Caroline Alexander - The Bounty - The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty

‘I see myself bearing with Silence, insults, excessive severe to my Feelings, considering the Character I held,’ wrote seaman William Grece. Shortly before the fateful day of the mutiny, he claimed to have been ‘wantonly insulted’ by one of the passengers in the presence of the commander, who later ‘sent for me, Bent me, Ordered me to be Flogged to Death, and I believe, there was not much Hyperbole in this Order,’ Grece wrote, his rage still palpable in the fraught diction of his letter. ‘I am sure if He had dared, He would have done it, and ordered me in Irons, in which Situation, he treated me with inhumanity unparrelled, this every man in the Ship knows – all commanders of the Royal Navy allow Prisoners to do the necessary calls of Nature in another place than the small space, that they are confined in…

‘I think much Stress was laid with regard to the Pistol,’ poor Grece now ventured, knowing he was on thin ice: such an act in the navy would have meant his death. ‘I for a moment thought, to prevent myself being Seized, to be Flogged, but my conduct shews I had no intention of using it.’

The first and second officers leaped to Grece’s assistance, implicating themselves in the mutiny. They were joined by Charles Christian, whose own intervention resulted ‘from a sudden ebullition of passion springing from humane sympathy at seeing cruel usage exercised towards one who deserved far different treatment – on putting an ingenious, unoffending, insulted, oppressed, worthy young man into irons, by the capricious orders of tyranny influenced by a hollow sycophant,’ to quote Charles’s own, impassioned and inimitable account. Grece, Aitken and Fell were all roughly imprisoned, a punishment Charles escaped.

The Court of Directors deliberated, and handed out penalties all around. Captain Rogers was rebuked for not informing the Company of his actions towards his officers, and fined £500 and a year’s suspension for the unrelated offence of refusing passage to a Company seaman at Madras. Grece, Aitken, Fell and Christian were all handed suspensions – Grece for his lifetime, Charles Christian for two years.

But the incident did not end here. Although the final accounting would not be given until long after the Bounty had sailed, it has much bearing on Charles Christian’s credibility. The aggrieved parties brought civil suits against the captain.

‘I had to appear as the principal, the sole witness in their favour,’ Charles reported. ‘Lord Loughborough complimented me in court for the impartial and steady manner in which I gave my testimony.’ By juries’ verdicts, the plaintiffs were awarded £3000 in damages – an enormous sum, which must be taken as a reflection of the strength of their suit.

No doubt Charles Christian told the same story that had so impressed Lord Loughborough to his brother Fletcher, as they talked through the stormy night at the riverside inn. Charles’s friend First Officer George Aitken would have had his own heated version to relate of having been battened inside his cabin for his principled stand. But it seems that it was Charles who had been most affected by the events.

‘I went on board of this ship in hopes,’ he wrote, ‘as a tree in a state of pleasing promising blossom – full of life and active vigour. I returned as one withered with blight, palsy-struck, disappointed, dispirited, and full of heart-damping trouble.’ He was also impoverished. Before setting out he had borrowed £500 on credit for trade goods, but the ‘markets were glutted at Madras and at Canton in China, by the unusual number of ships sent out that season,’ and the money was lost.

For Fletcher Christian, these were unsettling stories to hear on the eve of departure, and he left his brother a broken man, with the judgement of the mutiny still hanging over him. In his turn, Charles’s last memory of Fletcher was more cheerful: ‘He was then full of professional Ambition and of Hope. He bared his Arm, and I was amazed at its Brawniness. “This,” says he, “has been acquired by hard labour.” He said “I delight to set the Men an Example. I not only can do every part of a common Sailor’s Duty, but am upon a par with a principal part of the Officers.”’

When the weather at last permitted the Bounty to sail on 23 December, both Bligh and Christian had much upon their minds – Bligh, demoralized and resentful; Christian, ambitious, but burdened with family matters, and shaken with the revelation of how a man could be broken by an oppressor’s tyranny. Both had everything to gain or lose on the Bounty voyage.

After many exertions on their behalf, neither Lord Selkirk’s son, the Honourable Dunbar Douglas, nor his eager tutor sailed with the Bounty. The tutor never obtained a position, and the young gentleman departed the ship just before she left Long Reach for the open sea. Perhaps his father had continued to mull over the ship’s troubling deficiencies – her improper size, Bligh’s lack of a single commissioned officer, the absence of marines to back his authority – and concluded that this was not, after all, an enterprise on which he cared for his own son to stake his life.

On 23 December, the Bounty sailed at break of a boisterous, cloudy day. By night she was already battling heavy squalls. Near disaster occurred within the first twenty-four hours, when one of the sailors fell from the main topgallant sail, and narrowly saved himself by grabbing a stay. As rain and sleet drove down, Bligh ordered the sails close-reefed, the deadlights in and hatches battened. Heavy seas struck the ship, carrying away extra sails and a yard. By the evening of the twenty-fifth the weather had abated, which, as Bligh noted in his log, ‘allowed us to spend our Christmas pleasantly.’ Beef and plum pudding were served for dinner, washed down with an allowance of rum.

The well-timed respite was brief, and in the following days the heavy gales increased to a storm that piled up alarming, huge seas. Sleet and rain stung the men as they lurched and fumbled at their duties, and the Bounty herself was slammed with great waves that stove in all the boats, almost washing them overboard.

‘We were an entire Sea on Deck,’ Bligh recorded. The sham windows of the great cabin were also stove in, and water flooded inside. So severe was the wind that Bligh dared not attempt to turn his ship to lie to but, dangerously, was forced to scud ahead of the great following sea.

‘But the Ship scuds very well,’ he allowed – Bligh’s pride in the Bounty never flagged. When conditions allowed, he ordered fires lit to dry his men’s sodden gear. ‘Thick Rainy Weather’ continued, and belowdecks he found that casks of rum and stores of fish and bread had been damaged or destroyed by the thundering, incoming seas.

On 29 December, the weather diminished to a moderate gale. ‘Out all Reefs, Up Top G[allan]t Yards & set the sails,’ Bligh’s log sang out. Slowly the ship regrouped. Bligh ordered the men to wash all their dirty linen, and by noon shirts and breeches were hung all around the ship, fluttering in a fresh, drying breeze. Additional clothing and tobacco were given to the men, always a good move for restoring morale.

On 5 January, following a good run through the night, Tenerife was sighted, its landmark peak hidden in clouds. By break of the following day, the Bounty was safely moored off Santa Cruz. It was drizzling, but the winds were calm and the temperature pleasant, hovering just below 70 degrees.

Once anchored, Bligh detailed an officer to go ashore to pay respects to the governor. The officer in question is not named in Bligh’s log, but in a subsequent published narrative he pointedly reported that this was ‘Mr. Christian’. The delegation of the master’s mate for this vaguely prestigious function would suggest that at this early date Bligh regarded Christian as his de facto lieutenant. Christian had been instructed to request the governor’s permission to restock supplies and to repair the damaged ship. He was also to inform His Excellency that Lieutenant Bligh was willing to salute him provided that the salute was returned with the same number of guns; ‘but as his Excellency never returned the same Number but to persons equal in Rank to himself, this ceremony was laid aside.’ Still, Bligh was able to meet with the governor personally, thanking him ‘for his politeness and Civility’, and was later to dine with him.