CHAPTER SIXTEEN

North Sea, 1795

Blockades, mutineers and battles

For almost eighteen months a heavy grey cloud of sadness, frustration and misfortune hung low over Bligh’s life. He tried to stay focused, believing that one day soon there would be a glimmer of hope – a sign that better times were coming – but it wasn’t to be. Instead, deep despair from the loss of the twin boys remained heavy in his heart; and despite England being at war with the French and the Dutch, the Admiralty saw no need to call on the services of a commander who, only a few years earlier, was a hero. Instead Bligh remained on half-pay and struggled to support his wife and six daughters.

With the cross-Channel naval hostilities escalating, the Admiralty finally decided to bring Bligh in from exile: as they put more ships into battle they were in need of qualified commanders, and Bligh was to be among them. Redemption came in April 1795 when he was appointed commander of the former East India Company ship Warley, which had been purchased by the government and renamed HMS Calcutta. His immediate role was to oversee the conversion of a merchant ship into a battleship during a refit at Blackwall. The new-look HMS Calcutta emerged as a fifty-six-gunner destined to join Admiral Adam Duncan’s North Sea Fleet based at the Nore, at the mouth of the Thames. This fleet’s primary role was to harass the Dutch ships at anchor at the Texel with a blockade that gave them no option but to remain in port. If they tried to set sail, the British would do their best to blast the Dutch ships into splinters.

It was a defiant and bold Bligh who stood on the deck of the relaunched Calcutta, barking orders as she eased away from the dock at Blackwall and began heading down the Thames for the anchorage at the Nore, where she would join her squadron. As the ship rode the favourable tide and slipped past the low-profile buildings of London Town, he reflected on how this new posting was just a small part in the redemption of his naval career: the only way he could stand proud once more and reclaim his rightful place in the force, and society, was to prove himself on the high seas and in battle.

That first opportunity came on Thursday, 20 August, confirmed by The London Sun newspaper two days later. The news brief announced that Admiral Duncan had put to sea with a fleet of eight ships, including Calcutta, under the captaincy of William Bligh. ‘The fleet is going in quest of the Dutch squadron said to be at sea,’ the paper proclaimed.

During the last decade of the eighteenth century there was growing restlessness among the men of the lower decks in the Royal Navy, primarily because of poor wages and poor conditions and apparent mistreatment at the hands of some of the officers. The first real sign of what was to come surfaced in 1794 with a mutiny aboard HMS Culloden. It was quickly put down and the five instigators hanged – but this was not enough to deter others. One of the incidents following the mutiny involved Bligh, but it was through no fault of his own.

How strangely ironic it must have been for him when, as commander of Calcutta, he played a part in putting down a minor mutiny on another ship, the seventy-four-gun third-rate HMS Defiance. After the actual incident, in October 1794, when Bligh was enjoying shore-time at home with his family in Lambeth, he wrote wryly to his still staunch supporter Banks, to tell him of the mutiny. Interestingly, in what was obviously an echo of the Bounty mutiny, he noted that one of the reasons behind the Defiance mutiny was that the captain, Sir George Horne, had no marines aboard to support him.

The rebels were demanding the replacement of Horne and a lieutenant they disliked; greater liberty to go ashore; and their grog less diluted. Bligh was called in by authorities to discuss how to subdue this uprising, and he suggested the most effectual course of action would be to have another ship carrying troops simply lie alongside Defiance and then take over the ship, fight or no fight. Eventually a similar plan evolved: 200 troops under Bligh’s command and aboard smaller boats would force their way onto the decks of Defiance from all sides and take control. Bligh led the way in a boat containing eighty armed men, and, much to his pleasure, when the mutineers saw the troops approach, decided (not surprisingly) to recognise the error of their ways and surrender.

While Bligh was enjoying being back at the front line in the Royal Navy, he had to accept that his health was still not as good as it should be; the price he had to pay for the punishment his body endured during the forty-seven-day open boat trek to Timor. These problems, including rheumatism, were exacerbated by the cold and the physical ordeals he faced when stationed on the North Sea during the early part of winter, 1795. Banks was aware of this, so on hearing of a vacancy within the senior management of Greenwich Hospital, he took it upon himself in early November to write to Lord George Spencer, the First Lord of the Admiralty, asking that Bligh be considered for the posting so he could enjoy better health. His letter said in part:

The service he did by saving the part of the crew of the Bounty that did not mutiny was meritorious in the extreme, the rewards he met with an attack upon his character unfounded and illiberal which I trust he completely answered by the exhibitions of documents only, without the necessity of urging a single argument.

His health has by the voyage from the Bounty to Timor been utterly ruined, his headaches in the hot climates nearly killed him in his second breadfruit voyage, and he now suffers as much from rheumatisms in the North Sea.

Active and indefatigable in the service however he never either complains or solicits … I have not heard from him for some weeks and nothing in his letter tended to express a wish for retirement. It is not by his desire that I solicit it – I take that liberty merely because I know that his constitution requires rest now or will soon require it.

Lord Spencer advised that while the position at the hospital had already been filled, Bligh would soon be rewarded with a posting to a larger ship. This news prompted an immediate response from Banks, saying that this promotion would ‘assist greatly towards healing the wound his spirit had received by the illiberal and unjust treatment his character had met with from the relatives of the mutineers of the Bounty.’

By December Bligh had sailed Calcutta back into English waters to anchorage at Yarmouth Roads, on the Isle of Wight, at the western end of the Solent. Shortly afterwards he reported to Banks in a letter that it had been a most eventful voyage: Calcutta was continually lashed by alarmingly strong gales, and was also nearly trapped in an inferno when a ship laden with timber and anchored nearby caught fire. Bligh and his crew watched in horror when the ship ‘in the most awful state of conflagration’ broke free from its mooring and was driven rapidly and directly towards Calcutta by a fast flowing tide and a gale of wind. Knowing that if the blazing vessel struck his ship it, too, would be set ablaze, Bligh immediately shouted orders for all hands on deck and to set sail, then, with the inferno only feet away and no time to weigh anchor, he ordered for both anchor cables to be cut so Calcutta could sail away from the danger. They achieved this by the narrowest of margins and moored in safe waters nearby using their only remaining anchor.

On 7 January Bligh again wrote to Banks while aboard Calcutta, first to tell him some wonderful news – which Banks already knew in part. He had received an important new posting: captain of the considerably larger HMS Director, a sixty-four-gun third-rate vessel of 1,400 tons with a crew of almost 500 men, and his crew would be transferred with him. Apart from the importance the actual promotion brought to his now reinvigorated career – he was back in favour with the Admiralty – he suggested to Banks that the associated increase in salary was important for a man ‘having a large family of young girls to bring forward in life’. He also thanked Banks for his consideration regarding the appointment at Greenwich Hospital.

Director was readied for sea and in May 1796 Bligh was once more ordered to join the fleet patrolling the Channel and the North Sea. Within days he became convinced that Director’s reputation for being one of the navy’s superior fighting ships was well-founded. He confirmed this in a letter to Duncan Campbell, saying there was ‘no faster vessel in the squadron’; however, he did hold some concern for her structural integrity as she was twelve years old and the hull had been fastened with iron, which had a limited life. ‘I am not afraid, however, of her lasting my time,’ he quipped. In that ‘time’ came experiences that would restore his reputation as an honourable and brave naval commander.

When Director crossed the English Channel and joined the Texel blockade, England was facing a maritime onslaught from the Dutch, French and Spanish navies. Once again, though, for the combined enemy, it brought with it defeat at the hands of the British, and a death toll that was almost beyond comprehension.

There was one huge loss during the summer that had little to do with a superior force. It came when the French deployed a large naval fleet out of Brest with the intention of attacking Ireland. This armada included seventeen sail-of-the-line ships, four frigates and an impressive array of other vessels, including six transports with 25,000 men aboard. As the ships approached the Irish coast a howling storm developed and decimated the fleet, leaving them no alternative but to run for home. Four ships sank with enormous loss of life, and thousands of soldiers drowned when some of the transports were lost. In another actual engagement that occurred a short time later, two English ships, the forty-four-gunner HMS Indefatigable and the thirty-six-gunner HMS Amazon, engaged the seventy-four-gun French ship Droits ale I’Homme off Ouessant, an island at the southern entrance to the English Channel, leaving her a crippled and smouldering wreck on the coast of her homeland. Only 300 men in her complement of 1,800 survived.

It was mid-May 1796 when Bligh retired to his spacious, heavily timbered captain’s cabin at the stern of Director, which was at anchor at the Nore. He went to his desk near the many small-paned windows casting ample light into the interior and began penning one of numerous letters he would send to Banks over the next seven months, letters that provided a broader perspective of the life of a Royal Navy ship commander.

In that first letter Bligh’s enthusiasm is evident after finally receiving his orders to put to sea with the squadron and cruise to Dogger Bank, where they were destined to engage the Dutch: ‘… our Order of Battle … was given out yesterday … I think we are equal to anything the Dutch will bring against us … we shall return to port before the last of July or the first week in August.’

On 13 June 1796, when Director was part of the Texel blockade, Bligh wrote a letter which he sent via a ship from the squadron that was returning to England: ‘Our cruise to this moment has not been attended with any event that should lead me to humble you with a recital, but to know that we are all as should be.’

It eventuated that the Dutch fleet laid low: there was little action to be seen, so Director and other ships in the squadron were ordered to return to home waters ahead of schedule. As soon as Director reached the anchorage at Yarmouth Roads on 26 June, Bligh again wrote to Banks: ‘We arrived here on Friday evening, the squadron consisting of six sail of the line and one frigate. I had no expectation of the cruise being so short, I understand it is occasioned by a representation that no advantage will be derived from long cruises.’ Bligh also voiced a strong desire to undertake a patrol before the end of summer with Director alone, not part of a flotilla. He was convinced that with his ship’s speed under sail he would be able to pursue and engage the slower French naval vessels. The captain’s desire for battle was again evident in a letter on 21 July when HMS Glatton, which would turn out to be his next command, arrived at the same anchorage after a successful fight with the enemy: ‘Glatton is much cut in the mast and rigging … we have only to lament that the Glatton was alone.’ Bligh also noted it was the effectiveness of the carronades Glatton carried that brought success against a larger enemy.

On 16 September Bligh’s nemesis, Fletcher Christian, who was then living in hiding on Pitcairn Island, continued to haunt him. It was now eight years since the mutiny but Fletcher’s brother, Edward, an English judge and law professor, was still doing his utmost to clear his family’s name with publications biased towards the mutineers. These pamphlets would become one of the enduring sources of Bligh’s bad reputation. Bligh informed Banks: ‘Mr Nichol has been so good as to send me down a pamphlet called Christian’s Letters. Is it possible that wretch [Fletcher] … has had intercourse [contact] with his brother, that sixpenny Professor, who has more law about him than honour? My dear sir, I can only say that I heartily despise the praise of any of the family of Christian and I hope thus yet that the mutineer will meet with his deserts.’ This same letter also flagged Bligh’s concern regarding his health: ‘I continue to suffer much with headache and my eyelids are so constantly convulsed as to hurt my sight.’

During the next few months, Bligh, as ordered, kept Director fully provisioned and watered so that she could put to sea at a moment’s notice if necessary. With Yarmouth Roads being only two nautical miles from the western entrance of the Solent, she could be sailing on the waters of the English Channel within an hour of weighing anchor.

In February 1797, when Director was back at anchor at Yarmouth, Bligh unexpectedly received orders to sail under the direction of Captain Parr, commanding HMS Standard, to proceed north to the port of Humber and lie there until further orders, ‘to protect the peace’. He explained the reason for this voyage to the port, located halfway up the eastern coast of England and much closer to the Dutch coast than Yarmouth Roads: ‘All accounts from the Texel state that the Dutch are laid up. Nevertheless the people here are very much alarmed from an apprehension that the French will pay them a visit.’ Bligh had hoped he would also be able to survey much of the area close to the entrance of the Humber through to the town of Hull; however, he lamented to Banks that due to ill-health while there he did not have time to complete the survey, although he did take time to sketch ‘a correct plan of the entrance, upon which you may rely’.

Two months later, in April, Director was again harassing the Dutch at Texel, and that same month saw a threatened uprising among Royal Navy sailors approach boiling point when men aboard sixteen ships from the Channel Fleet, at anchor at Spithead, mutinied. While refraining from any violent acts towards their superiors, the rebels refused to weigh anchor on any ship until their demands were granted and the ringleaders were guaranteed a pardon for their actions. The men won on all points, including a full pardon pledged by King George III on 23 April.

As alarming as it was, this mutiny at Spithead was just a short-lived and very small ember when compared with the insurrection that came only weeks later. It was the Mutiny at the Nore, an event that delivered Bligh one of his finest moments. At the root of this rebellion was a core of men who could easily be classified as inferior samples of society: some former prisoners, some undesirables who had been press-ganged into service, others sordid scoundrels. However, there were also ordinary, well-meaning seamen who supported this action.

Having received word of the success achieved by their fellow ‘jack tars’ at Spithead, this group set about igniting their uprising while aboard a fleet of navy ships anchored at the Nore. The fleet included Director and HMS Inflexible, both sixty-four-gunners. Bligh had sensed for some time a growing disquiet among his own crew, whom he had for so long considered to be a happy lot. When trouble surfaced he was forced to order floggings on eleven days during a two-week period to maintain control. By 1 May the message to captains of all ships was to strengthen their attitudes towards their crews, as signs of a pending mutiny continued to emerge. Captains were ordered to have their marines on high alert, weapons loaded, ready for action, and ‘on the first appearance of mutiny, to use the most vigorous means to suppress it’.

On 6 May, as Bligh guided Director along the calm waters of the Thames to the Nore to undergo a refit, there were no indications of a mutiny in the making. Six days later, however, the mutiny came to life. That day, as part of the insurrection, Bligh received a deputation from his men demanding that the master and two of the ship’s lieutenants be dismissed from duty for ill-treatment of the crew. Bligh established a compromise with the men by having the officers in question confined to their quarters. The basis for this unrest across the fleet had its origins in London, where politicians, concerned by the nation’s financial crisis, deferred a review of pay scales for the navy. The disappointment flowing from this decision was then overshadowed by a situation aboard HMS Leviathan, where the crew was owed two years’ back pay. The crew of HMS Nassau faced similar circumstances: they had not been paid for nineteen months.

The rebellion proper erupted aboard the flagship, Sandwich, which was under the command of Vice-Admiral Charles Buckner. The rebels gathered on the fo’c’s’le and trained their guns towards the quarterdeck and the captain’s cabin, with the sole intention of shooting him or any officer who showed signs of opposing them. Simultaneously, to demonstrate that their intentions were as determined as they might be brutal, they tied nooses into yard ropes attached to the foreyards: they were ready to hang anyone else who stood in their way. Richard Parker, who had previously been discharged from two Royal Navy ships for immoral behaviour and was subsequently demoted, emerged as the leader of the mutiny.

The captain of Sandwich was immediately ordered into confinement in his cabin, while Parker and his committee of mutineers began to formulate their plan to spread their insurrection across the rest of the fleet at anchor at the Nore, which would eventually number thirty-three ships. The rebels’ first action was to send ashore any captain or officer they considered to be insufferable. Interestingly, Bligh was not among them at that time; it would be a week before he was ordered to surrender his command and leave the ship. As he did, he realised for the first time that he had a nickname among the men of the lower deck: ‘that Bounty bastard’, a derogatory title stemming from when the Bounty mutineers defended themselves at their courts martial.

With all captains and officers who caused concern relieved of their postings, the mutineers followed the lead of their fellow seafarers who had achieved such success at Spithead: on 20 May they presented Vice-Admiral Buckner with a list of demands. This was immediately forwarded to the Admiralty, which had no hesitation in rejecting it, but promised a pardon for all mutineers. This decision was deemed totally unacceptable and with that, red flags of rebellion were hoisted aloft across the fleet of ships: the fight was on.

Soon the mutineers’ log of claims expanded to the extent that it appears they believed their power was such that they were initiating a social revolution that would spread across all of England. They blockaded London by preventing merchant vessels from entering the port. Whenever possible, they also grabbed the opportunity to plunder the cargos of any ships docked close by.

Now on shore, Bligh communicated with the Admiralty, and was directed to involve himself in the negotiations aimed at ending the insurrection. However, despite his best efforts and those of other officers, there was no sign of a solution by 27 May, the day the Admiralty office suggested they consider resorting to the use of force. On 6 June, Parliament supported this move by declaring that the mutiny should be crushed at all costs. These decisions led to the establishment of batteries on shore and the guns they contained were trained on the rebels’ ships. Additional batteries were also built at the entrance to the Thames in case offshore crews mutinied, took control of their ships and sailed to the aid of those at the Nore.

By 8 June, however, the mutiny was beginning to unravel: ships were seen to be replacing their red flags with the Union Jack and the Blue Ensign, then slipping their cables and trying to make good an escape from the anchorage. Suddenly the conflict had all the hallmarks of a civil war as crews fired on crews from ships of the same navy. For the mutineers the situation was becoming increasingly desperate, so the rebel leader, Parker, decided he had one last chance to save his pride, his men and his life. They would attempt to run the gauntlet of batteries and escape the Thames, then sail to safe sanctuary in France. It failed. Sandwich went nowhere.

On 14 June it was over: Parker was arrested and all ships had surrendered. Ironically, the last ship to raise the white flag was Director. At eight o’clock on the morning of 27 June, a single cannon shot and the breaking out of a yellow flag from the masthead of HMS L’Espion signalled that everything was in readiness for an execution to take place. Small boats made their way from the shore to Sandwich, where a short time later, with hundreds of sailors looking on from the decks of adjacent ships and throngs of people watching from the shore, Richard Parker was hanged from the foreyard. In all, twenty-nine sailors deemed to be leaders of the mutiny suffered the same fate, while others were flogged, imprisoned or transported to New South Wales; however, the majority of men aligned to this uprising were not subjected to any form of punishment.

Bligh’s contribution towards bringing this uprising to an end, having successfully negotiated with many of the rebels, was noted by King George. He was rewarded with new orders to resume command of Director, and was lauded by his crew for the fair and effective manner in which he went about recognising those among them who had supported the mutiny from the outset and those given no option but to stay with the ship and be seen to back the rebel cause. The twelve offenders he culled from his crew were delivered to shore, arrested, and dealt the appropriate punishment, while those remaining aboard Director were pardoned.

The captain then set about organising his ship, until a few days later when, very much to his surprise and disappointment, Vice-Admiral Skeffington Lutwidge wrote to him suggesting that there was in fact a total of thirty-one men among Director’s crew who were considered to be insubordinates. Bligh would have no part in this. He was determined to stand by his men. He immediately fired off a letter to the Admiralty in which he made an emphatic case in support of those who had previously been pardoned, and that only the twelve whom he had identified as mutineers would be sent to trial. It worked: Lutwidge backed down. He directed the captain to muster the ship’s company and advise that pardons would be delivered to all of them as soon as possible.

Bligh now stood in favour with not only the Admiralty but also with his crew aboard Director. This single act yet again confirmed that the much-maligned great seafarer was in fact a fair-minded man, and now, after he had championed their cause, they would soon be supporting him in battle.

During much of 1797 the Dutch fleet remained holed-up at Texel, due to the supposed presence of the British North Sea Fleet on their doorstep. What they didn’t know was that for an extended period in the middle of the year there were only two British ships out there. It was simply a clever act by Admiral Duncan, who had signals sent on a regular basis to make it appear that the entire fleet was just over the horizon, thus causing the Dutch to stay at home.

By mid August the British had decided it was time to confront the Dutch: surrender or battle were the two choices they offered. Four weeks later, there was still no indication of what might occur – partly because the British wanted their fleet to be at full strength – and Bligh wrote: ‘We continue cruising without any advantage except what results from blocking up the Dutch fleet which I hope is of great consequence during the present negotiation.’

By October the time had arrived: the British had twenty-one ships off Texel, including Director. The first rumblings of what would become known as the Battle of Camperdown, or in Dutch, Zeeslag bij Kamperduin, began to surface. There would be no surrender; the Dutch had had enough of being bogged down in their own waters: it was time to take on their adversaries from across the Channel.

Until the mid-seventeenth century major sea battles had primarily been conflicts involving pursuit: the pursuing ship fired cannons from the bow, and the pursued fired cannons from the stern. However, in 1653, during the First Anglo–Dutch War, the British applied a new form of sea warfare, the line-of-battle, during the Battle of the Gabbard. As the lighter Dutch ships came alongside their enemy with the aim of putting men aboard and fighting to the death, the side cannons mounted on the British ships blasted away and inflicted severe damage on the Dutch, forcing them to retreat with the loss of two ships. Despite this obvious success, the line-of-battle wasn’t refined until the second half of the seventeenth century, following the development of heavy cannons. It was then agreed that the most effective way to decide a sea battle was to have the ships of the opposing sides either anchor in a line opposite each other – and within cannon-shot range – or sail from opposing ends past each other at a similar distance. Once the battle commenced, it was either the last ships floating or the side that hadn’t lowered its colours and surrendered, who became victorious. Only the most heavily armed and heavily built ships – the ships-of-the-line – took part in these brutal conflicts.

On the morning of 11 October the British watched as the Dutch fleet sailed out of Texel and towards them, determined to fight for Dutch honour. By the afternoon the opposing sides were under sail and in their respective lines, ready to do battle. The moment the signal to engage went aloft and cannons thundered into action, Bligh had his ship attack two of the opposition, Alkmaar (56) and Haarlem (64). Then, while the battle raged, Bligh took himself to a position on deck where he could observe developments and plan his next attack. He quickly became confident there were enough ships in the rear section of the British line to beat the Dutch into submission. Then, peering through the thick smoke the cannons were pumping into the sky, he could see the Dutch admiral’s ship, Vrijheid, up ahead and in the perfect position to be attacked: ‘There was no time to be lost as night was approaching,’ he later explained. ‘I made sail … engaging some of the centre ships, for I considered now the capture of the Dutch Commander-in-Chief’s ship as likely to produce the capture of those ahead of him [in the forward, or van division].’ Bligh ordered his ship’s sails be trimmed for speed: he was determined to have Director alongside Vrijheid as soon as possible and engage the admiral in a showdown.

We began the action with him, lying on his larboard quarter within 20 yards, by degrees we advanced alongside, firing tremendously at him, and then across his bows almost touching, when we carried away his foremast, topmast, topgallant mast and soon after, his mainmast … together with his mizzenmast, and left him nothing standing.

The wreck lying all over his starboard side, most of his guns were of no use, I therefore hauled up along his starboard side and there we finished him, for at 3.55 o’clock he struck and the action was ended.

Once the action ceased, Bligh was an elated man: ‘My officers came to congratulate me, and to say there was not a man killed [aboard Director] … it passed belief – we had only seven men wounded.’ With the Dutch admiral having struck his colours and surrendered, nine of his fighting ships followed his lead while the remainder changed course and ‘ran off’.

Admiral Duncan’s ship was then only a short distance away, so Bligh bore up with Director to speak with him. Duncan hailed him to take possession of the Dutch admiral’s ship. This he did, sending his first lieutenant aboard to complete formalities amid horrendous carnage – fifty-eight dead, ninety-eight wounded and nothing left standing. The total Dutch loss was 540 killed, 620 wounded and some 4,000 taken prisoner, the British lost 203 men and had 622 wounded.

It was soon time to head back across the Channel to home. On 17 October, Director sailed triumphantly into Yarmouth Roads and the following day Bligh proudly informed the Admiralty of his ship’s success. ‘Sir, My Commander-in-Chief not being here,’ he wrote, ‘I have the honour to inform you for the information of My Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty that I anchored here last night with His Majesty’s Ship Director and Egalité, 64, a prize to the Fleet’. What Bligh didn’t say in this note was that there were some 200 Dutch prisoners aboard the ship he had brought home as a ‘prize’. Later, this and all other Dutch ships captured in the battle and taken back to England would prove to be anything but ‘prizes’. They had been so severely damaged that they were of no use to the Royal Navy.

Less than two months after the fleet returned victorious from Camperdown, Bligh returned to Sheerness, on the Thames estuary, this time to give evidence at the court martial of an old colleague. Held aboard HMS Circe, it was an event that would for Bligh put to an end something that had haunted him for eighteen years: the circumstances surrounding Captain Cook’s death.

John Williamson, the captain of the sixty-four-gun HMS Agincourt during the Battle of Camperdown, faced a charge that, through cowardice, negligence and disaffection he had held Agincourt away from the fight and not done his utmost to bring the enemy ships to battle. This was the same Williamson whom Bligh believed was in many ways responsible for Cook’s death at the hands of the islanders on a beach in the Sandwich Islands. Williamson, captain of the cutter that had been conveyed to shore, was seen to do nothing to defend or assist his captain, or the four marines who died with him. Instead, he moved the boat further away from shore, apparently for his own safety. Bligh was equally aggrieved that Williamson returned to Resolution on that dreadful day having made no effort to recover Cook’s body from the islanders. After an intensive inquest during which Bligh was one of many to give evidence, Williamson was found guilty of the second charge of cowardice. The sentence effectively ended his naval career. His name was placed at the bottom of the captain’s list; he would never serve on a naval ship again.

In January 1798, during the miserable cold of a bleak English winter, Bligh’s health was being tested. He did his best to remain on duty, but the rheumatism and migraine-like headaches that had plagued him for years were pushing him to the limit of despair. He decided then to request a leave of absence from Director in the hope that he could find some relief. His concern was such that he advised Banks in one of their still regular exchanges of letters: ‘I want much to have advice on account of an alarming numbness which has seized my left arm from a rheumatic affliction.’

The absence from a shipboard life must have brought a reprieve because he was back aboard Director during March. His letter to Banks from Yarmouth Roads on 3 April confirmed that. He said he had just returned from a cruise to Texel after word had come back ‘suggesting the enemy were preparing to sail’. But his real battle was with his health. In May, having again sailed to the Dutch coast, he sent Banks what he believed to be an important document: ‘I send you my dear sir a sketch of the Texel which I believe will give you a more perfect knowledge of the passage for ships … I am sorry to say I have such an extreme weakness in my eyes that at times I can scarce see. I am always suffering much pain.’

Bligh spent the remainder of the year serving as commander of Director, all the time wondering what would come next in his career, especially if the ship was paid off because it had served its useful life. A clue came in October, in an unsolicited communication from Admiral Lord Duncan: ‘I have mentioned to the Admiralty that if your ship is paid off I hope they will immediately give you another, as I have always observed her conducted like a man of war …’ It was high praise, something that surprised the modest captain. He told Banks of it, adding, ‘this compliment has not been fished for as I have never written to him but on service according to order …’

By now Bligh’s forty-four-year-old body was beginning to feel like it was a battle-weary ship-of-the-line. Even so, there was no stopping him: there were more battles to be fought and won – on and off the high seas.