The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty (27 page)
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Authors: Caroline Alexander
Tags: #History, #Europe, #Great Britain, #Military, #Naval
BOOK: The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty
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The journey from Coupang to Batavia in the newly purchased Dutch schooner, renamed by Bligh the
Resource,
took exactly six weeks, from August 20 until October 1. With the launch in tow, the
Resource
hopped along the Java coast, landing at Surabaya and Semarang, replacing rotten parts and begging for basic supplies and water. Throughout this tedious voyage, Fryer, with relentless tenacity, continued to dog and counter Bligh’s every word and deed. To Bligh’s command that Fryer keep an eye on Purcell while the carpenter worked on the new schooner, Fryer had responded that “he was no Carpenter.” When Hallett and Elphinstone were found “beastly drunk,” Bligh reacted with the partly rhetorical question “Are they drunk or Ill?,” to which Fryer replied, “Am I a Doctor?”
Resource,
took exactly six weeks, from August 20 until October 1. With the launch in tow, the
Resource
hopped along the Java coast, landing at Surabaya and Semarang, replacing rotten parts and begging for basic supplies and water. Throughout this tedious voyage, Fryer, with relentless tenacity, continued to dog and counter Bligh’s every word and deed. To Bligh’s command that Fryer keep an eye on Purcell while the carpenter worked on the new schooner, Fryer had responded that “he was no Carpenter.” When Hallett and Elphinstone were found “beastly drunk,” Bligh reacted with the partly rhetorical question “Are they drunk or Ill?,” to which Fryer replied, “Am I a Doctor?”
This last altercation took place at Surabaya, on the coast of Java, and was the cause of a near mutinous showdown.
“What do you mean by this insolence?” Bligh had asked the master, referring to his coy response.
“It is no insolence,” Fryer replied, buoyed for this confrontation by his drunken and disgruntled audience, of whom the most significant member was William Purcell. “You not only use me Ill but every Man in the Vessel and every Man will say the same.”
“Yes by God we are used damned Ill,” began the muttering chorus. This entire episode is logged by Bligh himself, along with all the complaints the disgruntled party chose to lodge against him—that he would be hanged or shot from the mouth of a cannon on his return to England; that he had overbilled His Majesty’s government for stores purchased in Coupang (this from Fryer); that “the cause of the Ship being taken was owing to my stoping provisions” (this from Purcell). Bligh’s unsqueamish report of the range of complaints against him would tend to indicate that these were not issues in which he feared public scrutiny. The one heartening development was a sudden, emotional outburst from Thomas Hayward in support of his captain. Hayward, Bligh now learned, had earlier been taunted by his fellow officers for being Bligh’s “lackey.” Now, throwing himself into Bligh’s arms, amid a torrent of tears he begged Bligh to believe that he had never been guilty of disloyalty.
“The Honor and integrity of this young Man made the Wretches about him tremble” was Bligh’s approving summation.
Bligh had learned much since his first tentative and ineffectual punishment of Purcell, all those months ago, in Van Diemen’s Land; this, or his patience had by now been worn so paper-thin that he had thrown his previous caution to the winds. In either event, his reaction to the new crisis had been to call instantly for the arrest of Purcell and Fryer by the Dutch authorities. Next, addressing his “tumultuous” men, Bligh publicly asked that those who had complaints to make against him step forward. Three men did so, John Hallett, William Cole and, surprisingly, Thomas Ledward, the assistant surgeon. Bligh requested the Dutch authorities to hold all men separately until questioning on the morrow, to ensure that they did not prepare complicit statements.
The next day, an examination was held onshore, presided over by the commandant of the considerable Dutch troops, a captain of the marines and a third high-ranking Dutch official.
“Have you anything to say against your Captain?” asked the commandant of John Hallett.
Yes, replied Hallett: “He beat me once at Otaheite.”
“For what reason?”
“Because I was not got into the boat.”
“Why did not you go into the Boat?”
“The Water was too deep.” This is in all probability the event enigmatically referred to in Bligh’s index to the missing portion of his private log as “Mr. Hallet’s contumacy.”
“Have you no other complaint against your Captain?”
“None.”
And so it went.
To Mr. Ledward: “Have you anything to say against your Captain?”
“I have nothing to say against my Captain only the first time the Boat went on Shore I ask’d leave to go with him & was refused until he came on board again.”
To Mr. Cole: “Have you anything to say against your Captain?”
To which Cole, suddenly addressing himself directly to Bligh, had replied, “I alledge no particular complaint against you, God forbid.” Thus had Fryer’s intent to rally resistance to Bligh ended with a whimper.
Fryer himself, now confined, sent Bligh a series of contrite letters, begging forgiveness and declaring that all parties could unite as friends. This vacillating tendency in Fryer Bligh had long despised, having noted in his log, a month earlier, that the “vicious & troublesome disposition of this Man can be only equalled by his ignorance & meanness, always ready to make concession & supplicate my forgiveness in the most abject manner.” Fryer’s misdeeds were substantial. It was he who had set a bush fire on one of the landfalls by his stubborn insistence on having his own fire; it was he who had intervened in a squabble between William Cole and Robert Tinkler, by advising Tinkler “to stick his knife into the Boatswain.” When Bligh had stopped to make camp, Fryer loudly advocated moving on; when under way, he had advocated making landfall.
Somewhere in Fryer’s brain there appears to have been lodged the fancy that he was Bligh’s equal with respect to all things nautical; that a mere quirk of command had placed one man on a higher footing than the other; that he, Master Fryer, was entitled not only to his own opinion on every observation and duty of ship life, but to the right to air and advocate that opinion. In Bligh’s handling of his cockleshell of a ship around the Horn; in his zealous and unremitting application of Cook’s most enlightened sea practices; in his successful transplanting of the breadfruit; in his excellent relations with the Tahitians, conducted over a demanding five-month period; in his abilities, widely acknowledged, to survey and chart and navigate; in the fact that at the age of twenty-one he had performed, with distinction, as Cook’s sailing master; above all, in his extraordinary leadership during a voyage by open boat so attenuating it had robbed men under him of their wits—in none of these accomplishments had Fryer perceived a man above his own modest and unremarkable stature. He, John Fryer, was not William Bligh, and against this adamantine fact the imperceptive master battered himself like a moth against a lighted windowpane.
Ten days after arriving in Batavia, the
Resource
and launch were sold to a visiting English captain named Hogendor, at public auction and at a great loss. “The services she had rendered us, made me feel great reluctance at parting with her,” Bligh allowed in a later account, “which it would not have done, if I could have found a convenient opportunity of getting her conveyed to Europe.” The
Bounty
’s company dispersed throughout the town, the officers to the dirty and ill-ventilated hotel in which all visitors ended up, the men to the convalescent hospital, some four miles distant; William Purcell, who had arrived separately on a spice boat from Surabaya, was transferred at Bligh’s request to another ship, still under arrest. John Fryer had been released on Bligh’s receipt from him of a written apology for his behavior. Bligh himself, as Joseph Banks and other gentlemen had done before him, after spending six nights in the hotel, fled as soon as was feasible to “the country” outside the pestilential town. His offer to take his officers with him to the country hospital was declined—according to Bligh—with them professing that “they could not bear the Idea of being there.” Alone at the home of the surgeon general, close by his men in the convalescent hospital, Bligh nursed an intermittent fever and at times a crippling headache, and became convinced that he would not survive unless he took the first available passage to Europe; his complaint was probably malaria. But illness quite apart, it is transparently clear from his log that with no ship to claim his responsibility Bligh had become uncharacteristically disengaged from his surroundings and quite simply wanted to go home.
Resource
and launch were sold to a visiting English captain named Hogendor, at public auction and at a great loss. “The services she had rendered us, made me feel great reluctance at parting with her,” Bligh allowed in a later account, “which it would not have done, if I could have found a convenient opportunity of getting her conveyed to Europe.” The
Bounty
’s company dispersed throughout the town, the officers to the dirty and ill-ventilated hotel in which all visitors ended up, the men to the convalescent hospital, some four miles distant; William Purcell, who had arrived separately on a spice boat from Surabaya, was transferred at Bligh’s request to another ship, still under arrest. John Fryer had been released on Bligh’s receipt from him of a written apology for his behavior. Bligh himself, as Joseph Banks and other gentlemen had done before him, after spending six nights in the hotel, fled as soon as was feasible to “the country” outside the pestilential town. His offer to take his officers with him to the country hospital was declined—according to Bligh—with them professing that “they could not bear the Idea of being there.” Alone at the home of the surgeon general, close by his men in the convalescent hospital, Bligh nursed an intermittent fever and at times a crippling headache, and became convinced that he would not survive unless he took the first available passage to Europe; his complaint was probably malaria. But illness quite apart, it is transparently clear from his log that with no ship to claim his responsibility Bligh had become uncharacteristically disengaged from his surroundings and quite simply wanted to go home.
About a week after arrival, while Bligh was convalescing in the country, John Fryer wrote to his wife, Mary, in Wells-next-the-Sea, with the news of his own adventures. The letter is remarkable not only for what it says but, given Fryer’s record of complaints against Bligh, for what it does not say. Written without outside interference, it is the master’s most sincere, private and unadulterated representation of all that had passed and contains no hint of dissatisfaction with his commander.
“I have the pleasure to inform you that I [am] well & likewise Robert,” he began (Robert Tinkler was his wife’s young brother),
but am sorry to tell you that we have lost our ship, by a stratagem that never happened before, in the memory of man. On the twenty eight of April at Day break the captain & me were surprised by Misters Christian, Stewart, Young & Haywood & the Master at Arms, with twenty one of the people. Christian & the Master at arms, went into Mr. Bligh Cabin, & tyed his hand behind him two men came into my cabin, with musquitts & Bayonets, told me if I spoke, that I was a dead man, that Mr. Christian had taken the ship and that they was intended to put us on shore upon one of the friendly Isles. I expostulated with them but all to no purpose, they hoisted the Long boat out, and all them that would not join with them in the mutiny they obliged to go into the boat. I was the last that received that order, when I was obliged to beg hard of Christian to let Robert come with me—he at last consented that he should go with me . . . they gave us about two Hundred pound of bread & sixteen small pieces of Pork, a compass and an old Quadrant with some few cloaths. . . .[At Timor] Mr. Bligh purchased a small Vessel to bring us to Batavia at which Place we are waiting to embark in a Dutch ship, which will sail in three weeks so that My Dearest Girl I hope to be with you in May . . . or the beginning of June. We have been at this place a week—our living here is very Dear it cost me Every Day for Robert and myself three Dollars, which in this country is fifteen shillings—and Cloaths likewise are very Dear. . . . I shall be very happy if one Hundred pounds besides my pay will clear me—but hope that Government will take our Misfortunes in consideration and make some allowance for our losses—I was obliged to draw on Mr. Wilson at Timor for 228 Rix Dollar—which is about forty five pounds I likewise gave Mr. Bligh a bill of sixteen pounds, which I was indebted to him for the Expense of the Mess as he wished all matters settled fearing that one of us might Die . . . this letter come in a packit to Holland, which we suppose will be home some time before us—so that the People in England will hear of our misfortunes & forget them before we get home—I will not trouble you with any more of our Adventures. Robert join with me in Duty love & best wishes to all friends & conclude with prayers to the Almighty that my Dearest Mary may be well.from your Affectionate
Husband.
Back in the civilized world, where Dutch rix dollars and shillings had to be paid for all bodily needs, the men were soon smarting at the long lists of expenses they incurred just in the act of staying alive. The Dutch authorities had offered food, shelter and passages home—but, canny merchants all, had charged breathtaking sums for these services. His officers had borrowed from Bligh, or, like Fryer, drawn money on their own accounts, to be reimbursed on return; if any of the men who had borrowed from Bligh were to die before getting home—Bligh might be out of pocket. With the prospect of imminent departure, therefore, Bligh’s self-interest became highly practical, and he began methodically collecting “securities” from all those to whom he had advanced money. The extent to which these financial considerations worried Bligh is made brutally and unhappily clear in a letter Ledward the surgeon wrote to his uncle. “You will be surprised when you hear I am deprived of my own Ship with every individual thing I took out with me, besides effects to a considerable amount which I purchased at the Surgeon, Mr Huggan’s, Death,” he began.
The sad affair happened early in the Morning Watch; as soon as I was informed fully how the matter stood, I instantly declared I would go with the Captain, let the consequence be what it would, & not stay among Mutineers. . . .There is one thing I must mention which is of consequence: the Captain denied me, as well as the rest of the Gentlemen who had not Agents, any Money unless I would give him my power of Attorney & also my Will, in which I was to bequeath to him all my property; this he called by the name of
proper security.
This unless I did, I should have got no money, though I shewed him a letter of Credit from my Uncle & offered to give him a Bill of Exchange upon him. In case of my Death I hope this matter will be clearly pointed out to my Relations.
A ship due to leave in early October was found to have space for three passengers aboard. With no compunction, Bligh quickly claimed these for himself, John Smith, his servant and John Samuel, his clerk. His explanation, pleaded often in the log, was continued grave ill health, but it is also clear that for William Bligh, his duties to his troublesome, turbulent crew were over.
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