‘So that, at some future period, a British Ilion may blaze forth in the south,’ Hamilton continued, working to a crescendo of sentiment, ‘with all the characteristic virtues of the English nation, and complete the great prophecy, by propagating the Christian knowledge amongst the infidels.’ Even here, at the early stage of the Bounty saga, the figure of Christian himself represented a powerful, charismatic force; already there is the striking simplistic tendency to blur the mutineer’s name – Christian – with a Christian cause.
In the third week of June, while in the Samoas, Edwards was forced to report yet another misfortune: ‘Between 5 & 6 o’clock of the Evening of the 22nd of June lost sight of our Tender in a thick Shower of Rain,’ he noted tersely. Edwards had now lost two vessels, this one with nine men. Food and water that were meant to have been loaded onto the tender were still piled on the Pandora’s deck. Anamooka (Nomuka), in the Friendly Islands, was the last designated point of rendezvous in the event of a separation, and here the Pandora now hastened.
The people of Anamooka are the most daring set of robbers in the South Seas,’ Hamilton noted matter-of-factly. Onshore, parties who disembarked to wood and water the ship were harassed as they had not been elsewhere. Edwards’s servant was stripped naked by an acquisitive crowd and forced to cover himself with his one remaining shoe. ‘We soon discovered the great Irishman,’ Hamilton reported, ‘with his shoe full in one hand, and a bayonet in the other, naked and foaming mad.’ While overseeing parties foraging for wood and water, Lieutenant Corner was momentarily stunned on the back of his neck by a club-wielding islander, whom the officer, recovering, shot dead in the back.
There was no sign of the tender.
Leaving a letter for the missing boat in the event that it turned up, Edwards pressed on to Tofua, the one island on which Bligh, Thomas Hayward and the loyalists in the open launch had briefly landed. One of Bligh’s party had been stoned to death here, and some of the men responsible for this were disconcerted to recognize Hayward.
From Tofua, the Pandora continued her cruising before returning to Anamooka, where there was still no word of the missing tender.
It was now early August. Edwards’s laconic report reveals nothing of his state of mind, but with two boats and fourteen men lost, uncowed mutineers on board and a recent physical attack on the most able of his crew, it is safe to hazard that he was anxious to return home. His own cabin had been broken into and books and other possessions taken as improbable prizes (James Morrison, with discernible satisfaction, had earlier reported that ‘a new Uniform Jacket belonging to Mr. Hayward’ had been taken and, as a parting insult, donned by the thief in his canoe while in sight of the ship). Now, ‘thinking it time to return to England,’ Edwards struck north to Wallis Island, then west for the long run to the Endeavour Strait, the route laid down by the Admiralty out of the Pacific – homeward bound.
The Pandora reached the Great Barrier Reef towards the end of August, and from this point on Edwards’s report is closely concerned with putting on record his persistent and conscientious depth soundings and vigilant lookout for reefs, bars and shoals. The Pandora was now outside the straits, the uncharted, shoal-strewn divide between Papua New Guinea and the northeastern tip of Australia. From the masthead of the Pandora, no route through the Barrier Reef could be seen, and Edwards turned aside to patrol its southern fringe, seeking an entrance.
After two days had been spent in this survey, a promising channel was at last spotted, and Lieutenant Corner was dispatched in the yawl to investigate. It was approaching dusk when he signalled that his reconnaissance was successful and started to return to the ship. Despite the reports of a number of eyewitnesses, it is difficult to determine exactly how subsequent events unfolded; a remark made by Dr Hamilton suggests that Edwards may have been incautiously sailing in the dark. Previous depth soundings had failed to find bottom at 110 fathoms but now, as the ship prepared to lay to, the soundings abruptly showed 50 fathoms; and then, even before sails could be trimmed, 3 fathoms on the starboard side.
‘On the evening of the 29th August the Pandora went on a Reef,’ Morrison wrote bluntly, adding meaningfully, ‘I might say how, but it would be to no purpose’; Morrison had prefaced his report with a classical flourish, ‘Vidi et Scio’ – I saw and I know. In short, despite soundings, despite advance reconnaissance, despite both his fear and his precautions, Edwards had run his ship aground.
‘The ship struck so violently on the Reef that the carpenters reported that she made 18 Inches of water in 5 Minutes,’ the captain was compelled to write in his Admiralty report. ‘In 5 minutes after there was 4 feet of water in the hold.’ Still chained fast in the darkness of Pandora’s Box, the fourteen prisoners could only listen as sounds of imminent disaster broke around them – cries, running feet, the heavy, confused splash of a sail warped under the broken hull in an attempt to hold the leak, the ineffectual working of the pumps and more cries that spread the news that there was now nine feet of water in the hold. Coleman, McIntosh and Norman – three of the men Bligh had singled out as being innocent – were summarily released from the prison to help work the pumps, while at the same time the ship’s boats were readied.
In the darkness of their box, the remaining prisoners followed the sounds with growing horror; seasoned sailors, they knew the implication of each command and each failed outcome. The release of the exonerated men added to their sense that ultimate disaster was imminent, and in the strength of their terror they managed to break free of their irons. Crying through the scuttle to be released, the prisoners only drew attention to their broken bonds; and when Edwards was informed, he ordered the irons to be replaced. As the armourer left, the mutineers watched in incredulity as the scuttle was bolted shut behind him. Sentinels were placed over the box, with the instructions to shoot if there were any stirring within.
‘In this miserable situation, with an expected Death before our Eyes, without the least Hope of relief & in the most trying state of suspense, we spent the Night,’ Peter Heywood wrote to his mother. The water had now risen to the coamings, or hatch borders, while feet tramped overhead across the prison roof.
‘I’ll be damned if they shall go without us,’ someone on deck was heard to say, speaking, as it seemed to the prisoners, of the officers who were heading to the boats. The ship’s booms were being cut loose to make a raft, and a topmast thundered onto the deck, killing a man. High broken surf around the ship hampered all movement, and compelled the lifeboats in the black water to stay well clear.
The confusion continued until dawn, when the prisoners were able to observe through the scuttle armed officers making their way across the top of their prison to the stern ladders, where the boats now awaited. Perhaps drawn at last by the prisoners’ cries, the armourer’s mate, Joseph Hodges, suddenly appeared at the prison entrance to remove their fetters. Once down in the box, Hodges freed Muspratt and Skinner, who immediately scrambled out through the scuttle, along with Byrn who had not been in irons; in his haste to break out, Skinner left with his handcuffs still on.
From above, some unseen hand suddenly closed and barred the scuttle again. Trapped with the prisoners, Hodges continued to work, striking off the irons in rapid succession, while the confined men renewed their pleas for mercy.
‘I beg’d of the Master at Arms to leave the Scuttle open,’ Morrison wrote; ‘he answered “Never fear my boys we’ll all go to Hell together.”’
As he spoke, the Pandora made a fatal sally, rolling to port and spilling the master-at-arms and the sentinels into the water. The boats had already left, and Morrison claims he could see Edwards swimming towards his pinnace. Nowhere in his long report of the wreck and abandonment of his ship does Edwards make any mention of the prisoners.
With the ship under water as far as the mainmast, Pandora’s Box began to fill. Hen coops, spars, booms – anything that would float had been cut loose and flung overboard as a possible lifesaver. Passing over the top of the prison roof on his way into the water, William Moulter, the boatswain’s mate, heard the trapped men’s cries, and his last action before he went overboard was