northern Hemisphere, vol. 1 (London, 1784), p. 5. The events surrounding Cook’s death are described in Gavin Kennedy, The Death of Captain Cook (London, 1978). Bligh’s remarks made in the margins of a copy of Cook’s Voyage are described in Lieutenant Commander Rupert T. Gould, “Bligh’s Notes on Cook’s Last Voyage,” Mariner’s Mirror 14 (1928), pp. 371-85. For Bligh’s remarks on “improving” himself, see his letter to John Bond, April 7, 1783, published in George Mackaness, ed., Fresh Light on Bligh (Sydney, 1953), pp. 16 ff.
Bligh’s physical description is given in the Reverend Thomas Boyles Murray, Pitcairn: The Island, the People and the Pastor: to which is added a short notice of the original settlement and present condition of Norfolk Island, 8th ed. (London, 1857), pp. 60-61. Depictions of Bligh are discussed in Geoffrey Callender, “The Portraiture of Bligh,” Mariner’s Mirror 22 (1936), pp. 172-78.
The A to Z of the Bounty’s acquisition, dimensions, and refitting, including diagrams of the ship and a description and plan of the ship’s launch, is C. Knight, “H.M. Armed Vessel Bounty,” Mariner’s Mirror 22 (1936), pp. 183-99; also see John McKay, The Armed Transport Bounty (London, c. 1989). The original blueprints of the Bounty are in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich (ID 3190). Bligh’s own description of his ship and her refitting is given in his second published narrative: William Bligh, A Voyage to the South Sea, Undertaken by Command of His Majesty, for the Purpose of Conveying the Bread-Fruit Tree to the West Indies in His Majesty’s Ship the Bounty commanded by Lieutenant William Bligh. Including an Account of the Mutiny on Board the Said Ship, and the Subsequent Voyage of Part of the Crew, in the Ship’s Boat, from Tofoa, one of the Friendly Islands, to Timor, a Dutch Settlement in the East Indies (London, 1792). This account also includes the history of European discovery of the breadfruit, Bligh’s sailing orders, and his quotation regarding “the object of all previous voyages.” Gavin Kennedy was the first to underscore the implications of the Bounty’s small size and cramped quarters, a subject elaborated upon more directly in Greg Dening, Mr. Bligh’s Bad Language (Cambridge, 1992).
The saga of Banks’s refitting of the Resolution is given in Beaglehole, The Life of Captain James Cook, pp. 293ff. Banks’s reaction to the undoing of his careful adaptations is found in “Memoirs of the early life of John Elliott,” BL Add. MS 42714, folios 10-11. (“He swore & stamp’d upon the warfe, like a Mad Man.”)
For Banks’s stern injunctions to “the Master & Crew,” see DTC 5.210-216 (to an unknown correspondent). The possibility of an astronomer on board the Bounty is referred to in Banks to Lord Howe, September 9, 1787, SLNSW: the Sir Joseph Banks Electronic Archive, 45.09.
The Bounty’s muster provides the name, age, place of origin and date of entry on the ship’s books of each member of the crew, and is found in the Admiralty records, Adm. 36/ 10744. The ship’s establishment is reprinted in D. Bonner Smith, “Some Remarks About the Mutiny on the Bounty,” Mariner’s Mirror 22 (1936), pp. 200-237.
John Fryer’s birth, death, and marriage records are preserved in the parish records of Wells-next-the Sea, Norfolk; I am indebted to Mike Welland of Wells for sharing his careful biographical work on John Fryer and his family. Much information is also found in the “Statement of service of John Fryer, recorded by one of his children” (National Library of Australia, MS 6592) and in Fryer’s Memorial to the Admiralty (Adm. 1/4585). Robert Tinkler’s birth certificate is also in the parish records (Baptisms for 1775).
Information about Thomas Denman Ledward’s background is from “Memoir in MSS of the Life of Dr. Thomas Denman in the Handwriting of His Sister Sophia,” Archives and Manuscripts, 5620, Wellcome Trust, London; I am indebted to Lord Denman for the Denman family tree. The excerpts from Ledward’s correspondence are taken from Arthur Denman, ed., “Captain Bligh and the Mutiny of the Bounty,” Notes and Queries 9th ser., 12 (December 26, 1903), pp. 501-2.
Hayward’s recommendation is found in the letter of William Wales to Sir Joseph Banks, August 8, 1787, written from Christ’s Hospital (Webster Collection), University of California, Los Angeles, Special Collections, Collection 100, Box 171, and is quoted with their kind permission. Details of Wales’s teaching career were kindly provided by Christ’s Hospital, London. Charles Lamb’s description of Wales can be found in his Recollections of Christ’s Hospital (London, 1835). Francis Hayward, Midshipman Hayward’s father, was the brother-in-law of a Charles Green, who was almost certainly the astronomer Charles Green, who sailed on the Endeavour with Banks—and who was in turn the brother-in-law of William Wales (see Francis Hayward to Sir R. M. Keith, April 6, 1787, BL Add. MS, 35538 f.106).
Hayward’s biography can be pieced together from the register of St. John’s, Hackney, and his lieutenant’s passing certificate, Adm. 107/13. Adm. 36/8189 contains the muster of the Halifax, and Adm. 36/11054 that of the Porcupine.
William Cole’s service record is in Adm. 29/1. Biographical detail, here and later, were kindly provided by Alison Richards, William Cole’s great-geat-great grandaughter. Cole’s baptismal certificate is found in the Dorset Record Office. Biographical material about James Morrison is taken from James Shaw Grant, Morrison of the Bounty (Stornoway, Scotland, 1997). The author is a kinsman of the Bounty’s boatswain’s mate; the quotation from the report of Morrison’s examiner is taken from p. 36.
William Peckover’s career prior to joining the Bounty can be traced in Adm. 32/258 (pay book of the Endeavour), and Adm. 36/7672 and Adm. 36/8013, the muster books of the Resolution and Discovery, respectively. Biographical information about William Peckover was kindly supplied by Dennis Bell and Barry Marriott. William Purcell’s career can be traced in Adm. 2915, “Carpenters 1817-1833.”
Joseph Coleman’s service on the Discovery, with Cook, is also recorded in Adm. 36/8013. The terms of David Nelson’s service are given in Banks’s letter of March 30, 1787, to Lord Liverpool, DTC 5.143-146. The description of Nelson by a former shipmate is found in SLNSW: the Sir Joseph Banks Electronic Archive, “Letter received by Banks from Charles Clerke, 23, 29 November 1776,” 11.03. William Brown’s midshipman service is confirmed by Adm. 36/8712.
Evidence of past service with Bligh is found for Lawrence Lebogue in William Bligh, Answer to Certain Assertions contained in the Appendix Entitled “Minutes of the Proceedings on the Court Martial held at Portsmouth August [sic] 12th 1792 on Ten Persons Charged with Mutiny on Board his Majesty’s Ship the Bounty” (London, 1794), p. 25. This rare pamphlet has been reprinted in facsimile by the Australiana Society (Melbourne, 1952). Past service for John Norton is confirmed by Bligh’s Bounty Log, entry of May 3, 1789, and for Tom Ellison in his own testimony at his court-martial—see Owen Rutter, ed., The Court-Martial of the “Bounty” Mutineers (Edinburgh, 1931), p. 176.
Stephen Barney and Edward Christian, Minutes of the Proceedings of the Court-Martial held at Portsmouth, August [sic] 12, 1792, on Ten Persons Charged with Mutiny on Board His Majesty’s Ship the Bounty:
With an Appendix, Containing a Full Account of the Real Causes and Circumstances of that Unhappy Transaction, the most material of which have hitherto been withheld from
the Public (London, 1794; this is also included in the Australiana Society facsimile, above). Fletcher Christian’s past service both on the Eurydice and with Bligh in the West Indies is described in Edward Christian, “Appendix” to Barney’s Minutes, above, pp. 76ff. Christian’s service in the Eurydice is confirmed by the ship’s muster, Adm. 36/10359. Christian’s “bright, pleasing countenance” is described in Lady Diana Belcher, The Mutineers of the Bounty and their Descendants in Pitcairn and Norfolk Islands (London, 1870), p. 164n.
Other material about the Christian family is found in the Christian family papers now held by the Manx National Heritage Library, Douglas, Isle of Man (hereafter MNHL; MS 09381); Mrs. William Hicks Beach, The Yesterdays Behind the Door (Liverpool, 1956); William Fletcher, “Fletcher Christian and the Mutineers of the ‘Bounty,’ ” Transactions of the Cumberland Association for the Advancement of Literature and Science, part 2 (1876-1877), pp. 77-106; and above all in Glynn Christian’s Fragile Paradise, rev. ed. (Sydney and New York, 1999). Incredibly, Glynn Christian, a sixth-generation direct descendant of Fletcher, was the first Bounty scholar to attempt to write a comprehensive biography of his famous forebear. His sleuth work unearthed a cache of hitherto unknown Christian family papers; it is these papers that are now on the Isle of Man. I am also indebted to Ewan Christian for use of family papers in his possession.
Additional information about Fletcher’s father is found in Gentleman’s Magazine 38, pt. 1 (March 1768), p. 143. The quotation from the will of Charles Christian Sr. is from Fragile Paradise, p. 14.
Isaac Wilkinson, another classmate of Fletcher’s who became a poet, left a tribute to his boyhood friend, stating that “I can with truth say a more amiable youth I have never met with: he was mild, generous, and sincere”:His heart was open, generous, and humane,
His was a heart that felt for others’ pain;
Yet quick of spirit as the electric beam
When from the clouds its darting lightnings gleam.
The quotation is from Isaac Wilkinson’s Poetical Works (1824). The poem was written in response to Byron’s damning portrait of the mutineer in his poem The Island.
The arresting description of the north country is from Daniel Defoe, A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain, rev. ed., vol. 2 (London, 1962), p. 270.
A contemporary description of Cockermouth is given in William Hutchinson, The History of the County of Cumberland (Carlisle, 1794).
Wordsworth’s lines are from The Prelude, Book First, lines 288ff.
Evidence of the Christian family finances is found in “The Solicitors Papers of the Christian family of Unerigg [Ewanrigg],” in the Cumbria Record Office, Carlisle (D/Ben Box 254-256).
Information about Fletcher’s brother John Christian can be found in the Cumberland Pacquet, October 19, 1779, and Gentleman’s Magazine, June 1791, pp. 588-89.
For an outline of the life of Fletcher’s brother Edward Christian, see his entry in the Dictionary of National Biography (London, 1917). Edward Christian’s letter to his cousin is found in the Cumbria Record Office and Local Studies Library, Whitehaven (D/Cu/3/9). Permission to quote was kindly given by Mrs. Susan Thornely.
Biographical material about Fletcher’s brother Charles Christian is found in the Christian family papers, MNHL MS 09381. All quotations from the collection are made with the kind permission of the Manx National Heritage. The letter from Sir George Savile, Bart., is found in the Wentworth Woodhouse Muniments at Sheffield Archives (Rockingham Papers at Sheffield Archives—WWM R1/1982); I am grateful to the Head of Leisure Services, Sheffield City Council, for permission to use the papers.
Details of Douglas life are from Joseph Farrington, The Farington Diary, vol. 1 (London, 1923)—see his entry for October 4, 1796, p. 671. Description of Douglas at this time comes from A. W. Moore, Nessy Heywood (Douglas, Isle of Man, 1913). Other details are found in modern guides such as John Kitto, Historic Homes of the Isle of Man (Braddan, Isle of Man, 1990).
Heywood family history is found in Heywood family papers in the MNHL MS 09519 and in the Cumbria Record Office and Local Studies Library, Whitehaven. A valuable family pedigree (“The Heywoods of Heywood, in the County of Lancaster”) was kindly provided by the Devon Record Office. Moore’s Nessy Heywood also gives the family history. The Heywood family finances are made very plain by correspondence to and from Peter John Heywood (the Bounty midshipman’s father) in the hitherto unregarded Duke of Atholl papers, MNHL MS AP 122 (4th) and x/5.
Peter’s naval service is recorded in Adm. 6/94. His service on the Powerful is confirmed by Adm. 36/10590. Information about Peter’s education is given in Lady Belcher, The Mutineers of the Bounty . . . ;and Derek Robson, Some Aspects of Education in Cheshire in the Eighteenth Century (Manchester, 1966).
Betham’s letter to Bligh, dated Douglas, September 21, 1787, is found in “William Bligh, Correspondence,” ML, Safe 1/45.
Sir George Young’s biography is found in the Dictionary of National Biography; the Naval Chronicle 31 (1814), pp. 177-83; Sir George Young, 3rd Bart., Young of Formosa (Reading, Berks., 1927); and the erratic John A. Kempe, ed., Autobiography of Anna Eliza Bray (London, 1884).
Information about Edward Young is given in Rosalind Amelia Young, Mutiny of the Bounty and the story of Pitcairn Island, 1790-1894 (Oakland, Calif., 1894). The death of Captain Robert Young is reported in Oriental and India Office Collections (hereafter OIOC), L/MAR/B/46E and N/6/1/33.
Bligh describes his meeting with Stewart in A Voyage to the South Sea . . . , p. 161. Details of old Stromness were kindly provided by Bryce Wilson of the Orkney Museum. Genealogical history is found in Barbara Juarez Wilson, From Mission to Majesty (Baltimore, 1983). Lady Belcher quotes correspondence of Stewart’s sister in The Mutineers of the Bounty, pp. 18 ff. Other correspondence is found in A. Francis Steuart, “Orkney News from the Letter-Bag of Mr. Charles Steuart,” Old-lore Miscellany of Orkney, Shetland, Caithness and Sutherland 6 (1913), pp. 41-49 and 101-9.
The biography of John Hallett, midshipman, is established by three wills: his own (Probate Records, Public Record Office, Kew—hereafter, PROB 11/1254), that of his father, John Hallett Sr. (PROB 11/1535), and that of his aunt (PROB 11/1425), all of which cross-reference common names and addresses. His birth and baptismal certificate, as well as his naval service record, is found in Adm. 107/14. Hallett Sr.’s profession is established by numerous references in Joseph Farington’s priceless gossipy multivolume diary. The service of the other Hallett brothers with the East India Company is confirmed by OIOC, J/1/14 and O/1/2.
The Hallett residence is named in two of the wills. Descriptions of Manchester Buildings is found in Walter Thornbury and Edward Walford, Old and New London: A Narrative of Its History, Its People, and Its Places, vol. 3 (London, 1875), p. 381.
The letter from Hallett Sr. to Banks is in BL Add. MS 33978.143. Details of Hallett’s service on the Alarm’s commission are in Adm. 36/9639.
David Nelson’s letter to Banks, dated December 18, 1787, is in BL Add. MS 33978.163.
The list of “Articles for the Voyage” is found in SLNSW: the Sir Joseph Banks Electronic Archive (45.02).
The classic account of life at sea during this age of sail is N. A. M. Rodger, The Wooden World (Annapolis, 1986). See also the encyclopedic and beautifully illustrated reference book by Brian Lavery, Nelson’s Navy (Annapolis, 2000); descriptions of the duties of the warrant officers are paraphrased from p. 100. The quotation describing the boatswain’s mate is found on p. 135.
Bligh’s letters to Banks of September 7, 1787, and September 14, 1787, are in SLNSW: the Sir Joseph Banks Electronic Archive (45.10 and 45.11, respectively). Selkirk’s closeness to the Bethams is revealed by his letter to Dr. Cullen of October 4, 1785, regarding the schooling of one of Betham’s nephews, then living with Selkirk and his wife (Gl
asgow University Library Special Collections, GB 247 MS Cullen 87). Selkirk had another North American connection—it was he whom John Paul Jones, the famous rebel and founder of the American navy, had returned to Scotland in 1778 to kidnap.
Bligh’s correspondence with Duncan Campbell, including his angry letter of December 10, 1787, is found in “William Bligh Letters, 1782-1805,” ML, Safe 1/40. Duncan Campbell’s correspondence with other parties (about the war on September 29; his “poor fellow” of November 7) is found in “D. Campbell, Business Letter Books” 5, December 1784-June 1788, ML, A3229.
Banks’s admonition to Nelson is in DTC 5.217-225.
The discovery of Charles Christian’s memoir was one of Glynn Christian’s great coups, and is related in Fragile Paradise. A reference to trouble on the Middlesex led Glynn Christian to examine the ship’s log, where he found details of the mutiny. Charles Christian’s autobiography is now in MNHL (MS 09381). The log of the Middlesex is in OIOC L/MAR/B/450F.
To these sources can be added additional India Office files containing the affidavits, or “Memorials,” of the aggrieved mutineers, which provide the details of what transpired on the day of the mutiny (E/1/81 [part 3], folios 153ff.). Other pertinent material is found in Madras Dispatches, E/4/873 f. 700-701; and in E/1/226 f. 122, f. 146-147, f. 171, f. 513, f. 537; Court Books B/105 f. 593, f. 595, f. 613; in B/106, f. 835; and in B/107 f. 204, f. 404, and f. 459. Service records of Aitken and Rogers are found in L/MAR/C/654 f. 15 and L/MAR/C/ 654 f. 8, respectively.
Additionally, a hitherto unregarded and very obscure pamphlet published by Charles Christian many years after the fact confirms that the captain of the Middlesex was found guilty and that the mutineers consequently received compensation for damages: Charles Christian, An Abridged Statement of Facts, Supported by Respectable and Undeniable Evidence: with Strictures on the Injurious Influence of Calumny, and a Display of the Excellence and Invincibility of Truth (Douglas, Isle of Man, 1818). Readers will find themselves awash in the most purple of high-strung prose. Charles Christian’s impassioned description of his intervention on Grece’s part is found on p. 22.
The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty Page 51
