CHAPTER ONE

Plymouth, 1754

The boy becomes a seafarer

Voyages into the South Pacific by the great mariners of the eighteenth century – such as Cook, Bligh and Furneaux – revealed a paradise that could not have been more starkly different from everyday life in England at the time. Little wonder then that the Bounty mutineers, especially those with few family ties, opted not to return home. They weren’t the first to do so: there had already been deserters from many of the ships that had sailed to those shores. Even Captain Cook had trouble with deserters in Tahiti after he anchored HMS Endeavour at Raiatea, 140 nautical miles north-west of Papeete, during his first voyage of discovery. And Samuel Wallace, captain of HMS Dolphin, who discovered Tahiti in 1767, saw how the charms of the Tahitian women brought trouble among his crew. He wrote: ‘the commerce which our men had found means to establish with the women of the island, rendered them much less obedient to the orders that had been given for the regulation of their conduct on shore, than they were at first …’

It was twenty-two years after Captain Wallace made those observations that Bligh also became a victim of the hypnotic effect of this tropical paradise. But his situation was far worse: more than half his crew had mutinied and as a consequence he found himself, along with some loyalists, marooned on a small Pacific island 13,000 nautical miles from home. It was the last thing this accomplished seafarer could have imagined when, after joining the Royal Navy as a seven-year-old cadet in his hometown of Plymouth, he put to sea for the first time as a crewmember of HMS Hunter, aged fifteen.

The name Bligh is more Cornish than pasties. It can be traced back to the Domesday Book in the eleventh century. Three centuries later, during the reign of Edward III, official records reveal that the family of Bligh held estates in Cornwall. So it is not surprising that a number of villages in Cornwall have laid claim to being the birthplace of William Bligh, none more so than St Tudy, in the countryside 200 miles south-west of London. After residing in nearby Bodim during the sixteenth century, some of Francis Bligh’s forebears had moved to St Tudy in 1680. But according to noted Bligh historian and academic George Mackaness, it is more likely that William Bligh was born in Plymouth, thirty miles to the south-east of St Tudy. The St Andrew’s Church register in Plymouth declares: ‘William the Son of Francis and Jane Bligh was born on the ninth day of September 1754, about one o’clock in the morning’. He was baptised in the same church less than a month later.

William’s mother, Jane Pearce, had been a widow with one daughter, Catherine, when she married Francis. She was over forty years old when William was born; it is highly likely he was the only child of this union. There are no records to the contrary.

The England of Bligh’s childhood saw the birth of the Industrial Revolution, an event that over the next century transformed the world forever, and nothing was more pivotal to England’s burgeoning wealth and power at this time than the Royal Navy. In the year Bligh was born, the navy comprised nearly 500 ships and some 75,000 men, and seaports dotted the entire English coastline for defence, maintenance and trade purposes. The Royal Navy had six dockyards in England, the largest being at Portsmouth, however Plymouth became the main naval base when the French replaced the Dutch as the greatest threat to the country’s security. Originally known as Plymouth Yard when it was founded in 1690, Plymouth Dock was the home port for the Western Squadron during the eighteenth century. Even during peacetime the dockyard was busy as ships were laid-up: they remained afloat but their guns, masts, sails and rigging were removed and placed in storage. Peace also presented the opportunity for these ships to be repaired and to have new ships built.

In the early eighteenth century, English novelist Daniel Defoe described Plymouth as: ‘a town of consideration and of great importance to the public. It is situated between two very large inlets of the sea and in the bottom of a large bay, which is very remarkable.’

In fact, Plymouth was remarkable in many ways. In addition to its prominence as a naval port, it was a vital centre of trade for England, both coastal and to distant destinations, including the West Indies, the American colonies and the Mediterranean. This amalgam of naval activity and commerce created a vibrant and diverse community for its few thousand residents. By 1758, Plymouth had achieved such significance on a national scale that a turnpike – a toll road – was built between the town and London, a distance of more than 200 miles.

Due to its proximity to the western entrance of the English Channel, Plymouth remained of high strategic and commercial importance to England for centuries: it gave ships-of-sail unimpeded access to the North Atlantic and beyond. For this same reason, Plymouth was the port of origin for so many famous voyages, and departures for battle.

In December 1577 Francis Drake set sail from this port on what would be the first circumnavigation of the world by an Englishman. When he returned three years later he had news of many discoveries, but what brought him most fame, plus deep gratitude from his queen – Elizabeth I – was that he presented her with one of the richest prizes ever to be taken in battle: coins, jewels and precious metals valued then at £450,000. He secured this immense treasure after his defeat of the Spanish ship Nuestra Señora de la Concepción during a confrontation off the coast of Peru. The queen’s half-share of the booty exceeded the rest of the crown’s revenue for the entire year, so it wasn’t surprising she dubbed him Sir Francis Drake in a ceremony on the deck of his ship, Golden Hind, near London the following year.

Drake’s name became synonymous with Plymouth in 1588 when, legend has it, he chose to complete a game of bowls at Plymouth Hoe, overlooking the harbour, instead of immediately responding to news that the 150-strong Spanish Armada was on approach, intent on invading England and overthrowing the queen. Drake had apparently placed more importance on completing the game of bowls than putting to sea. The true reason he didn’t set sail immediately was adverse tide and wind. When he did lead the English ships into battle they put down the foreign threat over a period of months in a most resounding fashion.

Plymouth also farewelled the Pilgrims on Mayflower on 16 September 1620 as they set sail for the New World, and two months later established the Plymouth Colony in what is now Plymouth, Massachusetts. It was also the point of departure for all three voyages into the Pacific undertaken by Captain James Cook, the first of which came almost 150 years after the Pilgrims set sail. A defeated Napoleon, too, left Plymouth on the Bellepheron in 1815 on his way to exile in St Helena.

With so much maritime activity centring on Plymouth, William Bligh seemed destined for a life as a seafarer. It was a destiny inevitably influenced by his father, a lifetime employee of HM Customs in this naval town. During William’s formative years he spent time with his father aboard the revenue boats, used to ferry customs officials to ships that had entered the port and were at anchor, to collect duty from the master. However, being a customs official also had a grave element of danger to it: smuggling was rife across this part of England, and customs men, who were supposed to help control it, stood the chance of being murdered. Even so, the smugglers were seen by many to be an acceptable part of the local community. At Mousehole, one of the westernmost villages on the coast, charges were laid against village officials for accepting bribes and cooperating with smugglers, while the Penzance collector of customs described one villager, Richard ‘Doga’ Pentreath, as ‘an honest man in all his dealings though a notorious smuggler’. But it was Plymouth, one of the busiest ports in England, that was the largest market for contraband, primarily because of its vastness and the volume of shipping arriving there from foreign ports.

Young Bligh grew up against a backdrop of trade, travel and war. When he was just two years old, the Seven Years War, in many ways the world’s first global war, began. It involved all major European powers and saw Great Britain, Prussia and a coalition of German states confronting an enemy comprising France, Russia, Sweden, Austria and Saxony and, eventually, Spain. The Dutch Republic and Portugal were also involved. The bloody encounters, which resulted in as many as 1.4 million deaths, came to an end with the signing of the treaties of Hubertusburg and Paris in February 1763. With Spain and its allies defeated, Britain emerged as the greatest colonial power, its control extending as far as India and North America.

It was during the latter years of the war that seven-year-old William Bligh was entered on Admiralty records as a ship’s boy, or servant to the captain, on the battle-hardened HMS Monmouth. In command of this veteran ship was a twenty-three-year-old Scot, Keith Stewart, who is believed to have been a friend of Bligh’s mother, Jane. More interestingly, young William Bligh’s brother-in-law, John Bond – who was married to Bligh’s half-sister, Catherine – was a naval surgeon aboard the same ship.

It was the custom in Georgian England for a Royal Navy captain to have favoured youths or youngsters from the lower classes join him on a man-of-war as servants so each boy could achieve, at the earliest possible age, the six years’ sea time required for a career in the navy. Naval regulations stipulated that each captain was allowed four servant boys for each 100 crew, and with Monmouth having a complement of between 500 and 600 men, Captain Stewart could have had more than twenty cadets in service. In addition to receiving an education from the schoolmaster employed aboard each of the larger navy ships, these youngsters acted as cabin boys for their superiors and also ‘learnt the ropes’, learning about the many features of a ship-of-sail, seafaring, the tying of knots, the handling of sails and steering. They were taught to draw, read and write, something most ordinary seamen aboard the ship could not do. In battle many of these youngsters were required to work as ‘powder monkeys’, their task being to run gunpowder from the ship’s magazine to the cannons. Discipline was always strong for cadets while on board a ship, but there was no class distinction: lower-class lads lived and learned alongside the sons of gentlemen and officers.

Aged seven, Bligh’s career path was already set: he was destined to be a naval officer, and while he was on the bottom rung of the ladder of naval service he could not have wished for a better opportunity. Monmouth, named after a town in south-eastern Wales that has a history dating back to the Roman occupation of England, was a ship with an extremely proud heritage. She was a seventy-gunner that had been in service for almost twenty years, and it would be another five years before she was decommissioned and broken up. Her illustrious career saw her collect many battle honours, however, there was no greater achievement than her close-quarters encounter with the new eighty-gun French flagship Foudroyant, on 28 February 1758, just four years before Bligh went aboard.

By this time in British naval history its sailors had learned how to fight a battle successfully at night, something the French had not mastered. Foudroyant was sailing off Cartagena, on Spain’s Mediterranean coast, when she was intercepted by three British ships, including Monmouth. Despite Foudroyant boasting significantly superior firepower, Monmouth’s then captain, Arthur Gardiner, had no hesitation in engaging the enemy. He broke his ship away from the British squadron and at eight o’clock at night the action began. In a blazing and unrelenting battle where the sky was vividly illuminated as if by lightning, lethal cannonballs were blasted towards the enemy, bringing carnage to both sides. At ten o’clock Monmouth’s mizzenmast was blown to pieces and soon after Foudroyant’s main mast went crashing over the side in a tangle of rigging, sails and timber. At midnight Foudroyant had virtually no cannons left operational, and it took only one destructive broadside from HMS Swiftsure when she arrived on the scene for the French to strike their colours.

Bligh did not see such action as a cadet, nor even go to sea on Monmouth. Just eight months after joining the ship he was paid off and returned to shore. It is highly probable this was due to the signing of the Treaty of Paris, which ended the Seven Years War, just ten days prior to him leaving the ship. The treaty, which recognised a British victory, brought peace, and this led to the Royal Navy decommissioning a large proportion of its fleet and standing down the majority of its men. No doubt it meant that Captain Stewart, of Monmouth, was no longer entitled to his quota of cadets and Bligh, along with many others, would have most likely then returned home where he would continue his education and possibly share work experience on the water with his father.

With peace prevailing across Europe, the British began to turn their seafaring skills towards exploration, and soon became obsessed by it. As a result there were few opportunities for employment within the navy, and this might explain why there are no records relating to William Bligh for seven years following his departure from Monmouth. However, there is no doubt he continued his education and was an avid student because by the time he reappeared, he had developed impressive skills and acquired considerable knowledge in mathematics, science, writing and illustrating – exceptional talents so apparent in the meticulous logs and charts he created later in life.

It was in 1770, the same year that Captain Cook confirmed the existence of the Great South Land, New Holland, on the opposite side of the world, that the name William Bligh reappeared in naval records and set him on a course which a few years later would see him linked to the great explorer. It might have been the recent death of his beloved mother, and his father’s remarriage, that led fifteen-year-old William to re-enter the navy on the pay sheets of HMS Hunter. It was 27 July and he was registered as an able-bodied seaman (AB), or able seaman.

Aboard Hunter, a small ten-gun sloop, Bligh had his first taste of being at sea and under sail. He made his first trans-Atlantic passage to the Caribbean and later crossed the Irish Sea to Dublin. As an AB he learned about a ship’s rig and sails, how to relay messages between decks, how to command the ship’s small boats, how to run a watch system and how to supervise the gun batteries.

For Bligh this posting was, in essence, an apprenticeship, a period during which he would mark time and accumulate the experience and contacts needed to further his career. It was not uncommon for a young man with his sights set on moving up to the next rank, a midshipman, to be appointed an able seaman while waiting for a vacancy to occur. Bligh, at this time, was a midshipman in every sense but name: he was carrying out the same duties as midshipmen on the quarterdeck and also messed with them.

He was already impressing his superiors because by February 1771, a mere seven months after he joined Hunter, he was promoted to midshipman, a position he retained when he was transferred to a considerably larger thirty-two-gun ship, HMS Crescent, a few days after his seventeenth birthday. He remained with Crescent (formerly the French privateer Rostan, which had been captured by the British in 1758) for three years when the ship spent much of its time on the West Indies station, where it was actively involved in helping quell slave uprisings. His service aboard this ship saw him hone his skills further.

As the name suggests, a midshipman was a sailor who was accommodated amidships, in the middle section of the ship between the men who lived forward and the officers who were aft. Royal Navy regulations stated that no one could ‘be rated as a master’s mate or midshipman who shall not have been three years at sea’. All midshipmen were expected to work the ship as well as learn navigation and seamanship. Royal Navy slang saw a midshipman often referred to as a ‘snotty’. There were two popular theories relating to this seemingly derogatory term. One related to a general absence of handkerchiefs among midshipmen, so they had no option but to deal with a runny nose by wiping it on their sleeves. The other story claims that the three buttons sewn onto the cuffs of a midshipman’s jacket were put there to stop this practice.

During his posting aboard Hunter, or later with HMS Ranger, Bligh may have visited Douglas, the largest town on the Isle of Man, and if so, might have met Elizabeth Betham, a strikingly attractive young woman who would eventually steal his heart. She was one year older than Bligh, and her father, like Bligh’s, was a collector of customs, and he was also the water bailiff in Douglas.

In September 1774 Bligh joined Ranger – a small eight-gun sloop that had been in service since 1752 – as it presented a greater chance for advancement through the ranks. Unlike many of his fellow midshipmen, he did not have the family background to further his career through connections or money. His only assets were his talent and his determination. So, to ensure that he could take full advantage of any opportunities Ranger offered, he chose to step back to the position of AB just so he could be on board.

It was a wise move as Admiralty records would soon reveal that Bligh displayed the talents of a sailor who was ‘intended for the quarterdeck’. This was confirmed when, just one year later, he was promoted to the rank of midshipman, and with it came the title of master’s mate: he was now a direct assistant to the sailing master and took a more responsible role in the operation of the ship. The posting brought an increase in pay from 2 pounds, 5 shillings to 3 pounds, 16 shillings per month.

Had he stayed with Ranger he would almost certainly have seen action in the American colonial rebellion in 1776, but eighteen months after signing on, his brilliance was further recognised by his superiors: he was rewarded with what would have been at the time a much sought after transfer. He was appointed to the notable position of sailing master aboard the 111-foot, 462-ton sloop HMS Resolution, under the command of Captain James Cook. This ship was being prepared for Cook’s third voyage of discovery into the Pacific. Cook had returned from his second voyage in June 1775 and was due to set sail again with the same ship just one year later. The primary aim for the new expedition was to discover a passage around the northern coast of North America, from the Pacific to the Atlantic, and thus eliminate the need to traverse the treacherous waters of the Southern Ocean where Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope stood as notorious obstacles. There were additional instructions, such as ‘collecting samples of plants, fruit, metals and stones; establishing a friendship with the natives of the region, and claiming uninhabited locations along the way in the name of His Majesty’.

Bligh’s appointment as sailing master, which he took up on 20 March 1776, was a remarkable achievement for the twenty-one-year-old, who was then still in the junior ranks. On 1 May that year he was presented with his lieutenant’s ‘Passing Certificate’. The transfer to Resolution and promotion to a senior rank confirmed he had continued to display exceptional talent to his superiors, even though he had been seen by some to be an ‘awkward fellow’ because of his supposed hair-trigger temper and a propensity for impatience.

Prior to being awarded his certificate, Bligh went before a board of three captains for an examination relating to seamanship, navigation and discipline. Various propositions would likely have been put to him, such as: ‘An enemy is observed; give orders for clearing your ship and make all the necessary preparations for engaging.’ Bligh was also required to present proof of his length of service, journals he kept while a midshipman, and certificates from his superiors confirming his sobriety and diligence. He had to convince the board he had the ability to work a ship under sail, reef a sail, splice ropes, work the tides and demonstrate his aptitude as a navigator. While he had then qualified as a lieutenant, it did not automatically entitle him to the new commission. Instead, he would have to wait until a position became available within the ranks.

As sailing master on Resolution, Bligh was primarily in charge of navigation and the sailing of the ship. In consultation with the captain he decided and plotted the course, and nominated the sails to be set. He also maintained the maps and instruments needed for navigation, a responsibility that demanded meticulous attention to detail, particularly on voyages of exploration where charts were more often than not inaccurate, or worse still, non-existent.

Cook had been encouraged to include Bligh in his crew with the strongest recommendation from the Admiralty’s highest office. Lord John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich, was in his third period as First Lord of the Admiralty, and was patron of Cook’s Pacific ambitions. Lord Montagu was also funding the purchase and fit-out of Resolution.

Montagu was obviously well aware of the growing reputation the promising young midshipman, Bligh, held as a navigator, surveyor and seaman. Accordingly, Cook had no hesitation in signing him on for his third Pacific voyage, one that would embrace exploration and discovery. Cook realised that, even with only six years at sea to his credit, Bligh was displaying every attribute needed to complement Cook’s own abilities and serve the voyage well. His view of Bligh was that the young man ‘under my direction could be easily employed in constructing charts, in taking views of the coasts and headlands near which we would pass, and in drawing plans of the bays and harbours in which we should anchor’, adding that attention to detail in these duties was ‘wholly requisite if we should render our discoveries profitable for future navigators’.

The two seafarers also shared a common bond: Cook, then aged forty-seven, and Bligh both came from modest origins, and while Bligh spent all of his younger years on the waterfront in Plymouth, Cook’s passion for the sea emerged at the age of sixteen when he moved to the scenic coastal village of Staithes, in North Yorkshire, and became entranced by its sheltered harbour and the ocean that lay beyond. Both men had entered the Royal Navy through the junior ranks on the lower deck, and had enjoyed an impressive rise based on their talent and skill. By comparison, had either man been enlisted as a boy into the British Army, and not the Royal Navy, there is a high probability neither would have achieved such levels of distinction during their careers. The reason was simple: to have the best chance of climbing the ranks in the army in the eighteenth century you had to be from the aristocracy or at least be extremely well connected. But in the navy a sailor’s ability as a mariner was generally considered more valuable than his social status, even though there was a considerable element of bias towards the nobility within the fleet.

It is likely that before Resolution set sail, Bligh met for the first time the acclaimed botanist Sir Joseph Banks, a man who was destined to become a mentor and great supporter of Bligh’s naval career. Banks had been with Cook on his first Pacific voyage of discovery between 1768 and 1771 – the historic passage to Tahiti that led to the discovery of New Zealand and Australia’s east coast, but one which also saw the ship run aground on a coral reef and go close to foundering. Ironically, it was when Cook was saving his ship on the tropical north-east coast of Australia that Bligh returned to the navy as a fifteen-year-old.

For Cook’s third voyage, part of the Resolution’s refit for her planned three-year expedition involved the relatively new procedure of sheathing and filling the hull for protection from teredo worms – ‘the termites of the sea’. This was being carried out at the naval facility at Deptford, on the Thames, just downstream from the centre of London. Unfortunately, however, the results of the apathy and shoddy workmanship of the dockyard workers would not become truly evident until the ship was being pressed on the high seas, or when the heavens delivered a torrential downpour. The ingress of water under those circumstances made for a miserable existence for all on board. It can also be safely said that the responsibility for much of the inferior workmanship and delays during the refit period rested with Cook. Before his previous voyages he had played an extremely active role in overseeing every aspect of the preparation of his ships, ensuring the work was done to appropriate standards, but this time he was otherwise occupied: completing the writing of his journal from the preceding voyage, sitting for a portrait, and forever studying charts relating to the proposed course for this third mission.

The importance the government placed on Cook’s passage to the South Pacific became apparent on 8 June when Resolution was anchored in the lower reaches of the Thames so that armaments, water and stores could be put aboard. On this day the entire crew was ordered to assemble on deck in their best dress, or slops – a name originating from the old English word sloppe, meaning breeches (the Royal Navy still refers to its clothing stores as ëSlop Storesí). With most sailors being relatively poor they made their own clothes, so their garb varied considerably in style and colour, blue being the preference. On this occasion the fundamentals for the sailors would have been baggy breeches, often made from old canvas sails, cotton or linen tunic tops with long sleeves, weskits (vests made from fabric or leather), possibly knitted stockings and simple leather shoes. Like the clothing, their headwear varied greatly in colour, design and material: there was the basic tricorn, knitted caps, monmouth caps, apple pastie hats with their turned-up brims, and canvas hats that were tarred black to make them waterproof. Their hair was generally tied back in a ponytail and often coated with tar so that it remained in place - hence the term ‘jack tar’. The commissioned officers on the day were in all their finery: blue frockcoats with white lapels, white breeches, stockings and black bespoke shoes with buckles. Bligh and other lower-ranked warrant officers were identified by their blue breeches. It was mid-afternoon when the cause for this call for full regalia became apparent. With all pomp and ceremony, including cannon fire and the shrill of pipes, the First Lord of the Admiralty, the 4th Earl of Sandwich, was welcomed aboard along with other dignitaries. They spent considerable time inspecting the ship under Cook’s guidance, and then, with formalities complete, they joined him for a special dinner in the great cabin.

Before departing English shores, Resolution would make two additional stops. Early on 26 June she anchored at the Downs, off the south-east corner of England, where two small open boats, specially built for the expedition in nearby Deal, were taken on board. Then it was on to Plymouth, where Cook would wait for the right weather conditions – a favourable wind and tide – so they could safely weigh anchor, clear the coast and sail south into the Atlantic. While in Plymouth Resolution was joined by the 229-ton full-rigged ship Discovery, which was to be the consort vessel for this voyage. Given Cook had come close to losing Endeavour while exploring Australia’s north-eastern coast, he insisted on having a support vessel for future expeditions. It meant there was always a vessel that could either come to the aid of a grounded ship or transport the crew back to England should one of the vessels be wrecked.

For this latest mission, Resolution had a crew of 112 and Discovery, seventy. The total complement included thirty-five marines. On 12 July 1776, just eight days after the Declaration of Independence in the American colonies on the other side of the Atlantic, dawn gave way to a gloomy and wet English summer day. The wind and tide were suitable for sailing, however, so on Cook’s call, and with sailing master William Bligh coordinating many of the procedures, the sails and rig were readied while some of the crew turned to the windlass handspikes and waited for the order to weigh anchor. When that came they began their labour, hauling aboard the anchor warp until the anchor itself was raised high enough above the water for it to be hoisted to the cathead and lashed into place. Simultaneously, they eased the clew and buntlines, and the sails unfurled from their heavy timber yards. Then, with blocks and pulleys screeching under the load, the crew hauled away on the braces, sheets and tacks before belaying them. Soon all sails, including the spanker and foresails, were set to suit the wind angle and Resolution was making way. Cook’s third passage into the Pacific had begun, two months behind schedule.

Resolution’s initial course would take her to the south from Plymouth into the English Channel. As she gained momentum and increased bearing on the coastline many crewmembers spent time absorbing the expansive but grey-tinged view of the English countryside with some level of despondency. Bligh would not see home for more than four years, but tragically for his famous captain, this would be the last time that Cook would cast his eyes on the coast of England.