Bligh’s personal log of the Providence is found in ML A564-2; his official log is found in Adm. 55/152-153. The latter has been published in a limited edition: William Bligh, The Log of H.M.S. Providence (London, 1976). For several years following his return to England, Bligh had hoped to publish an account of this second voyage, but never did—the Admiralty’s coolness may well have deterred him.
Bligh’s letters to his wife of September 13, 1791 (on the outward voyage), and October 2, 1792 (from Coupang), are in the Mitchell Library (“Bligh, William—Family correspondence,” ZML Safe 1/45, pp. 31 ff., 35ff., respectively). Bligh’s letters to the Admiralty from the Cape are found in Adm. 1/1507.
For the significance of Bligh’s several visits to Van Diemen’s Land, see George Mackaness, Captain William Bligh’s Discoveries and Observations in Van Diemen’s Land (Sydney, 1943).
The Reverend William Ellis, Polynesian Researches, vol. 1 (London, 1829), p. 63, records that the first missionaries to Tahiti “were conducted to a large, oval-shaped native house which had been but recently finished for Captain Bligh, whom they expected to return.”
Matthew Flinders’s quote on the Endeavour Strait is found in Matthew Flinders and Robert Brown, A Voyage to Terra Australis, vol. 1 (London, 1814), p. xxix. The relationship of Matthew Flinders, Providence midshipman and future navigator, with William Bligh is examined in Madge Darby, “Bligh’s Disciple: Matthew Flinders’s Journals of HMS Providence (1791-1793),” Mariner’s Mirror 86, no. 4 (November 2000), pp. 401-11. A close account of the navigation of the strait by Bligh and Portlock is given in George Mackaness, The Life of Vice-Admiral William Bligh, R.N., F.R.S., rev. ed. (Sydney, 1951), pp. 276ff.
Alexander Andersen’s report of January 23, 1793, to Joseph Banks of Bligh’s arrival at St. Vincent’s is found in SLNSW: the Sir Joseph Banks Electronic Archive, 56.03. Reports of the Jamaican House of Assembly’s generous award to Bligh and Portlock and Banks’s response to the awards are preserved in two newspaper cuttings, found at 50.26 and 50.09, respectively. Bligh’s correspondence regarding the payment of this award is held by the Somerset Record Office (DD/DN508-511). Bligh’s lists of all plants delivered to the several destinations are in Adm. 1/1508.
The reaction of Mydiddee, the Tahitian passenger, to the gibbeted men along the Thames is described by Lieutenant George Tobin in his private log in the Mitchell Library (ZML A562). His official log is in Adm. 55/94-95. Mydiddee died shortly after arrival in England. The Tahitian stowaway remained in Jamaica to help the gardeners; see Madge Darby, The Story of Mydiddee (London, 1988).
Bligh’s departure from the Providence to the warm applause of his men is described in the Kentish Register, September 6, 1793.
George Tobin’s letter to Francis Bond of December 15, 1817, is from a transcript in ML of the privately owned original, Ab 60/8; the letter is published in George Mackaness, ed., Some Correspondence of Captain William Bligh, R.N., with John and Francis Godolphin Bond, 1776-1811 (Sydney, 1949).
The report of Fletcher Christian’s words to Bligh about his duty is made in John Fryer, “Narrative, letter to his wife and documents. 4 April 1789-16 July 1804,” ML, Safe 1/38.
Bligh’s recommendations of his men to the Admiralty are found in Adm. 1/1508, pp. 173 ff.; his letters to the Admiralty concerning his pay and expenses are found in Adm. 1/1509. The failure of the Providence men to gain promotion is remarked on by James Guthrie (senior) to Lieutenant Bond, January 3, 1794, published in Mackaness, Fresh Light on Bligh, p. 72.
For a vivid description of Lambeth at this time, see Aline Grant, Ann Radcliffe (Denver, 1951), pp. 77 ff.
The attack on Earl Fitzwilliam is reported by the Times, October 29, 1792.
Banks’s letter of September 1, 1793, praising Bligh to Lord Chatham is found in SLNSW: the Sir Joseph Banks Electronic Archive, 54.01.
The Heywood family’s attacks on Bligh are reported in Francis Godolphin Bond, “Letter from Thomas Bond, November 1792,” ML, MSS 6422.
Pasley’s remarks to Matthew Flinders, of August 7, 1793, are quoted by the kind permission of the National Maritime Museum (NMM FLI/1).
Information about the later years and death of John Christian is found in Gentleman’s Magazine, June 1791, pp. 588 ff.; Richard Holworthy, Monumental Inscriptions in the Church and Churchyard of Bromley, County Kent (London, 1922), p. 60, number 478; Centre for Kentish Studies, Maidstone, Microfilm of Bromley burials, see sub. June 22, 1791, and January 7, 1800 (Mrs. Sarah Christian); PROB 11/1335, 12.
Information about Charles Christian is taken from his unpublished autobiography, MNHL MS 09381, with the kind permission of the Manx National Heritage.
Information about Edward Christian, including his attempts to apprehend the tree vandal, is from the Christian family pedigree, MNHL MS 09381/8/2, and quoted with the kind permission of the Manx National Heritage; J. Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses (Cambridge, 1922); and material kindly provided by St. John’s College, Cambridge. The remark about a strain of eccentricity in the family is made by Mrs. Hicks Beach in The Yesterdays Behind the Door (Liverpool, 1956), p. 68. A copy of the letter addressed to Edward Christian that first appeared in the Cumberland Packet can be found in SLNSW: the Sir Joseph Banks Electronic Archive, 46.35.
A number of the men participating in Edward Christian’s inquiry, including Edward Christian himself, have entries in the Dictionary of National Biography (London, 1917). See also C. S. Wilkinson, The Wake of the Bounty (London, 1953), p. 71.
The quotation regarding Samuel Romilly’s discussion of “ ‘American’ ideas” is found in Simon Schama, Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution (New York, 1989), p. 295. A glimpse of Romilly’s friendship with Edward Christian is seen in Samuel Romilly, Memoirs of the Life of Sir Samuel Romilly, written by himself with a selection from his correspondence edited by his sons, vol. 1 (London, 1840), p. 67.
For the Reverend William Cookson, see A. Aspinall, ed., The Later Correspondence of George III, vol. 1 (Cambridge, 1962), pp. 370, 579, and passim. For Cookson’s weight, see Farrington, The Farington Diary, p. 196 (entry for June 5, 1794).
Information about William Gilpin is found in Barnes and Mortlake History Society publication no. 30, September 1969, p. 4; for evidence of a neighborly connection between Gilpin and Joseph Christian, see John Eustace Anderson, A Short Account of the Mortlake Company of the Royal Putney, Roehampton and Mortlake Volunteers Corps 1803-6 (Richmond, 1893), provided by the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames Local Studies Library, along with an undated newspaper cutting about the Gilpins from “an old ledger” (22.9.1906). The quotations from Gilpin’s visiting cousin regarding Edward Christian’s inquiry are from Peter Benson, ed., My Dearest Betsy: A Self-Portrait by William Gilpin, 1757-1848 (London, 1981), pp. 133 ff.
From a document in the London Metropolitan Archives, John France would seem to have been a commissioner of bankruptcy (London Deeds, ref. O/014/014, date 1804); additional information was kindly supplied by the Temple Inns of Court. Captain John Wordsworth is glimpsed in an account of the loss at sea of William Wordsworth’s brother: Alethea Hayter, The Wreck of the Abergavenny (London, 2002).
James Losh has an entry in the Dictionary of National Biography “Missing Persons” supplement (Oxford, 1993). His remark regarding Christian’s mutiny is found in James Losh, “Diary,” held by the Jackson Collection, Carlisle Library (entry for April 3, 1798). For his relationship to Wordsworth, see Paul Kaufman, “Wordsworth’s ‘Candid and Enlightened Friend,’ ” Notes and Queries, n.s., 9, (November 1962) pp. 403-8. Excerpts of Losh’s diary have been published: Edward Hughes, ed., The Diaries and Correspondence of James Losh, 2 vols. (Durham, 1962-63).
Dorothy Wordsworth’s description of Edward Christian is found in her letter to Jane Pollard of June 26, 1791; see Alan G. Hill, ed., Letters of Dorothy Wordsworth: A Selection (Oxford, 1981), pp. 9f. Wordsworth’s college days at St. John’s are described in Mary Moorman, William Wordsworth: A Biography, vol. 1 (Oxford, 1957), which also makes men
tion of Wordsworth’s relation to Frewen and Fisher.
For the remarks about breadfruit as food for West Indian slaves, see Hinton East to Banks, July 19, 1784, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (BC 1. 168). The economic and political issues behind the breadfruit venture are discussed in David MacKay, “Banks, Bligh and Bread-fruit,” The New Zealand Journal of History 8 (1974), pp. 61-77.
A favorite fiction inserted at the end of many accounts of Bligh’s Tahitian voyages is that the breadfruit was disliked and spurned in Jamaica, and hence Bligh’s efforts had been useless. By contrast, see Dulcie Powell, “The Voyage of the Plant Nursery, H.M.S. Providence, 1791-1793,” Bulletin of the Institute of Jamaica, Science Series no. 15 (1973), p. 7, which asserts that the fruit is “absolutely relied upon in rural areas, where breadfruit in its season, is eaten three times a day.”
Edward Christian’s letter to Wilberforce reporting on his “inquiry” is in the Bodleian Library, Oxford (Bod Ms. Wilberforce d.15/1 Fol.22r-23v.). Wilberforce’s friendship with Edward Christian is discussed in John Pollock, Wilberforce (New York, 1977), p. 8. The striking abolitionist character of Edward Christian’s committee and its remarkably numerous associations with William Wordsworth and his circle were first established and explored by Wilkinson, who was the first scholar of the Bounty to look beyond the particulars of its own history to the wider contemporary world of English politics and letters. This in itself was enlightening, but such observations serve only as a backdrop to his main contention—which must for the moment be reserved for the following chapter. Suffice it to say at this point that central to Wilkinson’s thesis is the highly convincing premise that Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” was in part inspired by Fletcher Christian’s adventures.
Edward Christian’s report was made in the form of an appendix to Stephen Barney’s publication of the minutes of the court-martial: Stephen Barney, 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).
For examples of language commonly employed by naval officers in this great age of sail, see Sir R. Vesey Hamilton and John Knox Laughton, eds., Recollections of James Anthony Gardner, Commander R.N. (London, 1906), Publications of the Navy Records Society, vol. 31, pp. 43 ff., 61, 66, 69ff., 160, 169 ff.
James Morrison’s two narratives are held by the Mitchell Library: “Memorandum and particulars respecting the Bounty and her crew,” Safe 1/33; and “Journal on HMS Bounty and at Tahiti, 1792,” ML, ZML Safe 1/42.
The Reverend Mr. Howell’s letter to Molesworth Phillips of November 25, 1792, is found in SLNSW: the Sir Joseph Banks Electronic Archive, 48.01. Phillips’s letter to Banks of December 12, 1792, apparently accompanying Morrison’s “Journal,” is found in BL Add. MS 33979.188-189.
Bligh’s public rebuttal of Edward Christian’s charges is made in William Bligh, Answer to Certain Assertions contained in the Appendix to a Pamphlet, 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), also published in facsimile by the Australiana Society. Bligh’s unpublished remarks on Edward Christian’s charges, on the court-martial testimony, and on Morrison’s narrative are found in William Bligh, “Attestation Mr. Wm. Bligh Plaintiff” and “Remarks on Morrison’s Journal,” both held by the ML (Safe 1/43).
For Joseph Farington’s report concerning Bligh’s intention to answer all charges against him, and the actions of the Heywood family, see Farrington, The Farington Diary, vol. 1, p. 56 (entry for June 23, 1794).
Howe’s letter regarding Peter Heywood’s difficulties in getting promoted is found in HO 119 Howe; Richard, Earl Howe to Sir Roger Curtis, July 23, 1794, Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif. The lawyer’s report is given in John Marshall, “Peter Heywood, Esq.,” Royal Naval Biography, vol. 2, part 2 (London, 1825), pp. 747-97. Peter Heywood’s “Lieutenant’s Passing Certificate” and statement of service are found in Adm. 107/19 and Adm. 6/94; for comparison with James Morrison, see Adm. 106/2217.
The will of Sir George Young is found in PROB 11/1515.
The reviews of Edward Christian’s “Appendix” and Bligh’s response are found respectively in the British Critic 4 (November 1794), p. 559, and 4 (December 1794), p. 686. Edward Christian’s final word is given in Edward Christian, A Short Reply to Capt. William Bligh’s Answer (London, 1795), published in facsimile by the Australiana Society (Melbourne, 1952).
The verses from The Borderers can be found in The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, vol. 1 (Oxford, 1963), verses 1727 ff.
For Coleridge’s notebook entry, see Kathleen Coburn, ed., The Notebooks of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, vol. 1 (New York, 1957), #174 G.169.22 or folio 25‘. For Coleridge’s dazzling poetic process, see Jonathon Livingston Lowes, The Road to Xanadu (Boston, 1927); or immodestly, this author’s own The Way to Xanadu (New York, 1994), about traveling to the landmarks of Kubla Khan. The line from “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” can be found in The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, vol. 1 (Oxford, 1975), part 4, verses 232ff.
LATITUDE 25° S, LONGITUDE 130° W
The discovery of Pitcairn (“Pitcairn’s” in earliest accounts) is recorded in Admiral Philip Carteret, “An Account of a Voyage Round the World,” in John Hawkesworth’s Voyages, vol. 1 (London, 1773). The meandering and remarkable voyage of the Bounty under Christian’s command until arrival at Pitcairn is described in H. E. Maude, “In Search of a Home: From the Mutiny to Pitcairn Island (1789-1790),” Journal of the Polynesian Society 67, no. 2 (June 1958), pp. 104-31.
The log of the Topaz, Captain Folger (April 5, 1807-February 10, 1808) is found in the Nantucket Historical Association Research Library, MS 220: ship’s logs, no. 105. News of the Topaz’s discovery was first published in Mayhew Folger, “Mutineers of the Bounty,” Naval Chronicle 21 (1809), pp. 454-55; it was later reported in a review of Voyage de Dentrecasteaux . . . , Quarterly Review, February 1810, pp. 21-43; Lieutenant Fitzmaurice’s report appears at pp. 23 ff. The Bounty Kendall chronometer had a long and colorful history of its own. Months after leaving Pitcairn, with his crew suffering from scurvy, Folger called in at the Spanish colony of Juan Fernández, where the Spanish garrison, in contravention of all sea law, impounded his ship, imprisoned his crew, and confiscated the Bounty chronometer. This was then purchased at an unknown date by a Señor Castillo for three doubloons. On his death in 1840, his family sold it to Captain Thomas Herbert, HMS Calliope, who gave it to what was then the United Service Museum in London. It was then acquired by the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, where it can be seen today (along with John Adams’s pigtail)—still, reportedly, keeping good time. Walter Hayes, The Captain from Nantucket and the Mutiny on the Bounty (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1996), contains most material relating to Folger’s visit, along with vivid background information. Finally, a letter from Folger’s wife describes what her husband had told her of his discovery (Mary Folger to Mary Rappee, 1846, Nantucket Historical Association Research Library, Folger Family Papers, MS 118, folder 32).
Manuscript copies of Pipon’s report are found in SLNSW: the Sir Joseph Banks Electronic Archive: “Papers concerning the discovery of Pitcairn Island and the mutineers of HMS Bounty, 1808-1809, 1813-1815” (Series 71.05). Pipon’s account was published in a review of Journal of a Cruize made to the Pacific Ocean, Quarterly Review 13, no. 26 (July 1815), pp. 352-83. This report was closely paraphrased, along with a copy of Captain Staines’s report, in “Nautical Anecdotes and Selections; Mutineers of the Bounty,” Naval Chronicle 35 (1816), pp. 17-25. An expanded version of Pipon’s account was published as “The Descendants of the Bounty’s Crew,” United Service Journal (1834), part 1, pp. 191-99.
Lieutenan
t John Shillibeer of the Royal Marines on board the Briton also left an account: John Shillibeer, A Narrative of the Briton’s Voyage to Pitcairn’s Island (Taunton, 1817); it was Shillibeer who reported Thursday October’s reaction to the West Indian. An important article based on Shillibeer’s report was also published in an unnamed newspaper (possibly the Sydney Gazette) in 1817, preserved in ATL, qMS-2259. “Account of Pitcairn’s Island Received from Mr. Rodney Shannon, Lieutenant on Board the King’s Ship, 1815,” Suffolk County Record Office, Bury St. Edmund’s (Ref 941/56/92), is also from this voyage. A brief report was also made by Lieutenant H. B. Willis, along with a marvelous sketch of the island and the picturesque inhabitants clad like ancient Greeks; this is found in ATL, qMS-2259. Finally, an amusing anecdote is related in Mordecai M. Noah, Travels in England, France, Spain and the Barbary States, in the Years 1813-14 and 15 (New York, 1819), pp. 6 ff. Noah was on a ship taken captive by the Briton. Captain Staines received his prisoners with “politeness and civility” but no “unmeaning expressions of regret.”
The script of Pitcairn’s Island, Melo Dramatic Ballet of Action in Two Acts, Thomas John Dibdin, Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, April 10, 1816 (LA 1918), is in the Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif.
Sir W. Sidney Smith’s letter of March 5, 1816, is found in ATL, MS-Papers-3102.
For Adams’s history, see Brian W. Scott, “The True Identity of John Adams,” Mariner’s Mirror 68 (1982), pp. 31-39. As an improbable footnote, Adams’s genealogy reveals him to be the great-uncle of Mary Moffat, who married the missionary David Livingston. The report of Adams’s visit to the Sultan and the first published account of his autobiography (and a brief but fascinating biographical sketch of mutineer Matthew Quintal) is recorded in The New England Galaxy, January 12, 1821, in a letter to the editor by Samuel Topliff.
The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty Page 55
