Captain Bligh/ Fletcher Christain etc - The Truth

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I have finally got throught the new book about the Bounty. Any0one else readit? Clear conclusions are that

1) the notion of Bligh being a Git is simply not true . Loads of examples, and factual comparison eg of number of lashings given to crew (about 10 a month) is tiny compared to other ships of the time, other examples show about 100 a week (!)

2) the story of bligh being a git was promulgated by family and friedns of Fltcher Christian who went off to Pitciarn, and Peter Heywood an officer of the bounty who was convicvted of mutiny but pardoned. These junior officers were better connected than Bligh, some much much better connected.

3) the original plan was to dump the officers and immediately upon ditching Bligh, they turned around and went back to tahiti.

4) Bligh helped rewsolve the Nore mutiny in the solent about er 1798ish, when sailors rose up and despatched some much-hated officers from the ships, and then gave a list of 100 hated/brutal officers - but Bligh was not on the list.

5) The book also discusses the posibility that with all the loot on the Bounty, Fletcher Christian, *might* have returned to the UK, and a crap hat from tahiti seems to become a family heirloom. However, it's unlikely to be jimi, cos he doesn't really look much like Marlon Brando in the film really altho he does have a penchant for crap hats.

.
 
I read somewhere that Bligh had 2 or 3 more crews mutiny under him. Is there anything about that in the book?

Anything about customs concerning the crew and under-age girls??

I'm told that in later life Bligh was a chart surveyor. While surveying the shoreline of a Cornish creek he was taken for a French spy and arrested by the local citizenry. The creek has since then been known as Frenchman's Creek.

no' a lo' of people know tha'.
 
I think Bligh was a brilliant seaman and navigator - when you look at the voyage he made in that open boat - into Indonesia - amazing - Later he became a governor of Botany Bay then Port Jackson - Was considered to be one of the more enlightened and better ones.

Mind you when I sailed into Papetee harbour I had the same problem as Fletcher - beautiful Tahiti maidens swimming out to Bambola begging to be allowed on board and Polynesian women - girls are to die for. so beautiful - who can blame fletcher and the crew after x months at sea for wanting to go swimming! In all seriousness it is the most beautiful part of the world - the Polynesians are beautiful people and the islands bountiful and lovely - So Fletcher and co had good reasons too
 
Re: all in the book

when some of the mutineers family and connections tried to rationalise the mutiny, bligh's name was indeed impuned, and he wasn't present at the actual court martial of the men brought back.

Later, these same falsehoods etc and eye-witness accounts were embellished, and the notion of bligh being a tyrannical git took hold. He was invovled in the Nore mutiny/uprisingin the solent but was amongst the group sent to negoatitate - so hardly a notorious ratbag. Later an officer ttied to use the same gossip to press ghis case against bligh, but to no avail.

I spose many many sailors were cartographers at the time, no?
 
Re: all in the book

I just read the book too and I found the new light it threw on relationships and how Bligh had behaved was fascinating. Fletcher Christian really did not seem to have much justification - the "I am in Hell" stuff was more about him missing nooky on Tahiti and not wanting to go back to England than Bligh treating him and other crew badly.

The falling out and murders among the mutineers and Tahitians on Pitcairn also threw some light on them not being the wronged innocents forced to act beacuase Bligh was unreasonable - he did end up an Admiral after all.

Also details on Bligh's voyage to Timor was excellent.

However, the book should have been severely edited - I skipped the poems Peter Heywood's sister wrote and lots of that stuff. Caroline Alexander obviously did great research but seems to have put everything in the book and should have been more discerning.
 
Capt Bligh was undoubtedly arrested, and then imprisoned in Manaccan, inland from Helford. while surveying the Helford. I have not, however, ever heard any correlation between this and the naming of Frenchman's Creek. Can you enlighten me?
Rob
 
Bligh was mentioned briefly but favourably in the last book I read, "Gale force Ten", the biography of Admiral Beaufort. I got the impression that the mutiny was a matter of watering the breadfruit plants, which Bounty was especially adapted to carry, when there wasn't really enough fresh water for the humans on board.
Beaufort seemed to have an eye for a good captain and conscientious surveyor, and Bligh certainly came across as one of those.
 
The story I heard was that when asked what he was doing, Bligh said he was a chart surveyor. This was misheard as CHARTERED surveyor and the authorities panicked and quickly escorted him off to Rock where his descendants have thrived selling houses to people from Chelsea. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
watering breadfruit

from the book, this certainly wasn't an issue - the mutiny took place days after leaving tahiti with all the plants ok - water would not have been short so soon after leaving.

apparently Fletcher Christian had been drinking till perhaps three in the morning, and the separate logs show that there had been altercations altho not sufficient to justify a mutiny - summink about nicking apples for example, no big deal.

Prime mover it seems as others say that it was the relations they had developed in tahiti. Immediate trigger was fletcher christian being a bit pissed. It succeded cos Bligh had no henchmen or other such types to disarm what was in fact a fairly weedy attack involving just getting hold of the skipper and tying him up, and his mates having got a gun or cutlass - there were only forty people on the boat in total, with no military types to enforce the position of the skipper as was normal.
 
Re: watering breadfruit

I suppose that's why British men o' war always carried Marines - to defend the captain and officers against the matelots.

Going off at a small tangent, it reminds me of a story about Captain Cook. Before setting off around the world he went down to the dockside and employed the ugliest looking woman he could find as a cook. When she fell pregnant, he knew it was time to head for home.
 
captain cook

yep - and capt cook isn't too much of a deviation - Bligh was on one of his exopedictions and carried forwardd lots of his methods/ideas, so he had a musician for afternoon dancing on deck so they got some exercise etc. From his log, it was clear that he wanted to carry out the entire expedition without needing to order any corporal punishment, and ( i think) succeeded up util the point when they reached tahiti when things started getting nicked off the ship by crew etc.
 
Bligh was later made governor of NSW where the soldiers (or marines?) were deeply involved in a rum racket and when Bligh tried to stop it they tied him up and sent him home. At the Battle of Copenhagen he captained a frigate or ship of the line and did a marvellous and courageous job. In the Pacific in Bounty he flogged fewer men than any of the other ten British captains who sailed that ocean at that time, including Cook. One theory about the cause of the mutiny, promulgated in an Australian book published a few years ago, is that while he was not a cruel or vindictive man he did have a vile temper and a crushing way with words. Routine humiliation of those around him, lashing only with his tongue, was what did for him. I haven't read the new book but it's on my list.
 
Re: tongue lashing

even this, though plausible, is by no means certain. The best story is fictuiicious - that bligh was vidictive and cruel - but according to the book he was not . Yet it took hold, and was promulgated by those with power, and amongst many associated of heywood and christian, the sneior people of the mutiny via their many connections in the navt and others outside.

Later, others cited if not outright crualty then at least his "bad temper" - but again, the facts that he helped resolve the Nore mutiny, was not on their list of hated officers is more fact, less fiction. The claim of his bad temper is also overstated- but during his lifetime the rumour of his bad temper, a leader against whom could rebel with cause was a weapon for bitter fellow officers to use against him, and they did, although without success, except with continuing the rumour.
 
Hello all! I did not know that a new book had come out about the M.O.T.B....What is the title and author? Obviously I'm not keeping up with the times!!
 
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