Contrasting fortunes of Bounty’s adversaries The way we were

On December 16, 1789 Lieutenant William Bligh reached the Cape from Batavia aboard the Dutch ship Vlydt, almost 18 months after leaving Simon’s Bay in HMS Bounty with high hopes. During the interim he had spent five months in tropical Tahiti nurturing 1 015 young breadfruit trees in pots and stowing them in the small ship’s main cabin, besides many more in tubs and boxes on deck. The trees were due to be taken half way around the world to produce food for slaves in the West Indies.

During the long voyage, Bligh managed to alienate almost half his men by subjecting them to vicious bouts of rage and verbal abuse. To his great surprise, his deputy, Fletcher Christian, suffered a mental breakdown and seized the ship.

Bligh and 18 others were left to shift for themselves in a small open boat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

After a harrowing six-week voyage, during which Bligh’s temper continued to flare, the emaciated and bedraggled survivors reached Dutch Timor and prepared to sail on to Batavia. It’s hard to believe that the tyrannical lieutenant was a devoted family man who wrote a tender letter to his “own dear Betsy” and their three young daughters concerning his innocence of all blame for the mutiny.

The ailing survivors were dependent on the Batavian authorities for health care and passages home in the October fleet. Fortunately the Fourth AngloDutch War had concluded five years earlier and the two nations were on reasonably good terms.

Bligh visited Governor Van de Graaff at the Castle, where he was received “in the most polite and friendly manner”. On March 14, 1790, he left the Vlydt in mid-Channel and landed at Portsmouth.

In the end, 12 of the 19 abandoned men reached England alive. Bligh was exonerated at the subsequent inquiry and made a second breadfruit voyage from 1791-3 which was successful – although the crop proved unpopular with the slaves for whom it had been intended.

Meanwhile, the mutineers threw the potted trees into the sea and sailed back to Tahiti, where they left several men who were not committed to their cause.

Christian and eight British sailors took 18 Tahitian men and women aboard and set off to find a refuge where they could survive and escape their pursuers.

They eventually settled on remote Pitcairn Island, safe from outside interference but subject to internal tensions that resulted in the death of all the Tahitian males and eight of the nine mutineers by 1800, many of whom were murdered.

John Adams became the island’s patriarch and gave the children religious instruction and English lessons.

The settlement was discovered by the Royal Navy in 1814, but Adams was not arrested and lived on until 1829.