CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Torres Strait, 1792

Success and slander

When the crews of Providence and Assistant saw the profiles of Tahiti’s lush and towering volcanic peaks dissolve into the horizon behind their ships, Bligh had already set himself three immediate objectives: to search the myriad islands they would encounter en route to Torres Strait for any news of Pandora and even the Bounty mutineers themselves; to explore, as much as possible in the time available, the Fiji Islands; then to explore and survey Torres Strait in a bid to find a safe passage through it to the west.

Providence was running under full sail before a refreshing and steady south-easterly trade wind and making excellent progress during daylight hours, but when it came to night they probed their way through the darkness slowly under greatly reduced canvas, ‘in an anxious lookout’. The responsibility placed on the seaman stationed high on the mainmast was enormous: these were still very dangerous, uncharted seas where in an instant an unseen coral reef or low-lying atoll could bring tragedy similar to that which had befallen Matilda and its crew.

As she was steered to the west, Providence weaved her way past numerous islands, including Bora Bora, and after sailing more than 600 nautical miles she arrived at Aitutaki, which arguably boasts the world’s most beautiful island lagoon. It was a sweet reverie for Bligh as he had discovered this heavenly part of paradise aboard Bounty just seventeen days before the mutiny in April 1789. When he went ashore this time and communicated with the islanders in a fractured dialect and with hand gestures, the captain became convinced that Pandora had been there, but there was no evidence of Bounty

Departing Aitutaki on 26 July 1792, within days Bligh was again back in all-too-familiar waters. He was in close proximity to the Friendly Isles, the region where, three years earlier, the famous, or infamous, mutiny occurred, and the incredible open-boat voyage to Timor began. Not far away was the island of Tofua, where he and his men went close to meeting a grisly death at the hands of islanders. However, there was little time for reflection and certainly no desire to stop this time.

For the leader of this expedition there was a far greater temptation to the north-west-by-north, one he could not resist: he had the opportunity to mount a more thorough investigation of one of his earlier discoveries, Fiji – or Bligh’s Islands as the large patchwork of tropical peaks and atolls was then known. Also, he hoped that his track to Fiji would allow him to prove that other explorers had got it wrong, that the Friendly Isles and the southern part of what were called Maurelle’s Islands were the same. This he did.

Dutch explorer and seafarer Abel Janszoon Tasman had been the first to sight some of the Fiji islands, in 1643. In fact he was almost wrecked there when his ship was swept alarmingly close to dangerous reefs that stood as a natural barrier around the atolls and islands making up the north-eastern part of the Fiji or Bligh Islands. Then, in 1774, Captain Cook recorded a sighting of the southernmost island in the group but ventured no further. Bligh is largely credited with making the most extensive discoveries among the 332 islands of the archipelago scattered across 200,000 square miles of ocean: first during the launch voyage, when he sailed through the centre of the group, and now with Providence. However, as great as this exploratory passage would prove to be, the captain certainly didn’t endear himself to historians, because of the very basic method he adopted to identify the islands.

Since there were so many islands in the group, Bligh decided, quite understandably, that it would be too difficult to give every one of them a name, so instead he used the letters of the alphabet.

Sailing with the utmost caution, the exploration continued through the reef-strewn region. All the time Bligh was recognising the magnitude of the demands placed on his navigational skills and the constant pressure the lookouts positioned high in the rig were experiencing. At no stage was there room for complacency or assumption; these treacherous waters were a maze of coral reefs and shoals, and every one of them held the potential to claim one or both of the ships.

Prudent seamanship was paramount in this situation. The security of the expedition was at stake, so Bligh gave orders for the sails to be taken in and progress slowed to little more than one knot. As an extra precaution, he added a warrant officer to each watch, and when the threat of navigational hazards was at its greatest he would send either Assistant or one of the ship’s small boats ahead to sound the depth with the lead-line then report back. When light faded after a long day’s sailing and his instincts told him it was too dangerous to proceed, Bligh gave the order to anchor at night so that they didn’t run aground. It was slow going.

During the launch voyage Bligh had done everything possible to avoid the Fijian natives in case they held murderous intentions like those he had encountered at Tofua. But this time it was different – he wanted to make contact – but the opportunity only presented itself once. A canoe, manned by four natives, approached the ship,’ he wrote. ‘Two came on board and looked about them with some surprise.’ They were extremely hesitant and soon departed.

By 10 August, Bligh had gone through the entire alphabet for place names: the first island, named A, is today known as Mothe, located 170 nautical miles east -by-south of the Fijian capital, Suva. His island ‘Z’, we now know as Viti Levu. So, with twenty-six islands named, he switched to numbers, but as it turned out he needed to use only two numerals because Island Number 2 (today Kadavu) was where he realised there was no more land to be seen to the west. He correctly assumed it was the outer island of the group – in fact the southernmost island in Fiji.

He wistfully noted in his log that he would have liked more time for exploration because, with so many islands in the distance, there was obviously much more to be discovered. But more importantly the wily seafarer, whose knowledge of this region was second to none, was well aware that the ‘contrary monsoon season’ was approaching. It was a season that could bring havoc, even tragedy, to unwary mariners through heinous storms. He recorded that the pressure of time associated with his orders from the Admiralty called for ‘my utmost exertions to avoid delay … in exploring my way between New Holland and New Guinea’.

Having sailed away from Fiji for the final time in his life, it was a further nine days of sailing across the warm blue seas of the tropics before land was sighted again. This time it was a group of islands positioned to the north of Vanuatu which he had previously seen and charted during his launch voyage in 1789, and Captain Cook had seen in 1774. But they remained unexplored, so Bligh took the time to do so. He named the group after Sir Joseph Banks – the Banks Islands.

As the two ships continued on towards Torres Strait through August, their progress remained uneventful until a surprising, almost disconcerting, observation was made by Providence’s sailing master. Portlock registered the incident:

About this time the master reported to me that during the forenoon he had seen pass a stick that appeared very much like a white studding-sail boom. It was great neglect of his duty his not mentioning the matter to me. If I had known or had any idea that it really was a studding-sail boom or any other ship’s spar, I most certainly would have hoist a boat out and picked it up, judging it must have belonged to a ship lost at sea hereabouts or cast on shore or some coast not far distant.

If this ‘stick’ had been recovered and identified as part of a ship’s rig, it is almost certain Bligh would have insisted on a search for possible survivors. Had he done this and succeeded, he could well have solved one of the great maritime mysteries of the day: the disappearance of Jean-François de Galaup, Comte de La Pérouse and his ships La Boussole and L’Astrolabe. On 10 March 1788, La Pérouse, as leader of a grand French expedition to map the world on behalf of King Louis XVI, set sail with the two ships in company from Botany Bay, leaving with the British correspondence to be sent on to England via France. La Pérouse intended to reach France in December that year, his return voyage taking him via New Guinea, Tonga and New Caledonia, but unfortunately the two ships were mauled by a summer cyclone and vanished without trace. It was forty years before the first clue as to the fate of these ships emerged: an Irish seafarer, Captain Peter Dillon, discovered one of the wrecks on a reef off the island of Vanikoro, just north of Vanuatu. It was not until the early 1960s, well over a century later, that divers found the wreck of the second vessel less than one mile from the first. It was a tragic end to an ambitious voyage around the world that had begun in August three years earlier. The expedition had included 114 men –among them scientists, naturalists and illustrators, as well as an astronomer, a mathematician, a geologist and a botanist. Knowing La Pérouse was an admirer of Captain Cook, Banks had secured for him two inclining compasses Cook had used on his voyages.

It was Portugal’s Luis Váez de Torres who had unknowingly discovered the strait in September 1606, when he sailed through it, but he did not name it. That came in 1769 when Scottish geographer Alexander Dalrymple was translating Spanish documents seized by the English: he found details of Torres’ route and so named the stretch of water in his honour. Dalrymple was then hoping the Admiralty would commission him to go in search of this strait and explore some of the South Pacific, but instead they chose Captain Cook for the mission. This led to Cook discovering and charting the east coast of New Holland and eventually sailing through Torres Strait. This time, the Admiralty wanted finer detail of this stretch of water, and Bligh was the man for what would prove to be an extremely challenging, dangerous and near-disastrous mission. It is now known that there are 274 islands in Torres Strait, that it is stippled with a mass of reefs, shoals and shallows, and apart from exceptionally strong currents, the tidal range averages more than sixteen feet. It is, to this day, an extremely hazardous stretch of water - a navigator’s hell.

Bligh, whose health was now the best it had been for months, obviously had no idea of the magnitude of the navigational challenge he was about to encounter, nor did he realise his men would face an added human danger –armed and brutal warriors. This was a threat that Dutch explorer Willem Jansz had experienced first-hand when he was in the region with his ship Duyfken, just six months before Torres: nine of his crew were murdered by men he described as ‘wild, cruel, black savages’ when on the western coast of what is now Cape York Peninsula.

Even though Bligh had been through this region aboard the launch, he was facing far greater perils on this occasion because he really was entering unknown, shallow and undoubtedly treacherous waters. For this reason, he ordered that both ships make a slow and extremely cautious approach from the east, and once they entered the shallows they anchored so they could make observations and establish a plan for proceeding further to the west. It was a plan that became less complicated almost immediately after the anchor was set: the lookout stationed near the masthead reported he could see a relatively large island about thirty nautical miles to the west. Bligh would name this Darnley Island in honour of his kinsman, John Bligh, the 4th Earl of Darnley. Today we know it as Erub Island.

In the morning, the whaleboat and cutter led Assistant away to the west to start the search for a safe passage while Providence remained at anchor. Their quest was proceeding smoothly until four large canoes approached them under sail from Darnley Island and surrounded the cutter, commanded by Lieutenant Tobin. There was no doubt about the intention of these people: it was to attack and kill these unknown trespassers who had ventured into their part of the world. An ugly incident followed.

Soon after the islanders intercepted the cutter, those aboard Providence heard a round of musket fire, followed by the signal for assistance, which Bligh observed. Immediately he ordered well-armed men onto the pinnace to go to the aid of Tobin and his men. As they departed the ship, one of the canoes, with fifteen islanders on board, moved in to attack the cutter. ‘Two of them now took a deliberate aim at the stern sheets of the boat, about 20 yards distant, while the rest were stringing and preparing their bows with great expedition,’ Tobin recounted.

It was a desperate situation for the Englishmen. As their attackers took aim with arrows, the stricken men could see other canoes had also entered the hunt and were closing fast. Tobin’s only option was to attack them before they were within a range of the cutter where they could be deadly accurate. It was an action, Tobin said later, that led to their survival. When the assailants heard the instant crack of musket shot and the invisible projectiles cut down some of their men, they took fright, diving into the bilge of their canoes so they were concealed below the gunwales.

With this attack put down, the crews of Providence and Assistant were on high alert for further attacks as they proceeded tentatively through the myriad submerged obstacles confronting them. Too much haste could destroy their mission in an instant. Ironically, over the following days they were only met by islanders who showed considerable friendship towards them, while all the time wanting items made from iron, which they referred to phonetically as toore-toore. Tobin noted that this reference sounded almost identical to the word used by the islanders throughout much of the South Pacific when talking of iron.

It was on 12 September 1792 that Bligh’s life would take a turn for the worse in both England and the Torres Strait. It was the day when the courts martial commenced in Portsmouth for the ten Bounty mutineers who had survived the wreck of Pandora, and also the day when Bligh’s already dangerous circumstances in the Torres Strait verged on the brink of tragedy. Both Providence and Assistant were off Warrior Island when as many as ten large canoes carrying at least 100 native men approached. Initially, it appeared they wanted to make friendly contact, but this was a ruse so they could move as close as possible to the ships to make an effective attack. Sensing great danger, Portlock called on some of his crew aboard Assistant to fire warning shots towards the men, and from this moment the trouble started.

Portlock was at the masthead, so he had the best vantage point for surveying the situation and directing those on deck. His greatest concern was for his men in the cutter rafted alongside his ship, being prepared to go on a sounding survey of the waters ahead. His call to fire was met with a salvo of arrows, wounding two men in the cutter and another on deck. Portlock then rushed down to the deck to better supervise the defence of his ship. His call for rounds of ‘smart fire’ aimed at the assailants in the canoes brought an immediate result: many took fright, jumping overboard to shelter behind their canoes.

The Englishmen continued their assault on the canoes and those islanders remaining aboard them. The islanders, quickly realising they had no way of countering an attack by weapons they could not even comprehend, retreated with their dead and wounded, and their battered canoes.

Of the three crewmen aboard Assistant wounded by arrows, one, the quartermaster, died two weeks later from gangrene. One other, who was wounded in the arm, never regained full use of the limb.

The two ships then continued on their slow, methodically planned passage to the west. Six days later when they were anchored near three small islands, Bligh sent two of his lieutenants, Guthrie and Tobin, ashore to one of them ‘for the purpose of taking possession of all the islands seen in the Strait for His Britannic Majesty George III’. Bligh ordered that it be named Possession Island; however, this was later changed to North Possession Islet to avoid confusion with the Possession Island off the northern tip of Cape York, which Captain Cook had named when he claimed New Holland. Bligh named the others Tobin’s Islet and Portlock’s Islet. This visit to the islet to complete Royal Navy formalities for the claiming of territory also presented the opportunity for the botanists to go ashore and collect previously unknown plants and specimens.

Bligh hoped that by now the most dangerous stages of this near three-week exploration lay in their wake, but that was not to be the case. The next phase proved to be an extremely dangerous, almost terminal, situation for both ships. With the whaleboat and cutter both searching for a channel that would take them between Mulgrave and Jervis islands, a current running at four knots suddenly took control of their progress despite every effort of both crews to escape its grasp. Their only option was to signal a warning to Assistant, which was trailing them. But it was too late – both Assistant and Providence were about to fall into the same trap. Portlock, aboard Assistant, noted:

Some sunken rocks appeared and almost forbid us a passage. At 8.55 in the morning the cutter fired some muskets as a signal for sudden shoal water, immediately signalled Providence and hauled towards and tacked and bore away to westward and ran in between two patches of broken water. The tide carried us through this dangerous passage at a great rate and was carrying us towards the reefs, therefore hauled under the shelter of the rocky lump … and anchored. This tide was hurrying the Providence towards the reefs, and I signalled ‘Good anchorage’, but did not like to signal ‘Follow without danger’.

Bligh, with meticulous skill, managed to guide his cumbersome, 107-foot ship through the turbulent water while at the mercy of the current, following Portlock’s brave lead. ‘I furled all sails and also came to anchor,’ he logged. ‘To my horror when the half cable came out it had the dog-stopper on, which although I cut it immediately and let go a second anchor, I only had it just in my power to save the ship from the rocks.’ But Bligh kept a cool head: ‘the men who had done this were no more faulty than the officer who was in command, so I did not punish them’.

Following their experience, Tobin would refer to this narrow passage as ‘Hell Gates’. Torres Strait is littered with navigational threats such as this, so much so that since these two ships ventured into the strait, more than 350 vessels have been wrecked there. Unbeknown to Bligh, Pandora, with the captured mutineers on board, had already been wrecked on a reef just 150 nautical miles to the south-east of where Providence and Assistant almost met the same fate.

Had it not been for Bligh’s request for Assistant to sail as tender to Providence in this expedition, there is every chance this particular incident would have seen Providence wrecked beyond repair. Without the smaller Assistant showing the way and immediately signalling the presence of danger, Providence would most likely have been driven uncontrollably onto the reef. Bligh’s cautious approach to navigation and the teamwork he developed with Portlock also contributed to their safe transition through this particular part of the survey.

Relieved to have found their way through a narrow gap in the reefs and now in deeper water, both Bligh and Portlock knew they were still some time and distance from the point where Torres Strait would release them into safety. Late on the same day they were again entrapped by a raging current that threatened to bring their venture to an abrupt and disastrous end. With darkness on the march, they realised that if they were to have any chance of safety, they would have to drop anchor there and then in what was an extremely dangerous environment. Flinders wrote, ‘the vessels were so closely surrounded with rocks and reefs, as scarcely to have swinging room’, while Bligh declared that the circumstances were ‘worse than before, rocks all around us and a dreadful tide running’. It was going to be a miracle if the two ships survived the night, but miracle it was.

The next day, with the small boats plumbing the depths of the waters ahead and searching for yet another gap in the reefs, success finally came and they made their escape to the western side of the strait. The channel they found was a mere 500 feet wide and, at its shallowest, just four fathoms. Appropriately, it would be named Bligh’s Farewell. For the captain this nineteen-day probe through a challenging riddle of reefs confirmed yet again that this part of the world was the most dangerous he had confronted in his nautical career. Later, during his circumnavigation of Australia, Flinders would recall his earlier experience aboard Providence and recognise both Bligh and Portlock for their achievements. ‘Perhaps no space,’ he said, ‘presents more dangers than Torres Strait; but with caution and perseverance the Captains Bligh and Portlock proved them to be surmountable.’

The threats of Torres Strait behind them, Bligh set a course for Coupang, but while the ships had survived their ordeal, the breadfruit plants in the nursery below deck were wilting and dying. Just ten degrees south of the equator, the tropical heat and stifling humidity were taking their toll. This loss would continue until they arrived in Jamaica. Part of the problem was caused by the ships encountering very little rain since leaving Tahiti, so the water supplies had not been replenished to any great degree. More importantly, with their water ration vastly reduced, the crew was also suffering from dehydration: some sailors resorted to licking the outside of the wooden buckets being used to water the plants simply to slake their thirst.

They finally reached Coupang during the first week of October, Bligh noting immediately it was ‘a poorer place than when I last left it’. The priority was to have the ships reprovisioned and readied for sailing as soon as possible, and during this time the botanists went about their task of collecting more plants and specimens for Kew Gardens in London. This time they potted fruit trees, including mangoes and pomegranates, along with a number of native plants. After a brief stay, they left Timor and set a direct course around the Cape of Good Hope to St Helena in the middle of the South Atlantic.

Meanwhile the captured mutineers were back in Portsmouth, facing their courts martial. It was definitely a life-or-death experience for each one of them. The Admiralty had hoped to conduct the trials with Bligh present, but eventually decided that keeping the prisoners in dank confinement any longer would be inhumane, so proceedings commenced aboard HMS Duke. The adjudication panel comprised eleven captains who were presided over by Vice-Admiral Lord Hood. The charges were read: if found guilty of ‘mutinously running away with the said armed vessel Bounty and deserting from His Majesty’s Service’, all ten men would hang.

When the time came to hand down the verdict, the court decreed the charges were proven against Heywood, Morrison, Ellison, Burkett, Millward and Muspratt. They were condemned to death. The charges against Norman, Coleman, McIntosh and Byrne (the near-blind fiddler) had not been proven, primarily thanks to Bligh’s original evidence, so they were acquitted.

Fortunately for Heywood and Morrison, the court recommended mercy for them and both received full and unconditional pardons from the king. Heywood’s family connections ensured his pardon and he went on to have a successful naval career. Morrison’s account of the mutiny and his ordeal on Pandora, written while he was in prison, probably guaranteed his. This book was scheduled to be published after his execution, however, on seeing the manuscript the Admiralty most likely cut a deal with Morrison to suppress the book’s publication and avoid a scandal in return for his pardon. Morrison went back to the navy but perished at sea off the coast of Madagascar in 1806. His book was published posthumously in 1870. Muspratt, too, was lucky to be pardoned. Conflicting testimony about his role in the mutiny meant he was acquitted and released. But there was no way out for Burkett, Ellison and Millward. All three were hanged from the foreyard aboard HMS Brunswick on the morning of 29 October 1792.

With the various plants in their pots and tubs having been aboard now for almost six months, Bligh sailed directly to St Helena, not stopping at Cape Town, to ensure that his precious cargo would reach Jamaica in a condition fit to be successfully transplanted. On 17 December, Providence sailed into the lee of St Helena and anchored close to shore, but still in the surge of wide open water. The tropical but near–barren island – famous for being Napoleon’s place of exile – is the craggy peak of an undersea volcano and to this day it is considered to be one of the world’s most isolated outposts. Bligh went ashore there and presented the governor with ten of the breadfruit plants, and in celebration of their safe arrival he had two of the Tahitians aboard the ship create a meal which included sago pudding made from the pith of some of the plants.

After celebrating Christmas on the island, Bligh elected to depart on 27 December and set a course to Kingstown Harbour, St Vincent, where they arrived one month later - on 22 January 1793. By now the weather and lack of fresh water had led to the loss of more than half the plants put aboard in Tahiti, but Bligh still managed to send ashore 544 healthy plants. At the same time the botanists, Wiles and Smith, continued their search for plants suitable for transfer to Kew Gardens and its patron, Sir Joseph Banks. They collected and potted 465 specimens. In the first week of February, Providence then moved on to its ultimate destination in the breadfruit mission, Jamaica’s Port Royal, Kingston, where, with great fanfare and celebration – and great relief for Bligh – the balance of the breadfruit plants was delivered. Bligh was duly rewarded for his efforts; he received from the planters in St Vincent a special piece of plate valued at 100 guineas, while the Jamaican House of Assembly awarded him the remarkable sum of 1,000 guineas. Captain Portlock received 500 guineas.

Over time the breadfruit plants were a successful crop on the islands of the West Indies, but as they grew, an ironic twist would emerge from what had been an obsession to establish the plant there. This mission was accomplished after two epic voyages to the South Pacific which led to mutiny, murder and men being hanged. It was all because of the need to provide a cheap food source for the slave labourers who worked on the vast sugar estates. Incredibly, after all this effort and drama, the slaves found breadfruit to be unpalatable.

With his South Pacific odyssey finally complete, Bligh’s intention was to cross the Atlantic to England as soon as was practicable. As he prepared to depart, his plan was stymied by the arrival of the packet Duke of Cumberland. It brought news that England was back at war, and once again France was the enemy. This forced Providence and Assistant to remain in Jamaica until Bligh’s ship was suitably prepared with arms for self-defence, and the circumstances on the high seas were deemed safe enough for them to cross the Atlantic and reach home. This meant a six-month wait until the middle of June.

After finally putting Jamaica in their wake, it was almost eight weeks’ sailing for Providence and Assistant until they finally arrived in England, anchoring at Deptford on 7 August 1793. Bligh and his two crews had been away almost two years to the day and in that time covered more than 35,000 nautical miles. Two days after their arrival Bligh made his last entry in his journal as captain of Providence. ‘This voyage has terminated with success, without accident or a moment’s separation of the two ships,’ he wrote, with justifiable pride. ‘It gives the first and only satisfactory accounts of the pass between New Guinea and New Holland, if I except some vague accounts of Torres in 1606; other interesting discoveries will be found in it.’

It was a superb achievement: Bligh had done it. He thanked his entire crew for being part of the mission, assuring them he would do everything in his power to help their advancement within naval ranks, and he kept his word. Unfortunately for Bligh, though, the success of this expedition was overshadowed by the fallout from the courts martial. In a matter of days he would discover that he was no longer the national hero of the Timor launch voyage and his version of what had happened on Bounty had been challenged, with disastrous consequences for his reputation, forever.

Bligh was now a much-maligned and controversial figure. The reasons for the mutiny had become the subject of gossip and speculation. With the court martial unfolding in his absence, the prosecution and family members of the mutineers on trial, including Edward Christian, Fletcher’s older brother and an erudite barrister, had done their utmost to discredit Bligh. Morrison himself had begun writing his own somewhat biased account of the mutiny while he was in prison. It was critical of Bligh.

Public sympathy now lay with the mutineers; the campaign to besmirch Bligh’s character was so effective that nearly a year after his own court martial, in which he was cleared of any wrongdoing, the new evidence portrayed him as tyrannical and abusive, a commander who had no hesitation in treating his crew with contempt and disrespect. It was a malicious and carefully orchestrated attack, designed to justify the reasons for the mutiny and save the mutineers from certain death. Speculation about Bligh spread across the country, and through English society. He became persona non grata, all because he had been away, as ordered, with Providence and therefore unable to defend his account and his honour in court. Even the Admiralty concurred with public opinion and shunned their one-time hero. The only captain in their favour from this mission was Portlock.

Understandably, being the proud man he was, Bligh struggled to contend with his fall from grace and the damage it wrought upon his reputation and his career. Still, there was work to be done: by the first week of September 1793, Providence and Assistance were formally paid off and he had a role to play.

On 6 September, The Kentish Register gave a glowing report of the event, saying that the high esteem the crew of both ships held for their captain was evident to all present. ‘Every one of them cheered loudly as a mark of respect as he departed the ship and stepped ashore, then continued their rousing acclamation as he passed through the dock gates.’ The report also noted how healthy and respectable the seamen appeared after such a long and perilous voyage.

Disconsolate as he may have felt at the time, there came a sign of great appreciation for his efforts little more than two months later when the Royal Society of the Arts bestowed upon him the honour of being the recipient of the society’s prestigious Gold Medal. No doubt he would have been pleased to read the report of this award in The World newspaper on 3 December:

On Wednesday evening last, the Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, adjudged their gold medal to Captain William Bligh, of his Majesty’s ship Providence, being the premium offered to the person who should first convey [breadfruit] from the Islands in the south-sea, to the Islands in the West Indies.

As 1794 began to unfold, Bligh decided he had had enough: it was time to stand up and publicly defend his honour and his reputation against the opposing published accounts of the mutiny. Muspratt had published his Minutes of the Bounty Court-Martial containing an appendix by Edward Christian which was passionate in the defence of his brother, Fletcher. This appendix did not directly condone Fletcher’s actions but it was a cleverly argued document and cited a number of alleged incidents that presented Bligh’s persona in an unfavourable light. It asserted that Bligh treated his crew poorly and that he had a mercurial side to his temperament, ignited by trivial events. But as savage as this personal attack was, it only strengthened Bligh’s resolve to refute the accusations and save his career. He wanted the Admiralty to appoint him once again to the position of commander of a vessel, and this would allow him to put all the unwarranted accusations behind him.

But Bligh’s career as a naval officer was now all but dead. He must have been wondering if it had been worthwhile undertaking the breadfruit missions: the first voyage cost him his ship, and the second cost him his reputation. The previous twelve months had certainly been his annus horribilis, and making matters worse was the fact that he was out of favour with the Admiralty; he had been stood down and placed on half-pay It would be another eighteen months before he would again experience the pride of being posted as a commander.

In the meantime, he had to contend with his family sharing the weight of his suffering and the adverse notoriety that came with his downfall. His only consolation during this period was that not being at sea meant he could enjoy the otherwise rare pleasure of being a husband and father. By this time Harriet, his eldest child, was already twelve, and her father had been away at sea for much of her life. As happy as this period might have been, it too was was a time of great sadness. Soon he and Betsy would learn that their sixth daughter, Anne, was epileptic. That distress was then countered by great joy: Betsy was pregnant again. Deep down Bligh hoped the birth would present him with a much longed-for son. That was to be the case. Much to his delight twin boys were delivered, but tragically this moment turned to crushing grief within twenty-four hours, when both boys died.