The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty (19 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 following day, October 27, maneuvering around canoes and people, Bligh successfully worked the
Bounty
into Matavai Bay, and dropped anchor. Under the escort of a chief named Poeno, Bligh was taken to Point Venus, the peninsula that formed the northeast point of Matavai Bay, from where in 1769, Cook had observed the transit of Venus. Standing under the graceful and now familiar coconut palms, the surf breaking against the lava-black beach, Bligh seems to have drawn a deep breath of happiness.
 
It had been Bligh’s original plan to conceal Captain Cook’s death from the Tahitians; Cook was held in such high esteem that a portrait of him, left as a gift eleven years earlier, was still in good repair. But some three months before the
Bounty
’s arrival, another foreign ship—apparently the first since Cook’s departure—had brought news of his terrible death at the hands of the Sandwich Islanders. Nonetheless, David Nelson—with or without Bligh’s prompting is unclear—introduced Bligh as “Cook’s son” to the local dignitaries; they are reported to have received this news with much satisfaction, although subsequent interactions suggest this was not perhaps taken by them as a literal truth.
 
On November 1, Bligh set out on a scouting trip to Oparre, a district to the west of Matavai. In order to uproot and carry off the large number of breadfruit he sought, he needed the permission of all the various chiefs with jurisdiction over the areas in which he would be working. A visit to pay his respects to the Ari’i Rahi, the six-year-old king of Oparre, took him inland toward the hills, “through the delightful breadfruit flats of Oparre,” which were cut by a serpentine river. In the course of the day, the two parties entertained each other, the Tahitians offering an impromptu
heiva,
or dancing festival, Bligh a demonstration of his pocket pistol.
 
Before returning to his ship, Bligh contemplated the scenes of the day—the sparkling streams and green glades of the interior, and the dramatic sweep of the palm-rimmed lava beach of Matavai Bay. “These two places,” he reflected, “are certainly the Paradise of the World, and if happiness could result from situation and convenience, here it is to be found in the highest perfection. I have seen many parts of the World,” he continued in this remarkably personal entry, “but Otaheite is capable of being preferable to them all.”
 
Tynah, the paramount chief of Matavai and the adjoining region, soon became the local dignitary with whom Bligh and his men had the most communion. He and his outgoing wife, Iddeeah, were both large, impressive persons, Tynah standing over six foot three and weighing some three hundred pounds. Now around thirty-seven years old, Tynah had been known to Cook and Bligh previously as “Otoo.” Adroitly, Bligh conveyed to Tynah and the other lesser chiefs that the gift his sovereign, King George of Pretanee, would most welcome in exchange for the gifts his ship carried was the breadfruit tree. Delighted that King George could be so easily satisfied, the chiefs readily gave their assent, and Bligh, much relieved, began to organize his land base.
 
The Admiralty’s delay in getting Bligh his orders had ensured that the
Bounty
arrived in Tahiti near the outset of the western monsoon season, which ran from November to April, a period of rain and gales avoided by sailors. Additionally, as he had been directed to return by the Endeavour Straits, Bligh knew he had to await the eastern monsoon, which would begin at the end of April or early May; in short, the
Bounty
would not be departing Tahiti until April, five months away, and several months longer than had originally been planned.
 
On November 2, Bligh sent a party to Point Venus that included William Peckover, Peter Heywood, four of the able seamen, as well as Nelson the gardener and his assistant William Brown, all under the command of Fletcher Christian. It was their job to establish and maintain the camp for the gardeners’ work. Eventually, two tents and a shed, built of bamboo poles and thatched with palm branches, were erected on Cook’s old site and a boundary line drawn, “within which none of the Natives were to enter without permission and all were cautioned against it.” The compound was to serve as a nursery where the transplanted breadfruit could be closely supervised before being transported to the
Bounty.
Here, in the shade of the coconuts and breadfruit that rolled down to the dark shore, as palm fronds clattered and rustled in the sea breezes far above their heads, Christian and the rest of his small land party were to live and work for the next few months. Their less fortunate companions were expected to spend the night on board their ship.
 
Bligh himself divided his time between an anxious monitoring of his plants, and careful, if enjoyable, diplomacy. The success of his breadfruit operation depended upon the continued goodwill of such powerful friends as Poeno and Tynah (the father of the boy king), both of whom he knew from his former visit. Based upon his earlier experience, there was little reason to imagine this goodwill would in fact waver, but there was reason to fear the curiosity and acquisitiveness of the common man. So far, as Bligh had noted, the thefts the
Bounty
had suffered had been insignificant, but he was keenly aware that this situation could quickly change. He had already had to administer the third flogging of the voyage, in this case twelve lashes to Alexander Smith, able seaman, “for suffering the Gudgeon of the large Cutter to be drawn out without knowing it.” The flogging had horrified the watching Tahitians—especially the women, who, according to Bligh, “showed every degree of Sympathy which marked them to be the most humane and affectionate creatures in the World.”
 
The temptation for Bligh to take personal advantage of his circumstances, to strike out on short expeditions, making discoveries and taking the surveys in which he was so expert, all to his own greater glory, must have been very great. But Bligh had virtually promised Banks a successful outcome to the voyage, and Banks had made it patently clear that he cared about nothing but breadfruit. The nursery, therefore, and everything that concerned the nursery, were to be the sole objects of his attention. Bligh could not risk some fatal lapse of discipline; nor, as it appears, could he trust his officers or men.
 
This was most apparent in Bligh’s attempt to regulate the ongoing torrent of trade between his ship and his island hosts. The establishment of a fixed market, as opposed to a free-for-all run by the sailors’ whim, was of immediate advantage to his own ship, as well as to future British vessels. As Cook had done—and based closely on Cook’s own rules—Bligh drafted a set of injunctions intended to govern his men’s conduct among the Tahitians:
 
1st. At the Society or Friendly Islands, no person whatever is to intimate that Captain Cook was killed by Indians or that he is dead.
 
2nd. No person is ever to speak, or give the least hint, that we have come on purpose to get the breadfruit plant, until I have made my plan known to the chiefs.
 
3rd. Every person is to study to gain the good will and esteem of the natives; to treat them with all kindness; and not to take from them, by violent means, any thing that they may have stolen; and no one is ever to fire, but in defence of his life.
 
4th. Every person employed on service, is to take care that no arms or implements of any kind under their charge, are stolen; the value of such thing, being lost, shall be charged against their wages.
 
5th. No man is to embezzle, or offer to sale, directly, or indirectly, any part of the King’s stores, of what nature soever.
 
6th. A proper person or persons will be appointed to regulate trade, and barter with the natives; and no officer or seaman, or other person belonging to the ship, is to trade for any kind of provisions, or curiosities; but if such officer or seaman wishes to purchase any particular thing, he is to apply to the provider to do it for him. By this means a regular market will be carried on, and all disputes, which otherwise may happen with the natives will be avoided. All boats are to have every thing handed out of them at sun-set.
 
 
 
These orders were nailed to the mizzenmast immediately upon anchoring—so Morrison reports, citing a garbled version of only item number six on Bligh’s list. Bligh’s orders, Morrison recalled, prohibited “the Purchase of Curiosities or
any
thing except Provisions,” adding that “there were few or no instances of the order being disobeyd, as no curiosity struck the seamen so forcibly as a roasted pig. . . .”
 
Nonetheless, it was this last order that appears to have been responsible for the only complaints worth recording during the twenty-three weeks spent on Tahiti. Bligh’s directive aimed to avoid the disputes that would inevitably arise if trade were conducted by forty-five individuals following no particular rules, and to ensure that, as commanding officer and purser, he could reliably provision his ship.
 
Captain Cook himself, who in the course of his long career had seen many a promising market ruined, had been very clear on this point: “Thus, was the fine prospect we had of geting a plentifull supply of refreshments of these people frustrated,” Cook had lamented, after one of his men had volunteered a quantity of rare red feathers for a pig, inadvertently establishing red feathers as the currency for all future pigs. “[A]nd which will ever be the case so long as every one is allowed to make exchanges for what he pleaseth and in what manner he please’s.”
 
Morrison undoubtedly understood Bligh’s motivation for the directive, and John Fryer, as master, most certainly did. Yet Morrison complained that when the trade in hogs began to slacken, “Mr. Bligh seized on all that came to the ship big & small Dead or alive, taking them as his property, and serving them as the ship’s allowance at one pound per Man per Day.” According to Morrison, Fryer also complained to Bligh, apparently publicly, that his property was being taken. The site designated for trade was one of the tents at the nursery compound, where the boundary marker kept crowds at bay. William Peckover had been placed in charge, a sensible choice given his experience as a trading officer under Cook, and his knowledge of Tahitian language and customs picked up in the course of several voyages to the island. Nonetheless, the sailors continued to encourage their Tahitian friends to come to the ship surreptitiously.
 
“The Natives observing that the Hogs were seized as soon as they Came on board . . . became very shy of bringing a hog in sight of Lieut. Bligh,” Morrison reported, and he went on to describe with relish the ways in which the sailors and islanders conspired to trick their commanding officer. The Tahitians “watched all opportunity when he was on shore to bring provisions to their friends.” Not for the first time—and certainly not for the last—Bligh must have wished for the support of even a small party of marines, armed sentinels who would have stood apart from the fraternity of seamen, and whose loyalty to his commands he could have counted on when his back was turned.
 
Despite Morrison’s lengthy complaint, time passed pleasantly enough for the seamen who were entrusted with minimal duties and allowed onshore regularly “for refreshment.” Joseph Coleman set up a forge to make and repair goods for the ship and islanders alike. The usual wooding parties were sent off to cut timber, while others prepared puncheons of salted pork for the return journey. The great cabin was refitted for the pots waiting in the land nursery, only, as Bligh logged, “the Carpenter running a Nail through his Knee very little was done.” Charles Norman, a carpenter’s mate, had been ill for several days with a complaint diagnosed by Huggan variously as rheumatism and “Peripneumonianotha,” and the quartermaster’s mate, George Simpson, also according to Huggan, had “Cholera Morbus.” Bligh bought a milch goat for Norman, believing its milk would help the patient’s chronic diarrhea. The men recovered and Bligh was able to report a clean sick list, save that the “Venereal list is increased to four”; sadly, the European disease was now endemic.
 
Bligh met almost every day with Tynah and his family and retinue, and each day he logged some new discovery about his hosts’ culture. Along with the ship’s officers, he was entertained by lascivious
heivas,
in which the women, “according to the horrid custom,” distorted their faces into obscene expressions. He discussed the tradition of infanticide among the flamboyant
arioi,
and he recorded the recipe for a delicious pudding made from a turniplike root. One day, Bligh engaged in long theological inquiry, in which he was questioned closely about his own beliefs: Who was the son and who was the wife of his God? Who was his father and mother? Who was before your God and where is he? Is he in the winds or in the sun?
 
When asked about childbirth in his country, Bligh answered as well as he was able, and inquired in turn how this was done in Tahiti. Queen Iddeeah replied by mimicking a woman in labor, squatting comfortably on her heels between the protective arms of a male attendant who stroked her belly. Iddeeah was vastly amused on learning of the difficulties of Pretanee’s women.
 
“[L]et them do this & not fear,” she told Bligh, who appears to have been persuaded by this tender pantomime.
 
In the evenings, Bligh entertained his hosts on board the
Bounty,
which none seemed to tire of visiting. As Tynah’s royal status forbade him to put food or drink into his own mouth, Bligh himself sometimes served as cupbearer if attendants were unavailable; Iddeeah, according to custom, ate apart from the men. After the meals, the company lounged lazily around the small deck area, enjoying the offshore breezes, and the muffled pounding of the surf on shore and reef, and the lap of the waves below. Not infrequently, Bligh’s guests stayed the night on board the
Bounty,
loath to depart.

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