Read The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty Online
Authors: Caroline Alexander
Tags: #History, #Europe, #Great Britain, #Military, #Naval
The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty (65 page)
BOOK: The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty
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Fortunately for posterity, Nessy had compiled a book of her poems and correspondence relating to Peter’s trial. Several copies of this were made and discreetly passed around. “I am glad you were pleased with my poor Nessy’s little Book,” Peter wrote to a fellow officer in 1808. “[T]he impression it has made on the mind of those who have read it has been favorable to me. . . .”
Nessy had not been Peter’s only loss. Young Henry had died in Madras, on Peter’s own ship, in 1802, and his eldest brother, James, had died in late 1804. Things had not gone so well for James, who in 1793 had fled the Isle of Man at night to escape his creditors; it appears that he had inherited the debts his father owed the Duke of Atholl. Three years later, James spent several months in Winchester Gaol, also for debts (“my present truly disagreeable situation,” as he had referred to his predicament, with a young gentleman’s hauteur). The year 1805 saw the death of Mrs. Bertie, Peter’s relation who had tended him so kindly during his confinement. An affair she had been conducting with one of her husband’s officers was discovered when her lover’s ship was wrecked and her correspondence was found in a desk floating on the water. Discarded by her husband, she was rumored to have died of disgrace. Uncle Pasley had died in 1808, a baronet, having earned this distinction for his bravery in the Battle of the Glorious First of June, in which he had lost a leg.
When, those years ago, young Heywood had been summoned before the assembled company of the
Hector
to receive His Majesty’s pardon, he had pledged his “future Life” would be faithfully devoted to his sovereign’s service. This pledge he held good. A humble awareness that he had been reprieved—when others had not—combined with his strong religious feeling seemed to have forged of his life a kind of penance. A portrait of Captain Heywood in full-dress uniform, painted in 1822, captured the former mutineer with what his family referred to as his “thoughtful countenance.” An expression of wary reserve informs his watchful face. That Captain Heywood did not indulge himself often or deeply is evident from the stark record of his service: as he himself tellingly summarized, at the time of his retirement after twenty-nine years, seven months and one day of naval service, he had been “actively employed
at sea
twenty-seven years, six months, one week and five days.”
Hector
to receive His Majesty’s pardon, he had pledged his “future Life” would be faithfully devoted to his sovereign’s service. This pledge he held good. A humble awareness that he had been reprieved—when others had not—combined with his strong religious feeling seemed to have forged of his life a kind of penance. A portrait of Captain Heywood in full-dress uniform, painted in 1822, captured the former mutineer with what his family referred to as his “thoughtful countenance.” An expression of wary reserve informs his watchful face. That Captain Heywood did not indulge himself often or deeply is evident from the stark record of his service: as he himself tellingly summarized, at the time of his retirement after twenty-nine years, seven months and one day of naval service, he had been “actively employed
at sea
twenty-seven years, six months, one week and five days.”
During one of his brief stints ashore, in 1806, Heywood got engaged, but ten years would pass before the marriage took place and was consummated. That he had been not entirely successful in sublimating his lurking passions is suggested by a curious document he drew up in the presence of fellow officers while at sea on the
Nereus
in 1810. On a squally late summer day, somewhere between the Downs and Spithead en route to Buenos Aires, Peter drafted a brief last will and testament. Addressed to his brother Edwin with the stern injunction that it was “to be opened at death and not before,” it expressed Heywood’s intention to “make some provision for an Infant under my care & protection and at present at Nurse.” Payments for the care of “Mary Gray” were to be to a Mr. Makin, a color and dye merchant in London.
Nereus
in 1810. On a squally late summer day, somewhere between the Downs and Spithead en route to Buenos Aires, Peter drafted a brief last will and testament. Addressed to his brother Edwin with the stern injunction that it was “to be opened at death and not before,” it expressed Heywood’s intention to “make some provision for an Infant under my care & protection and at present at Nurse.” Payments for the care of “Mary Gray” were to be to a Mr. Makin, a color and dye merchant in London.
From his eventual marriage in 1816 to Frances Joliffe, the widow of an East Indiaman captain, there would be no children. Beneath the blue cloth and gold braid of his portrait, Heywood still wore the blue-black tattoos so attractive to Otaheite women, and one must wonder how the widow Joliffe was prepared to behold this sight. She was from a Stirling-shire family, and after her husband’s death had come from Bombay to London with her infant daughter. She eventually fell under the protection of her great-uncle—Aaron Graham.
The years immediately following Heywood’s marriage and retirement saw successive deaths of several figures who had cast long shadows over his life. In 1817, William Bligh, Vice Admiral of the Blue, dropped dead in Bond Street on a visit to his surgeon. He was sixty-three years old and had been living quietly with his daughters on a comfortable estate he had purchased in Kent. The cause of his death was probably stomach cancer.
Just over a year later, Aaron Graham died at the age of sixty-six, the victim of “a long train of nervous disorders,” as his obituary read, romantically, if implausibly, attributed to the care he had expended in squaring the accounts of the Drury Lane theater. Among his other accomplishments, Graham had found time to overhaul the hulk prison system. He “left behind him a prudent and respectable widow,” his obituary noted with just a whiff of defensiveness, “who has lately succeeded, by the death of a relation, to a great fortune.” This relative was her first cousin Sir Henry Tempest, Aaron’s good friend—for whom Mrs. Graham had in fact deserted her husband. Living with Sir Henry as his common-law wife, Sarah Graham had borne her cousin several children who were diplomatically given the surname “Tempest Graham.”
Closing out the circle of Heywood’s
Bounty
past, Sir Joseph Banks died in 1820 at seventy-seven. The slim, alert young man whose restless energy had explored all there was to know or experience, in Otaheite and elsewhere, had become heavy and gouty over the years. His influence and boundless interests had survived unchanged, however, and he had remained the president of the Royal Society up until weeks before his death—a long, unmatched run of forty-two formidable years. True to character, Banks requested in his will to be buried “in the most private manner in the Church, or Church yard of the Parish in which I shall happen to die.” He entreated his “dear relatives to spare themselves the affliction of attending the ceremony” and implored them to erect no monument to his memory.
Bounty
past, Sir Joseph Banks died in 1820 at seventy-seven. The slim, alert young man whose restless energy had explored all there was to know or experience, in Otaheite and elsewhere, had become heavy and gouty over the years. His influence and boundless interests had survived unchanged, however, and he had remained the president of the Royal Society up until weeks before his death—a long, unmatched run of forty-two formidable years. True to character, Banks requested in his will to be buried “in the most private manner in the Church, or Church yard of the Parish in which I shall happen to die.” He entreated his “dear relatives to spare themselves the affliction of attending the ceremony” and implored them to erect no monument to his memory.
The death of Sir Joseph Banks represented more than the passing of a landmark figure in the
Bounty
saga. With Banks had gone William Bligh’s most loyal and influential protector. “My Dear Admiral” was how Banks had come to address his old friend. Bligh’s need of Banks would, however, outlive his death. His career was no longer at stake—but his reputation was. Of this, Peter Heywood would show himself to be keenly aware.
Bounty
saga. With Banks had gone William Bligh’s most loyal and influential protector. “My Dear Admiral” was how Banks had come to address his old friend. Bligh’s need of Banks would, however, outlive his death. His career was no longer at stake—but his reputation was. Of this, Peter Heywood would show himself to be keenly aware.
Whereas Bligh had never been able to free himself of the stigma of the
Bounty,
the same events appear to have intruded very little on Peter Heywood’s life or career. Very occasionally an enigmatic glimmer of something that might have touched on buried memory flickers forth: “[T]he only way to get at Mens’ Characters & to find what sort of stuff their Brains are composed of is to come in close contact,” Heywood wrote to polar explorer James Clark Ross. Had he learned this on the
Bounty
? And what had passed through his mind when in 1813 he dutifully made note of the secret codes to be used to telegraph a naval crisis: “242 = A disposition to mutiny; 353 = Have mutinied—I shall quell them; 414 = I shall not be able to quell them . . .”?
Bounty,
the same events appear to have intruded very little on Peter Heywood’s life or career. Very occasionally an enigmatic glimmer of something that might have touched on buried memory flickers forth: “[T]he only way to get at Mens’ Characters & to find what sort of stuff their Brains are composed of is to come in close contact,” Heywood wrote to polar explorer James Clark Ross. Had he learned this on the
Bounty
? And what had passed through his mind when in 1813 he dutifully made note of the secret codes to be used to telegraph a naval crisis: “242 = A disposition to mutiny; 353 = Have mutinied—I shall quell them; 414 = I shall not be able to quell them . . .”?
Retired after a career of blameless service, with the more haunting ghosts of his youth vanished to the shades, Heywood was at last in a position to relax and live more expansively. Settled comfortably in an elegant home in Highgate, with his wife and stepdaughter, Heywood enjoyed a low-key but stimulating social life. Charles Lamb was a good friend, as was the gifted Francis Beaufort, originator of the Beaufort wind scale and now the Admiralty’s hydrographer. Heywood’s stepdaughter, Diana, reported on evenings at the home of the Duchess of St. Albans, a neighbor whom Heywood had met at Aaron Graham’s.
“Peter!” the Duchess was wont to greet him, slapping him heartily on the back. The Duchess was the former Harriet Mellon, the actress whom Aaron Graham had helped pair with banker Thomas Coutts. Old Coutts had died some years before, leaving his widow the wealthiest woman in England. Mrs. Coutts’s marriage to the bankrupt Duke of St. Albans, twenty-five years her junior, had been the means of adding a title to her wealth. Another Highgate neighbor, who complained about the noisy stream of “Carriages, Coachmen and other such Cattle” convening on the spectacular house of the Duchess (whom he called “Mrs. Cootes”), was Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Peter’s stepdaughter would recall seeing him, to a child a somewhat frightening figure, walking with a dazed expression in his eyes, which were “like boiled gooseberries.”
Within his affectionate inner circle of family and friends, Captain Heywood was known as the “Capitan.” To them he told his stories of the old naval school, admirals of old, “Capital fighting fellows,” if sometimes “rough and prejudiced,” as he now recalled with nostalgic affection. One of his stories told how a crusty captain had dressed his lieutenant down.
“I thought I was acting for the best,” the lieutenant had protested.
“ ‘Thought, sir!’ returned the other furiously, ‘and pray what business had you to think? I’ll have no one think on board my ship but myself.’ ” Yes, they were capital fellows all.
Heywood’s health was not sound and a chronic shortness of breath gave evidence of a bad heart—the effects, his family believed, of his own boat ordeal following the loss of the
Pandora.
In 1829, he removed his family to a quieter residence on the edge of Regent’s Park, an area still under development, covered with flowering gorse on which partridges flew and hares and pheasant ran. It was a place “for quiet people,” unattracted to the frivolities of fashionable London. His experience in life had taught him, the Capitan told his family, “that it was not desirable to know more people than were necessary, except to do them good.” Optimistically, he took a lease on this place on the outer fringes of London’s last wilderness for twenty-one years.
Pandora.
In 1829, he removed his family to a quieter residence on the edge of Regent’s Park, an area still under development, covered with flowering gorse on which partridges flew and hares and pheasant ran. It was a place “for quiet people,” unattracted to the frivolities of fashionable London. His experience in life had taught him, the Capitan told his family, “that it was not desirable to know more people than were necessary, except to do them good.” Optimistically, he took a lease on this place on the outer fringes of London’s last wilderness for twenty-one years.
It was at this time of quiet winding down that there strode into Heywood’s life a figure who threatened to overturn all that he had so carefully constructed. Edward Belcher was last seen five years earlier as a brash lieutenant on the
Blossom,
when she had made her extended visit to Pitcairn Island in 1825. Even then, as a lieutenant of twenty-six, his name buried amid many others in his captain’s published report, Belcher snags one’s attention. A distant, vaguely discernible warning bell sounds at each mention of his name. One hears it when Beechey relates how his lieutenant had ignored all warnings about attempting to compete with the Pitcairn youths’ feats of strength and agility; one hears it too in Belcher’s own description of his solo swims in heavy surf, which with casual arrogance he noted to be “more formidable in appearance than reality.” And above all, one hears it in his almost lazy surety of opinion that although his captain had personally interviewed old John Adams, he “I am inclined to think did not get as accurate an account as we did below.” Belcher’s journal is devoid of the usual sentimental asides that characterize such works of aspiring officer-authors, nor did he wax eloquent on the morals of the Pitcairn community; he was far more interested in what had previously happened, on the island and on the
Bounty.
Blossom,
when she had made her extended visit to Pitcairn Island in 1825. Even then, as a lieutenant of twenty-six, his name buried amid many others in his captain’s published report, Belcher snags one’s attention. A distant, vaguely discernible warning bell sounds at each mention of his name. One hears it when Beechey relates how his lieutenant had ignored all warnings about attempting to compete with the Pitcairn youths’ feats of strength and agility; one hears it too in Belcher’s own description of his solo swims in heavy surf, which with casual arrogance he noted to be “more formidable in appearance than reality.” And above all, one hears it in his almost lazy surety of opinion that although his captain had personally interviewed old John Adams, he “I am inclined to think did not get as accurate an account as we did below.” Belcher’s journal is devoid of the usual sentimental asides that characterize such works of aspiring officer-authors, nor did he wax eloquent on the morals of the Pitcairn community; he was far more interested in what had previously happened, on the island and on the
Bounty.
When Edward Belcher, now a captain himself, entered Peter Heywood’s life, he was well on his way to becoming both one of the most brilliant and one of the most despised officers in His Majesty’s naval service. His surveying skills were formidable, and he was to produce magnificent charts of large parts of the globe—Africa, the Americas, the China Seas, the East Indies. The secret commissions and diplomatic duties with which he was from time to time entrusted very much suited his reckless self-assurance. He was also soon renowned for his ability, as one historian has succinctly put it, to make “life a living hell for his officers on every ship he had . . . commanded.” At least two courts-martial were the usual toll of his voyages, although on one he was to instigate as many as eight. Voyages under his command often concluded with a number of his men brought into harbor already under arrest.
“Perhaps no officer of equal ability has ever succeeded in inspiring so much personal dislike” was the assessment of the famously staid
Dictionary of National Biography
. When Belcher was eventually chosen, ill advisedly, to lead four ships in the Admiralty’s last-gasp polar enterprise in search of the vanished explorer John Franklin, he found a rush of volunteers for the arduous and hateful task of man-hauling sledging; life on the ice, anywhere, was preferable “to the prospect of life under Belcher.” His crew, wrote one officer, were “a body of men especially chosen to serve with one of the most diabolical creatures ever allowed to rule on earth.”
Dictionary of National Biography
. When Belcher was eventually chosen, ill advisedly, to lead four ships in the Admiralty’s last-gasp polar enterprise in search of the vanished explorer John Franklin, he found a rush of volunteers for the arduous and hateful task of man-hauling sledging; life on the ice, anywhere, was preferable “to the prospect of life under Belcher.” His crew, wrote one officer, were “a body of men especially chosen to serve with one of the most diabolical creatures ever allowed to rule on earth.”
It was this man who in the summer of 1830 was invited to the Re-gent’s Park home of Captain Peter Heywood. Belcher shared a number of interests, such as surveying, with the retired captain, and they also had mutual acquaintances. All this notwithstanding, it comes as a surprise to find, three months later, Belcher married to Heywood’s beautiful, educated, twenty-six-year-old stepdaughter.
Diana, compliant, protected and adoring of her adoptive father, would have obeyed Heywood on the matter of marriage, as much else. But Peter’s wife, the young woman’s mother, was beside herself with grief and rage at what was destined to be a fatally unhappy union. Years after the marriage, a friend visiting their home found on the flyleaf of a family Bible “a diatribe against Captain Belcher written by Mrs. Heywood.” The outraged mother’s worst suspicions were quickly confirmed when on her wedding night Diana contracted a virulent form of venereal disease.
“I confess it requires a considerable stretch of belief to think that any man would be beastly enough to pox his own wife, and that too on their first connexion,” one of Edward’s own surgeons wrote him. “But you know that you did so, having a perfect knowledge of what would be the consequence from my having warned you of it in strong language.”
BOOK: The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty
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