Perhaps, if they could get access to this journal, make copies, and have it quietly circulated privately amongst the great and the good?
Perhaps that might bring the hero Bligh down from his current exalted perch and make it clear that, in those circumstances – even though Peter was not involved in the Mutiny – even if he had been, it would have been justified!
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS
Mr. Bligh most certainly brands my amiable brother with the vile appellation of ‘Mutineer,’ but he has not dared to charge you with any crime that could have authoriz’d such an epithet; on the contrary, he has declared, under his own hand, that he had the highest esteem for you till the fatal moment of the Mutiny, and that your conduct during the whole course of the voyage was such as gave him the greatest pleasure and satisfaction.1
Nessy Heywood, letter to her brother Peter Heywood, as he awaited trial,
31 July 1792
My dear Nessy, cherish your hope and I will exercise my patience.2
Peter Heywood, letter to Nessy as he awaits his sentence, October 1792
H ow sweet is every feature in thy face –
E ach look is fraught with dignity and grace.
S urprising gentleness plays in thine eyes,
T o catch time unwary heart in sweet surprize
E ’en as the voice of Heav’n thine accents flow,
R aising a sweet delight where’er they go … 3
An acrostic poem written for Hester – ‘Nessy’ – by her beloved uncle,
Captain Thomas Pasley, 1786
But Christian, of a higher order, stood
Like an extinct volcano in his mood;
Silent, and sad, and savage, – with the trace
Of passion reeking from his clouded face;4
Lord Byron, ‘The Island’
August 1792, Isle of Man, considerable charm and extraordinary energy
They don’t come much more beautiful than Nessy Heywood, and few are more accomplished. She is a charming, well-educated 24-year-old with a penchant for poetry, and she and her two young sisters live with their widowed mother on the Isle of Man. Nessy is a happy soul by nature, notwithstanding she has gone through enormous unhappiness in recent times. First she had missed her younger brother Peter terribly, since he had left these shores three years earlier to go on the Bounty, and then had come the horrific news of the Mutiny, and that his name was not listed on the line-up of Loyalists!
Worse, just two months ago, he had returned, in chains, and is now being held upon the guardship Hector, in Portsmouth, and the common view is that he and the others will soon be tried for mutiny, and hanged.
Surely, there must have been some mistake?
The family is sure of it.
The lad they had so fondly farewelled in 1787 was a polite, well-mannered, confident young man. He was not a murderous Mutineer.
Oh, my admirable, my heroic boy … Oh, my best beloved Peter … to fly into your arms … I have no joy, no happiness but in your beloved society.5
Nessy asks him to send her a self-portrait so she knows what he looks like these days.
Still imprisoned in the brig of the Hector, young Peter is delighted to receive such a warm letter, but not surprised. Such is the nature of dear Nessy. Oh, how he loves her. And now, no matter that the Pandora had gone down with all his drawing pencils and colours – not to mention the many dozens of drawings he had completed, and his journals chronicling his wretched voyage – the drawing materials have been replaced by some kind guards, and he happily sets to doing a self-portrait reminding dear Nessy that:
I had no Looking Glass and therefore drew it from recollection and ’tis now one year at least since I saw my own face. With these disadvantages you cannot expect a striking resemblance.6
Thrilled in turn with his effort, Nessy writes back, commenting:
I am surprised you are not taller – I fully expected you would have been 5 Feet 10 at least, but that is of no consequence.7
Amused, Peter opens a mock-angry reply:
And so you are surprised I am not taller? Eh’ Nessy? Let me ask you this: suppose the last two years of your growth had been retarded by close confinement … shut up from the all-cheering light of the sun for the space of five months and never suffered to breathe fresh air … how tall should you have been my dear? Answer: Four Feet 0. But enough of nonsense.
Adieu, my dearest love – with kind remembrances to all, I remain yours most affectionately,
Peter Heywood 8
Young Peter’s letters assure Nessy and the family that he does not deserve to hang, as Captain Bligh has advocated.
Nessy will not have it. Not for a moment, do you hear?
And so, with all of her considerable charm, and extraordinary energy, Nessy begins what will be a long campaign to save her brother.
She starts by writing compelling letters, setting out the facts such as are known, which are sent to everyone from the First Lord of the Admiralty, John Pitt, Second Earl of Chatham, to a surprised but polite Midshipman John Hallett (who is set to testify against her brother), and to Nessy and Peter’s uncle, the well-connected Naval Commodore Thomas Pasley. To anyone who will listen, Nessy points out the truth: Peter Heywood is a very young man with an impeccable record of good character, caught up in a mutinous monstrosity not of his making. Why, if he was guilty of anything mutinous, would he have been among the first to board the Pandora when she arrived, paddling out to her of his own volition? Was that the act of a guilty man? Surely, in the name of English justice, you men of power and influence can do something to help poor Peter?
Commodore Pasley is in turn among the first to reply to his cherished niece, and in kind terms. But, he must be frank. Having informed himself of the situation, he feels obliged to temper her hopes of a miracle:
I cannot conceal it from you, my dearest Nessy, neither is it proper I should – your brother appears by all accounts to be the greatest culprit of all, Christian alone excepted. Every exertion, you may rest assured, I shall use to save his life, but on Trial I have no hope of his not being condemned.9
And nor does it alter his view when Nessy sends the good Commodore Peter’s own account of the Mutiny, which shows he nary lifted a hand against Captain Bligh, for he must warn her once more:
I will not deceive you, my dear Nessy; however favourable circumstances may appear, our martial law is severe; by the tenor of it, the man who stands neuter is equally guilty with him who lifts his arm against his captain.10
The only saving grace for Peter he can see is that, however scathing Bligh has been in private correspondence about young Peter, his accusations have not been matched in his official reports to the Admiralty – which is important. True, Peter had not been highlighted as one of the men who called out to Bligh from the deck of the Bounty to be marked as an innocent Loyalist, but nor has Bligh publicly named him as a Mutineer.
Now, on the specific subject of Bligh, the fact he is now journeying back to Tahiti is significant. For the expert advice that Nessy receives is that it is imperative that Peter appear before his court martial before Bligh can return to give testimony. If there is only his written response to go on, Peter might just be able to escape with his life. Here, at least, Commodore Pasley – at Nessy’s earnest behest – is able to bring his weight to bear, and ensure that the court martial is hurried up, for Pete’s sake, and have it scheduled for just three months after the Mutineers have returned to England, which is before Bligh will be back.
And the good news is that Pasley, meanwhile, is able to find support from surprising areas, even including a man not known for mercy at all, Captain Edward Edwards.
‘I have had some conversation on the subject with Pasley,’ Edwards writes to a friend, before trial, ‘with whose family the young man has some connection … Whatever might be his conduct in the affair he certainly came to Pandora of his own accord almost immediately after we anchored. I believe he has abilities and
have been informed he made himself master of the Tahiti language whilst on that island which may be of public utility …’11
Most importantly of all, ‘The unfortunate young man … at present on board a guardship at Portsmouth … I apprehend … did not take an active part against Mister Bligh.’12
•
In Tahiti, Bligh is busy. Beyond organising the bread-fruit plants, keeping a very close eye on the sailors and getting through an inordinate amount of daily cursing, he is spending a great deal of time talking with his old friend Tinah (who, as always, spends much time on board Bligh’s ship) and other Natives about their time with the Mutineers, hungry for details of their time on the island, and whatever more they might have divulged about the Mutiny.
Bligh also inspects the huts of his former charges – reluctantly conceding that Peter Heywood, ‘the villain who assisted in taking the Bounty from me’ had ‘regulated the garden and the avenue to his House with some taste’13 – and meets the women and children the Mutineers have left behind.
‘A fine child of about 12 months old was brought to me today,’ Bligh will recount. ‘It is a daughter of George Stewart, Midshipman of the Bounty. It was a very pretty creature, but had been so exposed to the sun as to be very little fairer than a Tahitian.’14
Few are more helpful than a Native woman called Mary, who had been the wife of Thomas McIntosh. With their baby girl now bouncing on her knee, the heartbroken Mary speaks at length with Bligh in half English, half Tahitian. As Bligh listens, by turns fascinated and appalled, Mary names those men who had mourned the Captain in the belief he was surely dead, even as Bligh chronicles the names of these fine souls in his Log, with the zeal of the Archangel Gabriel in the Good Book: ‘McIntosh, Coleman, Hillbrant, Norman, Byrn and Ellison scarcely ever spoke of me without crying.’15 Nevertheless, Mary says sorrowfully, there were two men who did not shed a single tear in Bligh’s general direction. ‘Stewart and Heywood were perfectly satisfied with their situation as any two Villains could be.’16
And so, Mary, what do you think would be a fitting punishment for Peter Heywood and George Stewart?
‘They deserve to be killed,’ Bligh records as the considered view of Tahiti’s own hanging judge. ‘But I hope those who cried for you will not be hurt.’17
While pleased to talk to Mary, Bligh is distressed to see how much Tahiti, the one-time paradise, has deteriorated as a direct result of its contact with the outside world.
‘Our friends here have benefitted little from their intercourse with Europeans,’ he records. ‘Our countrymen, have taught them such vile expressions as are in the mouth of every Tahitian and I declare that I would rather forfeit anything than to have been in the list of ships that have touched here since April, 1789.’
And even now, he is just warming up.
‘The quantity of old clothes left among these people is considerable, they wear such rags and dirty things as truly disgust us … It is rare to see a person dressed with a neat piece of cloth which formerly they had in abundance and wore with much elegance. Their general habiliments are now a dirty shirt and an old coat and waistcoat; they are no longer clean Tahitians, but in appearance a set of ragamuffins with whom it is necessary to have great caution.’18
May 1792, Pitcairn, solace to not cave in
While it is one thing for Fletcher Christian to have physically escaped Bligh, it is another to be free of the many things that pursue his spirit. Time and again his haunting regrets meet his worst nightmares head-on and a terrible blackness descends. At such times Isabella packs him some supplies – which includes ammunition for his gun – embraces him, and farewells him to the one place on Pitcairn where he manages to find some kind of solace, a large cave high on a cliff-face, which is dangerously difficult to get to, which is why Fletcher likes it. Once inside, he does not have to speak to anyone, does not have to see or be seen by anyone, and is free to just sit and contemplate, gazing at the extraordinary view of the ocean, and the less pleasing view of his life – what he has done, what might have been, what his lot now is, what he might do in the future. Maybe, one day, a ship might appear on yonder horizons? Maybe it might be Dutch, or Portuguese, or American, and he could actually make his way back to civilisation, and even back to his own family. But what then of Isabella and Thursday? Could he actually leave them? If they came with him, could they ever fit into the life of anonymity he would have to lead while in England? The sad answer to the latter is obviously not. It is a contemplation without answers, but at least he is free to reflect on things without interruption.
And if it proves to be a British ship, well, he could perhaps retrieve his family, and – with the cache of supplies he has secreted here – hold out for a very long time.
Usually for three days, from his high citadel, Fletcher stares out to the ocean, thinking of his family and friends in England, missing Isabella and wee Thursday, but simply glad to be alone with his thoughts.
And finally it is time, and a few hours afterwards the moment that Isabella has been waiting for arrives. She looks up, and Fletcher is back, safe. For now.
•
In the lead-up to the court martial, Nessy Heywood seeks learned legal advice, even though, as Commodore Pasley points out, it is just not done in the Royal Navy to have that counsel address the court martial. As ever, Nessy goes after the finest advocate she can find, a renowned naval lawyer who falls within her strong family connections, Mr Aaron Graham. Though too busy, even as jaded a jurist as he can’t resist the charms of Nessy Heywood and he agrees to take the case – even adding the professional services of a colleague, Mr Const, to advise on legal strategies, and sit by Peter throughout the trial, even if he cannot argue a case on his behalf.
James Morrison? He has no charming sister to plead his case, no powerful uncle, and barely a bean to pay a lawyer if one could be convinced that his case was not absolutely hopeless.
All he has are his wits and his quill. For, realising that his only chance is to get the true story out – not the fantasy promoted by that brilliant bastard Bligh, whose latest tome, A Voyage to the South Sea, is published on 1 July 1792, a mere fortnight after the arrival of the accused Mutineers, and is now being perused with great public interest and sympathy – James Morrison spends his days incarcerated on the Hector writing his own version of what happened, first on the Bounty, then in Tahiti and then in Pandora. It is entitled Memorandum and Particulars Respecting the Bounty and her Crew, goes for 42 pages and crackles and explodes on every page as Bligh is seen again and again to succumb to the temptation of losing his temper for trivialities, of imposing outrageous privations on his men, of forcing the Master to sign the books against his will, of, yes, completely alienating the entire ship by blowing up over absurdities.
In the afternoon of the 27th a number of Cocoa Nuts were missed by Mr Bligh from the Quarter Deck upon which, all the Officers were called and on their declaring, that they had not seen any person take them, he told them they were all thieves alike. He particularly called Christian a Thief and a Villain, and [told the ship’s company], ‘You Villains, I’ll make half of you jump over board before I get through Endeavour Straights.’19
There are well-told and endless stories of fury and discord, lacking only one thing – someone of influence to read them, to believe them, to start to get the real story out to others of influence.
Could the very reverent Reverend William Howell, priest at St John’s Chapel in Portsmouth, be that man? A kindly pastor, he has made it his business in life to give food to the hungry and hope to the hopeless, and has made a point of coming to visit the prisoners of the Bounty, all of whom, he knows, will likely swing. And of course, he talks to Heywood, Muspratt, Morrison and the others about what has occurred, hears all the stories, and is shocked by their consistency, the passion with which they are told and the fact that they all point to the innocence of the men – or at least an explanation for why they have done what they’ve done – and the sheer bloody-minded culpab
ility of Bligh.
So open is Howell in his sympathy for the men that Morrison decides he can trust him – and is not proven wrong. After the prisoner looks left, looks right, and slips the preacher the manuscript, the reverend takes himself to another part of the brig and quietly reads it, before slipping it back. Shaking the bony hand of the rake-thin Morrison as he leaves, the truly shocked preacher promises the prisoner that he will do what he can – and that night, can barely sleep. Of course most of the story cannot be presented as evidence for the court martial – as that proceeding is very narrowly framed so that it will be almost exclusively focused on what happened on the morning of the Mutiny – but it remains important to get the background story out, and the Reverend Howell knows he is the man for the job.
•
After the murders and mayhem, comes a kind of calm. The labour of Talaloo and Ohoo is missed, but in their absence the ‘Pitkerners’ have no choice for the moment but to make peace, of a sort, settle down the best they can, and focus on farming. The sun rises and falls, the seasons change, a little, and the rhythm of their lives runs to both as they look after their animals, raise their crops and harvest as hunger dictates.
By now little Thursday Christian is nearly one year old, he’s crawling and knows both English and Tahitian words – and, by the looks of things, even speaks a little hog and chicken, to judge by the delight he takes in playing with both. As it happens, Thursday is one of the few things absolutely guaranteed to raise Fletcher’s troubled spirits, as even this far removed from the Mutiny he still wakes in the night, fretting, sweating, letting the horror of what happened wash over him once more.
Steady, Fletcher, steady.
Holding Isabella more tightly still, he calms at least a little. Whatever else, he has her, and the sound of Thursday’s soft breathing from his cot beside them is affirmation that he at least has some reasons to live.
Mutiny on the Bounty Page 52
