1789: Mutiny On The Bounty - God Does Notable Things With Those Involved
The account of the British ship Bounty is a well-known one, with books written and movies made about the famous occurrence. But there were also some great Deeds of God associated with it I believe, and these are not often discussed. There ended up being at least 2 important happenings concerning the bounty that showed the hand of God, I think, to a great degree.
One concerned Captain Bligh and the 18 other men that the mutineers put aboard a small open topped launch and then abandoned to the ocean's whims.
Another involves Christian Fletcher, John Adams/Alexander Smith and his fellow mutineers, and the Tahitian native men and women that they later took aboard to travel with them - the things which later happened to those mutineers who commandeered what became perhaps the most famous vessel of the British Navy, the ship called the Bounty, and fled to the almost unknown Pitcairn Island to avoid Britain's wrathful manhunt.
I think that both episodes of this story show the remarkable hand of providence in our human affairs.
Consider, in this segmant, the men put out to sea by the mutineers.
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The Bounty was a ship that set out on a special mission to obtain Breadfruit trees from Tahiti. Breadfruit trees are a wonderful tree, and had been previously unknown to Europeans. They provide a large green fruit that's around the size of a large pineapple when ripe. These grow in abundance on the trees, and once ripened these fruits can then be cooked in the fire, the charcoal afterwards scraped off, and you are left with a food that is said to look and smell - and pretty much to taste - like bread. That's how the people of Otaheiti (Tahiti) ate them, the records say. There are other recipes, of course. Hawaiians continue to enjoy breadfruit today, for instance, as do a number of tropical locales.
The British plan was to transplant them to islands in the West Indies (Carribean) within the British Empire and replant them there to be a cheap and nutritious food that agricultural slaves on plantations could be fed. Not so noble a purpose, so perhaps that's why the voyage came to not so noble an end. God only knows. Of course, if it's a given point that you are already a slave, it is nice to at least have nutritious food.
The ship had to be rebuilt to house these trees, and so a large area of the ships internal spaces were cleared out to form a neat botanical space with many holes in the deck for tree pots to be set into. And there was a water collection system to catch all of the water run off and recycle it. They did a very good job of changing the structure of the ship to hold the 1000 trees they hoped to collect, but that also took away a lot of 'people space'. Berthing areas were shrunk down drastically, officers quarters became tiny. Even the Captains Quarters was torn down and replaced with a small cramped berthing and eating space.
British sea-going ships, like those of all nations at that time, had horrible living conditions. Hard work, exposure to the weather, bad, spoiled, and wormy food and foul tasting water (both quite often rationed) were normal after the first few weeks at sea. If you could not drop into a land destination somewhere and replenish, and if it didn't rain, there wasn't much that could be done to avoid it.
So, increasing all of the normally expected discomforts by crowding everyone together much closer than usual did nothing to help.
And there was the strict discipline that the British officers employed against their sailors to keep them in line. The sailors expected that. They were used to it, and normally if you shut up and did your work it wouldn't concern you in particular.
But then there was Captain Bligh!
Bligh had been in the British Navy since his youth. And he loved it. He had worked himself up through the ranks, he had gone to the South Pacific with the almost revered Captain James Cook, who was considered as great an explorer and as talented of a navigator as had probably ever existed in the British Navy. Bligh had worked side by side with Cook as a Junior Officer, charting their course each day. He had learned seamanship from the best. Bligh was even on the voyage during which Cook was killed, in what would one day be called the Islands of Hawaii. Bligh knew the South Seas pretty well for a man of his day, though much of it (most of it) was still uncharted ocean.
In Plymouth, England, receiving his first command assignment, he wanted all to go well, and he was going to make sure that he was not at all slack in his discipline. But, by most accounts he overshot, and was far too strict with his men aboard the Bounty. And he was given to foul mouthed rages. And he felt it good and wise to humble even his own officers by berating them loudly and at length in front of the ordinary sailors when they made mistakes. He thought of it as keeping his officers in their place, but if you wound a proud man's ego, and you have an enemy forever. Some would grow to hate him for these public beratings.
The voyage began normally enough, and the plan was to leave England, sail across the Atlantic, try to round South America, then proceed into the Pacific to their destination of Tahiti (Otaheiti)- an Island Bligh knew well from his days with Cook.
But once their voyage was underway and they neared S.Africa, the Cape Horn weather was horrible. Sailing ships have no recourse but to make what use they can of the winds, which were unfavorable. For about a month, in stormy and increasingly cold weather, Bligh and the crew bore the exposure and the storms and the waves as well as they could while they tried to find a way around the Horn in such weather.
Bligh finally sized up the elemants and the morale of his crew, and decided that they would change course, and round Africa's far more hospitable Cape of Good Hope. It was a much longer trip than expected, and both water and food were rationed. Though this made the crew grumble, they were never the less glad to be done with trying to round South America's grim, ship-eating Cape Horn.
Rationing, Bligh style, could be a strange affair. At one point in their voyage he had become so disappointed with his men's ability to be disciplined in their water use that he had a nail driven high up on the mast, and he had the 'crew drinking cup' be hung from it. So to get yourself a cup of water, you had to scale the mast, get the cup, crawl down, get yourself a cup of nasty drinking water, then crawl back up and put the cup away on the nail driven into the mast.
How did you stay fit and limber? Bligh had you spend two hours each night dancing. That's not so bad, maybe, but remember, it's after your days work was over. And you might have a night watch on any given night.
The men found him pretty excessive, and he would sentence a man to one dozen, or even two dozen lashes if necessary, if they were surly or disrespectful or irresponsible. Two dozen lashes was known to produce glimpses of bone sometimes.
Arriving after many months at gorgeous Tahiti, the men's spirits were greatly refreshed. It is as green and verdent an isle as was known back then, and it still could make a claim at being the world's most beautiful island. Even before they moored the ship, the deck was covered by many islanders who travelled out in their canoes to greet them.
"Pritain?", they asked. They said it with a 'P'. Were they from Britain? Their now legendary former visitor Captain Cook had been from Britain, and he had handled the visit 11 years ago so skillfully that the islanders had wished for his return every since.
They were pleased to learn that the ship was indeed from Britain. The islanders were already beginning to pair up with sailors who could be their 'friend'. It was a warm and loving custom to pick a 'best friend' from among strangers, and bring them back to your home to live as long as they stayed there visiting. After the stern discipline of Bligh, the long hardships of the ocean's many weathers, and the food and water deprivations they had endured, this truly did seem like paradise to the sailors. Good food, sweet water, and a warm and loving people, though pagan. At least they were loving towards the British, who's technology and weapons and ships caused them to be regarded in an innocent sort of awe. Taheitians - the people of the Friendly Isles, of which Taheiti was one - could be pretty warlike at times as well, towards other islands or other chieftains. They were a lot more friendly towards the powerful armed Europeans with their wonderous technology than they might have been towards weaker visitors. They were a prudent people.
The sailors spent months here negotiating and trading with the chiefs (gifting with them, really) for breadfruit trees, and then bringing the trees aboard. It was good to be a high ranking Otaheitian chief. You were constantly attended by many servants, and you were even fed by others, who brought the food to your lips, and hand fed you.
During that time the Bounty's sailors fell very much in love with the warm beautiful island and it's loving, happy, and seemingly carefree people. Many from the ship fell in love with Tahitian women. Some even became married. When the long stay was at an end, it is reported that very few of the sailors had any desire to return to the rough and Spartan ways of sea life under Captain Bligh. They had sort of 'gone native'.
Bligh faced problems because of this. A stern disciplinarian, an iron willed leader, he was having a lot of trouble getting his men to get back into the harnesses and act like British sailors. He felt that they had become lazy and undisciplined. Many already held grudges against him from the trip to the island. Now, in contrast to the easy loving life that they had just left, sea life under Bligh's harsh command just seemed unbearable.
They did all say their sad good'byes and set sail, though, however reluctantly, when the time came.
Bligh quickly made himself even more unpopular by declaring that the gifts of hogs and fruit and coconuts that the islanders had given their departing 'special-friend sailors' would become 'ship's stores' under Bligh's control.
Officers were allowed to keep their own piles of coconuts, however. Rank has it's privelages. Noticing a few coconuts missing from his own personal pile of yet unstored foods, Bligh went on a rampage, accusing people of stealing and demanding that the culprit confess. One of his officers, Christian Fletch, walked by during the tirade, and Bligh looked at him as if for an explanation.
"Surely you don't thing I am capable of stealing your coconuts?", Fletcher asked. They had, in fact served on several voyages together.
Bligh assured him that he did think it possible, and even referrd to Christian as a dog. Christian Fletcher boiled with indignation and embarassment. He turned and walked away, barely able to contain his anger. It was not the first time Bligh had treated him this way on this voyage, but this time Bligh had gone too far, and the seeds of mutiny, long planted, had germinated.
Only a few nights later, Christian Fletcher suddenly acted. He would claim that the plan was both conceived and implemented in a matter of minutes. He would claim that he just suddenly realized that he could take no more, while standing his night watch. He was awake at the same time as a number of other people that he knew hated Bligh as badly as he did. He realized that there was enough of them, with so many of the crew fast asleep, to take the ship.
Christian Fletcher quickly suggested his plan to his friends. They agreed, and Fletcher quickly gave them each their marching orders. They raided the weapons stores, got ahold of guns and swords, quietly woke up certain men that they knew they could count on, then quickly raided the sleeping cabins of the officers and the sleeping quarters of the enlisted men, taking over the ship and bringing their sleepy prisoners, including Bligh, to the upper deck of the ship.
The Bounty was in the hands of mutineers!
Bligh, standing in his night shirt, was not so intimidated as to remain quiet. He loudly told them all that they were going to face the severest consequences - probably hanging - and would be criminals for all of their lives. He warned them to stop now, and he would be merciful to them. He reminded them that the British Navy could not and would not tolerate this mutiny, and that they would send ships to the ends of the Earth to seek them out and punish them.
But hatred for Bligh ran deep. Many of the mutineers wanted to kill Bligh immediately. It was by the barest margin that Christian Fletcher convinced the other mutineers to put Bligh and those loyal to him into one of the Bounty's small boats. They were not murderers, he told them. It was Bligh that was a monster, not them, he reminded them.
At first it was going to be a very small (and worm eaten) boat called a 'cutter' that the Bligh loyalists would be abandoned upon, but the men that chose not to mutiny convinced the mutineers that it would be a death sentence to put those others out into the open sea in so sorry a craft as that, So in the end, they were placed in the best of the Bounty's little ship's - it's launch. A boat that's typical use might be to come to shore at a friendly island, with some dignity and pomp.
But soon, even the launch became so full and heavy with men that it sank very deep into the water (only about 7" or 8" of free board at the mid section of the little craft), so in the end, there were men that were loyal to Bligh that were not allowed into the little boat, some because of their skills being too valuable to the Bounty's mutineers, and others just because the little craft was too heavy, and almost to sink under it's own weight.
Men not allowed to get into the overly heavy boat were afraid they would later be thought of as mutineers. These men called down to Bligh, from the deck of the Bounty, not to forget that they would have gone with Bligh if they had been allowed to. They did not want to be hung for mutiny should Bligh survive and Britain send warships to hunt down the mutineers! Bligh called up that he would remember them as not being among the mutineers, who he said would surely hang.
Some supplies were lowered down to the sailors on the launch. They were not treated entirely without mercy by the mutineers. These were men who had long worked together, who merely had different character and breaking points. A compass was given them, 150 pounds of bread, 28 gallons of water, some wine, some twine, some rope, some extra sail cloth, some rum. One man managed to bring down a copper cooking pot - that would prove invaluable. A few carpenter tools were allowed to the ships carpenter, who, though a Bligh hater, would not be a mutineer. He was a hard core guy that would die before he'd be even a little bit intimidated. In the end the mutineers just let him go. They knew what sort of guy he was. He got to take a hammer, a hand saw, a small ax, and a bag of nails.
One man had managed to grap Captain Bligh's log books and journals and hide them in his clothing - along with some extra clothing. This was invaluable for later court trials that occurred, and for the recording of this voyage for history.
And then, a few cutlasses were lowered, at almost the last minute. They would have a way to defend themselves if they stopped on an island for food and water! The local islanders tended to respect strength, but had not too much pity for the weak. Of course, who could tell...they might never reach an island.
For a while the launch was kept tied to the side of the ship as the mutineers drank liquor and jeered at them, then, finally, the ropes were loosed and the launch was cast adrift at sea. The 19 men within it watched as the Bounty sailed away, becoming smaller and smaller. As it disappeared, they watched the breadfruit trees being thrown overboard into the sea, and then the Bounty was gone, and 18 men were alone at sea in a dangerously over loaded little boat with one of maritime history's most overbearing personalities, who was large and in charge there among them, wearing his night shirt for the moment.
Bligh quickly took charge. He committed the fate of himself and his men to God, and he spoke to the others in the tiny boat of his plans for their survival. They would row 30 miles to Tofoa, the nearest Island, and try to trade with the chief of the tribe that lived there for breadfruit, other foods, and more water. Then, they would head out to sea and try to reach a Dutch settlement on the Island of East Timor - the nearest European settlement that Bligh knew about - which was nearly 3,600 miles away. East Timor lay just a little North of Australia.
It was a voyage of unprecedented length for Europeans in a small open rowboat, but Bligh believed that none of the nearby islands would treat them in a friendly manner in their weak and vulnerable state. (The boat was able to take a sail, and they did fit it with one during part of the voyage, though it was normally rowed).
They reached Tofoa Island at night, so they stayed on the boat until morning. Then men went ashore to look for food and water, but only found a little bit, in a few natural basins in the rock - no fresh springs. They brought back a few gallons. Not very much, and so only a small ration of bread and a glass of wine was given to each man for that day.
The next morning, they rowed along the island and came to some coconut trees atop some cliffs. Some of the more agile men climbed the cliffs using vines hanging down from the top, and they brought back about 20 coconuts. Room was so limited on the launch that they just roped the nuts together and towed them through the water. That night, each man got a coconut, which used up the coconuts.
The next day they found a cave, and so most were able to take shelter outside of the boat, though some men were left to protect the boat. They built their first fire and found some fruit to eat.
The next day, Bligh sent out search parties for food, and to see if the island was still peopled. A man, a woman, and two children saw them. Soon others came, and Bligh was able to trade. He got some breadfruit and some water. The natives were fairly friendly that day, but curious about the Bounty, which they knew of from the trade they did with the other islands. Some of the natives had met some of Bligh's men, even Bligh, when travelling to the other islands for visit and trade while the Bounty had been gathering its breadfruit trees.
They asked about the Bounty. why it was not with them. Bligh lied and said it had sunk, thinking that answer less likely to lead to trouble than to let them know there had been a mutiny.
As more canoes arrived, Bligh and his men carried the trade goods out to their launch. A rope led from the launch to shore, and the craft was anchored as well. They did not want the natives to be looking into the launch at items that they might wish to have.
Soon a chief came, and others, in canoes, and the atmosphere began to change. It was less friendly, and there seemed to be some plotting going on. Some of the natives began to try to pull the launch to shore by its rope. They had to threaten them with a cutlass to stop them. Many of the young men began to grab large rocks, of about 8 pounds each, which a was a commonly used weapon on the islands. The chief began to be bossy about Bligh and his men staying as guests, though their menace was now obvious, but Bligh continued to manage the loading of the boat as if they must depart immediately and was unaware of their growing hostility. It was a race to get launched before all semblance of friendliness was dropped and an attack began.
In the end, as supplies were all loaded and men got on the boat, violence broke out, and the natives threw their large rocks out upon the men in the boat, who warded them off with much bruising.
One Englishman who tried to loose the rope that held the launch to a rock on the beach was caught before he could begin swimming to the launch. The natives swarmed him, and pummeled him with the hurled stones, killing him in front of everyone. Worse yet, the anchor was stuck, and the approximately 200 natives were almost upon them when they finally cut the rope and broke the anchor and paddled away at top speed with large rocks falling among them. Luckily no one else was hurt badly.
From that point on, Bligh determined to pull in to shore only when the land seemed deserted. They would have no more men murdered. It would be hard enough to save themselves from hunger, thirst and the elements.
They sailed on, planning to make for Southern Australia, then swing wide to the East around its eastern shore, then come back to the mainland towards the top of Australia, replenish their food stuffs, and make their final sail for the island of Timor.
There in the lifeboat the men’s world became very dependent upon God. They suffered a good number of storms as the days went by. And with their 8” of freeboard any single large wave might have ended their voyage and their lives. And they did suffer through several strong storms, being unable to make land to avoid them. This left them bailing water through both day and night at times, until their strength seemed wholly gone. But Bligh kept them bailing even when they no longer cared. His personality was harder to bear than the misery of bailing water while exhausted. But they lived through each storm.
During storms like that, no one could really sleep. They had early on arrived at a system where some lay down in the boat and slept while others stayed awake and rowed and performed other duties. Then they would switch places. But during a storm that lasted perhaps a day and a half, there was no real rest for anyone.
And the weather could be quite cold. They swung south of Australia, and that is a land that has actual winters. Often while out on the ocean the men shivered constantly from the nighttime cold. They found that the sea water stayed a much warmer temperature than the rainy air, so to warm up, they would soak their shirts in the warm ocean water, then wear them. For a while, the shirt would warm them. Then they would do it again. Their skin must have gotten very sore at times from the slaty clothing abrading their skin.
The cold weather was perhaps more severe on them, but as they moved North the daytime heat could be implacable, almost unbearable. Hours upon hours of being baked by the fierce sun.
They were almost constantly on water rations, sometimes receiving nothing but teaspoons of rum or wine, and only a small swallow of water. But still Bligh pushed them on, pretending to a little more confidence than he actually felt that they were on the right course, and would soon enough be back to a civilized European port. He was almost as much a disciplinarian on the small launch as he had been on the Bounty.
From time to time a couple of men would become much sicker than the rest, and then Bligh showed a kinder side of his nature, giving them extra rations, shade or extra care as they seemed to need it, until some shore stop or another allowed them to recover a little bit.
There were very few men on that age - perhaps not a single other - that had the navigational knowledge, the fierce feisty drive, the endurance, the grit, the faith, and the never wavering will to just decide he was capable of finding his way back from nowhere, across half a planet, in a rowboat. But for all his faults, and he certainly was famous for having way more faults than any one man ought to, Bligh was as a nautical juggernaut in an age of great seamen.
Bligh would have been highly disliked by many in any age, his personality was just too strong, his ego just too large. But as much as the other 18 men in his rowboat may have hated him, they could see that Bligh believed that they were all getting back to civilization alive if they worked together.
Bligh wasn’t so strong physically. Towards the end of their journey, Bligh records that one of the sailors, a frank and simple man, told Bligh quite honestly that no one else on their boat looked so bad as he. The way he said it made Bligh smile, Bligh records. Was he just trying to soften his image when he recorded that? Was he trying to hint that he suffered most of all? That's what he wrote, though.
They tried to fish, but with almost no success. Once they caught a nice sized fish - enough for a fair meal for each man, something they were badly in need of! But one of the sailors grabbed it poorly while trying to get it aboard, and it came unhooked and swam away. This had to have been a crushing blow for men so starved. But they got over it. That was probably not the most popular fellow on the boat for a couple of days!
They would get off on land from time to time as they reached South Australia (a very unknown continent at the time) and began to travel North to the islands out from its Eastern shore. I believe Bligh avoided the mainland because of the Aborigines, who were pretty fierce towards outsiders from Europe sometimes (And advisedly so. There would come a day when you could earn a bounty for proving that you had killed an Aborigine.)
The men in the boat could find a little to eat at the island stops that they did make, but surprisingly little. The men found some berries during one stop, and took a chance on them, against Bligh‘s orders. They turned out to be edible berries, and probably provided some much-needed nutrition, including vitamin ‘C‘. Bligh just seemed to take their disobedience in stride. Men dying of starvation can pretty much disobey your orders not to eat potentially deadly food if they want to. It's a calculated risk that they have a right to take, in some ways.
Scurvy (a Vitamin C deficiency sickness) is never far away for the man living off of the ocean, and it can be a debilitating sickness. But when given food rich in vitamin C, people usually make a remarkably fast recovery on about the third day.
On one of the stops on land a man at the end of his rope told Bligh he wasn't going to obey him anymore, and that he could do as good of a job being Captain as Bligh could. Bligh realized that, with all of the men watching, that he had to face this man down if he could, though he felt weak. So, he grabbed a sword and threw another one to the man rebelling and told him that they would settle the matter of who would be Captain right now. The man was very surprised and backed down. apologizing. Bligh wisely let the mater drop, without punishing the man. They were all exhausted, and starving.
Bligh told his men as much as he remembered about New Guinea and New Holland (Australia), thinking it as possible that he might die as that any other man might. That way they might have an idea about how to reach East Timor if they were left on their own.
Back at sea and moving North they caught a seabird called a Noddy, once. They divided it and ate it raw.
On other occasions they would catch the larger Booby bird. About the size of a duck, it made a far better meal. These birds had the humorous habit of running into ropes and getting tangled up in rigging, hence the name. The men also enjoyed eating the cuttlefish in the bird's stomach. When you are hungry enough, a lot of things are good.
At one landing on the coast of Australia they saw animal tracks that they were convinced belonged to the Kangaroo, but they did not find the animal. They found the occasional oyster here, though, and made some stews. Bligh recorded that even a man that wasn’t starving might like those stews. They endured lots of cold hungry days and a few where they ate much better.
They spent 6 sailing days along the coast of Australia, then left the resources and relative comfort of land to cross the ocean that was left between them and Timor - a sail that Bligh believed would take around 10 days.
They subsisted during those days on some dried oysters they had brought, their last little bit of wine, and the Lord sent them another Booby bird. Greatest of all, they caught a small dolphin just when they needed it most desperately.
Still, it was scanty fare, and Bligh records that they reached a point where they had to speak things to each other two or three times before they would understand. But they persevered, and then one day, they sighted land. They knew then that Timor's settlements could only be a day or two away, maybe less. And they were right. They reached the Dutch settlement of Coupang two days later, and they were cordially and kindly received by the Dutch, who, though not always great friends of the English, are a good people and Christian. Within a few days the men were greatly recovered.
A ship took them to another port where Bligh was able to purchase a 34-foot schooner which they christened the ‘Resource’. With this ship they reached Batavia, Java, and there joined their ship to a large group of ships which were on their way to Europe. About 5 months later, they were home in England, though sadly, several of Bligh’s sailors died during this far less arduous leg of their journey, from fevers and such.
When they had first arrived in their small launch at the European port in Timor, they had traveled for 41 tough days, and 3,618 miles. The 41 days may not sound so very long, but no one in known times had ever done anything like it. Not with so small a boat as they had. Not in such unknown waters, not with so many men and so little to feed them with.
There was general agreement throughout Europe at that time that, even though the men had shown courage and perseverance, it was God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit that had done a very notable deed in providing for this small and wretchedly dependent group of cast-aways. They had called on the name of the Lord in their hour of need, and then had begun their journey. But their cry didn't go unheard.
Thirst came, but they found water in time on each occasion. Hunger came, but food arrived from unexpected places at just the right times to save them. They had dealt with treacherous men, but only one of them had died. And the storms had come again and again. But with 8” of freeboard far out there in the open ocean, no wave had sunk them. No wave had been too much.
God had done it, as much -no, probably much more - than the strength of the 19 men. Almighty God, the Merciful.
Bligh's loss of the ship was investigated, but Bligh was exonerated. He was even promoted. But he didn't learn to control himself. He was on yet another ship that mutinied, later in his career. And mutiny was pretty rare.
Later, he became a Governor. He angered his constituents so much that he was forced from office.
Same guy, same story. But once, God did greatly strengthen and use him, and that is not forgotten.
I'll be working on assembling the details of another great part of the Bounty's story: what God did with the mutineers who seized the Bounty. That is perhaps an even more surprising great deed of God.