Nor did a cutter warrant the usual detachment of Royal Marines that naval commanders could use to enforce their authority.
As it was rated by the Admiralty as a cutter, the smallest category of warship, its commander would be a lieutenant rather than a post-captain and would be the only commissioned officer on board. Its armament was four short four-pounder carriage guns and ten half-pounder swivel guns, supplemented by small arms such as muskets. It was three-masted, 91 feet (28 m) long overall and 25 feet (7.6 m) across at its widest point, and registered at 230 tons burthen. It was renamed after being purchased by the Royal Navy for £1,950 in May 1787. His Majesty's Armed Vessel (HMAV) Bounty, or HMS Bounty, was built in 1784 at the Blaydes shipyard in Hull, Yorkshire, as a collier named Bethia.
No action was taken against Adams descendants of the mutineers and their accompanying Tahitians live on Pitcairn into the 21st century.īackground Bounty and its mission A 1960 reconstruction of HMS Bounty Almost all of his fellow mutineers, including Christian, had been killed, either by one another or by their Polynesian companions. The ten surviving detainees reached England in June 1792 and were court-martialled four were acquitted, three were pardoned, and three were hanged.Ĭhristian's group remained undiscovered on Pitcairn until 1808, by which time only one mutineer, John Adams, remained alive. After turning back towards England, Pandora ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef, with the loss of 31 crew and four prisoners from Bounty. Fourteen were captured in Tahiti and imprisoned on board Pandora, which then searched without success for Christian's party that had hidden on Pitcairn Island. Twenty-five men remained on board afterwards, including loyalists held against their will and others for whom there was no room in the launch.Īfter Bligh reached England in April 1790, the Admiralty despatched HMS Pandora to apprehend the mutineers. After three weeks back at sea, Christian and others forced Bligh from the ship. Relations between Bligh and his crew deteriorated after he allegedly began handing out increasingly harsh punishments, criticism, and abuse, Christian being a particular target. A five-month layover in Tahiti, during which many of the men lived ashore and formed relationships with native Polynesians, led those men to be less amenable to military discipline. Bligh navigated more than 3,500 nautical miles (6,500 km 4,000 mi) in the launch to reach safety and began the process of bringing the mutineers to justice.īounty had left England in 1787 on a mission to collect and transport breadfruit plants from Tahiti to the West Indies. The mutineers variously settled on Tahiti or on Pitcairn Island. Disaffected crewmen, led by acting-Lieutenant Fletcher Christian, seized control of the ship from their captain, Lieutenant William Bligh, and set him and eighteen loyalists adrift in the ship's open launch. The mutiny on the Royal Navy vessel HMS Bounty occurred in the South Pacific Ocean on 28 April 1789.
For other uses, see Mutiny on the Bounty (disambiguation).įletcher Christian and the mutineers set Lieutenant William Bligh and 18 others adrift, depicted in a 1790 portrait by Robert Dodd This article is about the historical event.
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