The mode of management was, needless to say, hot breakfasts, clean dry clothes, clean hammocks and a clean ship (‘in cleaning Ship all dark holes and Corners the common receptacles of all filth were the first places attended to’), dancing, infusions of malt, portable soup and sauerkraut. Once again, it is evident that in Bligh’s eyes, his small ship and forty-six-member company were embarked upon a historic enterprise.
‘Seamen will seldom attend to themselves in any particular and simply to give directions…is of little avail,’ Bligh added, echoing the sentiments of many a captain. ‘They must be watched like Children.’
Bligh was not the only man to take advantage of the layover to send reports to England. Thomas Ledward, the assistant surgeon who had joined the Bounty at the eleventh hour, wrote to his uncle describing ‘a continual series of the most violent and distressing weather that ever was experienced.’ The ship was in danger of becoming unfit from her exertions, he reported, continuing that he had no doubt the captain ‘will gain much credit by his resolution & perseverance & by the extreme care he took of the Ship’s company.’
Ledward had been in the habit of keeping a diary, but had just learned that all such private documents would have to be turned over to the Admiralty at journey’s end. While Ledward might not have known it, this had become standard practice since Cook’s first voyage, the purpose being to ensure that any officially sanctioned publication was not undercut by a private, competing work. Once the official account was out – in this case, to be written by Lieutenant Bligh – other accounts were usually permitted.
In the face of this new knowledge, Ledward determined, as he informed his uncle, to drop his diary. Other of his shipmates, however, were less circumspect. Someone, probably Charles Churchill, the master-at-arms, wrote an elegant memoir to the Reverend John Hampson, with the hint that he was ‘very desirous to have [it] publish’d and beg you will cause it to be inserted in the Public Papers as soon as possible.’ The report commenced with a brief essay on the breadfruit and references to Cook’s voyages and then briefly sketched the tempestuous voyage to Tenerife, the crossing of the ‘Equinoctial Line’, which he stated was celebrated with ‘the usual Ceremonies of Shaving and Ablution’ – no self-respecting seaman would confess that ducking, or ‘ablution’, had been prohibited.
Meanwhile, in the north of England, there appeared in the Cumberland Pacquet an ‘extract of a letter from a midshipman (aged sixteen) on board his Majesty’s ship “Bounty”’; this could only be from Peter Heywood. Either he too had requested publication, or his proud family felt the letter relating his adventures must be shared; they had already sent copies to various relations. Heywood’s report was mostly concerned with the attempted passage around Cape Horn, which had been ‘one continued gale as it seldom ceased for four hours together.’ But, echoing his captain’s sentiments, Heywood allowed that ‘the Bounty is as fine a sea boat as ever swam.’
All known firsthand contemporary accounts of the first five months of the Bounty’s outward voyage, then, indicate that after a passage of unprecedented severity, the Bounty’s crew were in good health, good spirits, forward-looking and, if anything, proud of what had so far been accomplished. There were not, judging from these letters, complaints worth writing home about.
The Bounty dropped anchor in Adventure Bay off the southern coast of Van Diemen’s Land, now Tasmania, seven weeks after departing the Cape. The passage had seen ferocious weather and much severe lightning; once the Bounty had been pitched almost on her beam ends, but as Bligh logged, ‘no damage was done but the overturning [of] some Tubs with Plants I had brought from the Cape.’ The plants were intended as useful gifts for the Tahitians.
With his ship safely anchored, Bligh set out by boat to scout the surroundings. The largely mountainous land appeared unchanged from when he, along with Nelson, Peckover and Coleman, had been here with Cook. Among the stands of massive trees that overlooked the island-studded bay, Bligh examined stumps that had been cut for the Resolution, eleven years previously. Later, Thomas Hayward pointed out to Bligh a tree trunk carved with a date from Cook’s second expedition, ‘as distinct as if it had not been cut a Month, even the very slips of the Knife were as discernable as at the first Moment.’ There was much Bligh encountered at Adventure Bay to put him in mind of his own voyage with Cook; ‘I cannot therefore help paying this humble tribute to Captn. Cook’s memory,’ he reflected in his log, ‘as his remarkable circumspection in many other things has shown how little he has been wrong.’
The following morning, Bligh divided his men into different parties, and sent them out on various duties. He had determined to work from Cook’s old base, where a gully disgorged water conveniently close to the chosen landing. One man was detailed to wash all dirty linen, while Nelson and his assistant, William Brown, set out to explore the country. Acting Lieutenant Fletcher Christian and William Peckover, the experienced and reliable gunner, were put in charge of the parties detailed to cask water and fell wood.
The weather blew squally, then fair, then squally with rain and rapid, racing clouds throughout the following days. The watering party rolled casks of water along the beach, loading them with difficulty into the waiting boats. The surf was troublesome enough to require the wood party, under Christian, to raft the timber out in bundles. In off-hours, some of the men went shooting and fishing with mostly disappointing results, although two black oystercatchers, largish black-and-white birds with long red bills, were shot by Mr Christian. All the men kept an inquisitive lookout for local people, but it was some days before any turned up. Dressed in little but kangaroo skins and with painted faces, they appeared to the Bounty men as ‘the most miserable creatures on the face of the Earth,’ as James Morrison bluntly put it.
On 23 August, there was the first unequivocal sign of trouble. Going onshore to inspect the various work parties, Bligh found William Purcell, the carpenter, cutting crude, unwieldy billets of wood. When Bligh complained that the billets were too long, Purcell accused his captain of coming onshore ‘on purpose to find fault’. Words were exchanged, Purcell became insolent and Bligh lost his temper and sent the carpenter back to the ship.
Now Bligh was made to feel the consequences of his inconveniently small company. He had no commissioned officer to turn to for authority and moral support – and no marines to back him up. Under the Articles of War, Purcell’s refusal to obey Bligh’s commands – let alone insolently talk back to him – was an offence punishable by court-martial. Yet, the prospect of holding a court-martial was well over a year away.
‘I could not bear the loss of an able Working and healthy Man,’ Bligh logged; ‘otherwise I should have committed him to close confinement untill I could have tryed him.’ As a warrant officer, the carpenter could not be flogged, and Bligh could find no recourse but to order him back to the ship to assist Fryer in other duties. Purcell seems to have had a keen appreciation of Bligh’s dilemma, for three days later Bligh was forced to log a second, lengthy complaint against him for disobeying Fryer’s orders to help load water.
Fryer informed Bligh of Purcell’s disobedience when Bligh returned to the ship with other members of the shore parties, who would have watched the encounter closely. Facing the broad Pacific and backed by a mountainous land so remote that only four ships from the outside world had ever previously touched it, Bligh had only his own authority with which to confront the carpenter.
‘My directions and presence had as little effect,’ Bligh recorded ominously. Purcell had refused to back down. Confinement of Purcell until such time as he could be brought to court-martial would rob Bligh of the carpenter’s skills and, in theory, other able-bodied work. Or so Bligh himself reasoned as he matter-of-factly devised a novel form of punishment: ‘I therefore Ordered the different Persons evidence to be drawn out and attested, and then gave Orders that untill he Worked he should have no provisions, and promised faithfully a severe Punishment to any Man that dared to Assist him.’
Bligh was satisfied with the result of this action, ‘which immediatly brought [him] to his senses…It was for the good of the Voyage that I should not make him or any Man a prisoner,’ Bligh concluded