After Dark: Myths, Misdeeds & the Paranormal - True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty (Part 1)

Episode Date: May 5, 2024

Violence, sex, betrayal, death and ... SHIPS! This is the story of how a voyage that began with scientific aims and a regimented daily routine ended in all this drama. This is the story of mutiny on the Bounty in 1789. Maddy tells Anthony the story this week.Written by Maddy Pelling. Edited by Tom Delargy. Produced by Freddy Chick. Senior Producer is Charlotte Long.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for £1 per month for 3 months with code AFTERDARK sign up at https://historyhit/subscription/You can take part in our listener survey here.

February the 5th, 1788. 21.5 degrees west, approaching the equator, aboard His Majesty's ship, the Bounty. The deck is tightly packed with warm bodies, sailors, some stripped to the waist, some in elaborate costumes, all dancing, singing and jeering in a horseshoe. At their head is a large man, he's bare-chested, with white sea-encrusted ropes atop his head, intended as hair, and in his hand, a trident. This is the Royal Navy's very own Poseidon. This is the Royal Navy's very own Poseidon. In the centre of this strange, raucous court of the King of the Ocean are two young boys. They're 15. It's their first time aboard a ship, and their first time crossing the equator. They're about to go through the line-crossing ceremony, a long-held tradition that welcomes and tests new seamen. But for all its jovialness,

the 18th century crossing the line is brutal. The two boys will be tied with ropes and dragged alongside the ship through the surf. They'll be beaten with wet ropes and wooden boards, force-fed rum and made to dance by their fellows, all while their commanding officers look on. For now, it's all fun and games. But in a matter of months, this group of men sailing together in the confines of the small merchant ship will descend into chaos. Residual arguments, resentments and ambitions will rise to the surface, splitting them into two camps. What started out from the Thames as a scientific expedition on the King's orders will soon become a misadventure, one filled with violence, sex, betrayal and ultimately death. Ooh, hello and welcome to After Dark. Maddy has set this up with a lot of promise.

Now, you know we love a ship here on the show, and this week we are once again taking to the high seas with a story that has endured in the cultural imagination, I suppose, for so many generations. This is one of the things that After Dark has done for me. It's given me a real appreciation of naval history. This particular history of the bounty is a history of mutiny, of empire and violence. And it's also the subject, as you probably know, I don't because I've not seen any of them, of numerous Hollywood films. It is, of course, the history of HMS Bounty, a British merchant ship that set sail from England in 1787, never to return again. Maddy, I love it. This is so exciting.

I am so excited to tell this history. The first thing to say is that there's the brilliant 1984 film. Maybe some of the listeners will have already seen it. If you haven't, go and watch it. I watched it this week for the first time. It's got Anthony Hopkins, friend of the pod,

when I can remember his name. It's got Mel Gibson, awful but annoyingly hot. It's got Daniel Day-Lewis, completely underrated in that film. Daniel Day-Lewis? Not in general. Oh, okay, okay, okay, okay.

I was like, Oscar winner, Daniel Day-Lewis. Multiple Oscar winner, I think. No, no, he's just so underused in this film. But anyway, that aside, this story is so exciting. So to give a little bit of context here, we're in the 1780s. We've got King George III on the throne,

back in Britain, of course. We've got a British empire that is changing shape a little bit, I think. You know, we've got the American War of Independence that's raging across North America. Britain's lost a lot of its colonies in that region. It's still relying on benefiting from a slave trade. And in terms of naval history in particular, we've got the Royal Navy out in the world on all kinds of missions, some military, some to do with the slave trade,

and some, as we'll find out, scientific and exploratory missions. We've also got the East India Company, which has its own private military at this point. It's a huge enterprise in its own right, and it's really dominating the globe at this point. So that's a little bit of the context. I found some funny little facts, which are not particularly relevant to the story, but I enjoyed them. Astronomer William Herschel in this decade discovers Uranus. Pause for studio laughter. I am a serious historian. Let's go. Next point. Okay, next one. Elizabeth Tybill, or Tyblay, is the first woman, I love this for her, to ride in an untethered hot air balloon in France. Love it. Also, Benjamin Franklin, pretty busy in this period, finds time to invent bifocal glasses. Interesting.

You mentioned there in your context explainer about there being so many different ships on the oceans and the seas across the world. And I've always been a little bit confused by that, thinking, what are they all doing there? And you gave us some of that context. But what is HMS Bounty actually doing on the oceans at this time? So Bounty has a really interesting mission. And I think it says so much about the aims of the British Empire and how often it's interconnected in different ways. So the primary mission of the ship is botany, which is maybe not what you'd expect. So the mission is to take breadfruit plants from the island of Tahiti, or Oro Tahiti as it's called in the 18th century,

which are edible plants that can be grown on a mass scale. The idea is that they're going to take them from Tahiti all the way to Jamaica, where they're going to be used, grown on plantations, and they're going to be used as cheap food to feed enslaved people. So we're seeing straight away the connection between botany and empire here. Now, one of the secondary concerns of the mission is that some of the breadfruit plants will be brought back to Britain to be planted and exhibited and studied in the gardens at Kew Palace, Georgia Third's Palace. So we've got this idea of curiosity, of taxonomy, which we've talked about before in terms of enlightenment in the 18th century, this idea of ordering the world, putting everything into scientific categories, harnessing it, and using it to bolster empire, to bolster British power specifically. And it might seem odd, because it does seem odd to me sometimes when I'm looking at these botany sketches. But we think about Captain Cook and

Joseph Banks, and they have done this too on their voyages around the world. And also your, if I'm not mistaken, isn't this your historical girlfriend who has a museum, right? This subject to my PhD, thank you very much. My historical girlfriend, why not? Yeah, so you're absolutely right. We've got Captain Cook in the 1770s, so just the decade before the Bounties mission. He goes around the world on three famous voyages. The last one, of course, he's killed in Hawaii in 1779. And he and Joseph Banks, who's his onboard botanist, very famous, I think he becomes the president of the Royal Society after the voyages. It might be during those voyages. They collect all kinds of plants,

animals to bring back to Britain. Now Now Banks is friends with my historic girlfriend, the Duchess of Portland, who in the 1770s into the 1780s basically collects this vast museum of natural history objects, archaeology, art, sculpture, everything. Again, there's so much here about how knowledge is built and built in relationship to empire and an imperial project. So that's the context for the Bounty's mission. So they're very much, they're already at least a decade into these kinds of traditions. I'm always a little bit, with the botany stuff, I'm always a little bit like yawn about it. So I'm glad that there's something else. I'm glad

the word mutiny is in this title. Only because I look at those sketches and I'm like, yeah, great. It's a leaf. And you've given it a new name essentially, because it's not like indigenous people to wherever they're exploring didn't already have names and uses. And essentially they're colonizing the botany, which is the point you're making. This enlightenment is a very British centric enlightenment. And we know that there are problems associated with that. But who are the people on board carrying out this colonial enlightenment, shall we say? Okay, so on the bounty, we have, I think it's fair to say, a really fascinating cast of characters. And as you say as well, the word mutiny is in the title. We know things are going to go wrong. So

some of these personalities are going to clash. So in charge of the ship, we have Lieutenant Bly. Interestingly, not Captain Bly. So he's 33 years old at this point. He's not been promoted to captain, which is an important point, I think, when you think about his career and what we're going to learn about him. The fact that he's not a captain is significant. Now, Bly, who's played by Anthony Hopkins in the film, he has actually sailed with Captain Cook before. So he went on the third and final voyage that Cook did, that left Britain in 1776, came back in 1780 without Cook, of course, he's been killed on Hawaii. This gives an insight into Bly's personality that when the final Cook voyage is complete

there's a official account that's published in Britain and Bly who at the time is I think he's 21 when the ship sets sail he is so annoyed and frustrated that this official account doesn't give him credit he's a really junior member of Cook's crew, that he writes in the margins of his copy of that text saying, I did this bit and no one's given me credit. I copied out this map. Don't like it. I mean, you're not necessarily wrong. Oh, really?

Oh, I don't know. So I'm intrigued by this. His personality is, it's going to be a point of conflict, I would say. The other thing to say is that when he comes into possession of the bounty, when he's put in charge of it, he's so frustrated that the ship is really a second-rate small ship. It's not a big warship. It's a merchant ship.

It's quite small. He calls it a chamber pot. Notions. That's what we'd say about him in Ireland. He has notions. He has notions. He absolutely does. So his second-in-command is a man called John Fryer,

played by the little known Daniel Day- I love that you're giving cast alongside this as well. I haven't even seen this movie. I would recommend people go and watch the film because it's really, I would say it's fairly accurate. You can see a lot of depth of research that's gone on there and it really explores this dynamic on board so well. So the other thing to say about it, as a side note, is that it uses a full replica of the bounty that it's all filmed on that was made in the 60s for an earlier film version. And the same ship actually was caught up in Hurricane Katrina and some people died aboard it and it is wrecked. Yeah, interesting. So that replica has an interesting history of its own.

Getting back to the bounty, we've got John Fryer, who's the sailing master, the second in command. He doesn't have a great relationship with Bly. So straight away, you've got the lieutenant in command, you've got the sailing master. They don't like each other. The third in command is a man called Fletcher Christian, Mel Gibson in the film. Now, he starts off really great friends with Bly. He's sailed with him multiple times before, a bit younger, and they have this kind of master-pupil relationship going on with Bly being a kind of mentor to him. This is all going to change over the course of this voyage. So you've got this tension straight away with Bly being friends with the third in command, the second in command's kind of in the way, he's a third wheel here. There's a lot of tension.

There are two botanists aboard, including David Nelson. As far as I know, no relation to the famous Nelson, although given the maritime connection, he could be. I haven't checked. He had served under Joseph Banks on Cook's voyages as well. So you've got a lot of legacy people who've served with Cook now on the bounty. The other thing, which I think is interesting to say here, is that the crew are all so young. Apart from Bly, who's 33, most of the crew are under 30. And the youngest, as we

heard at the beginning of this, are two 15-year-old boys. So this is an incredibly young, incredibly ambitious, but also to a certain extent, inexperienced crew. Certainly a lot of them have sailed before, but not necessarily in the positions of power and responsibility that they're now taking on. So just before we move on, let's get a better picture of some of these main players that you just mentioned. We have Lieutenant Bly. Now I say Lieutenant, is that a problem? Lieutenant, come on. What's the distinction? Who says what?

Technically it's a French word, so it will be Lieutenant. The Americans say Lieutenant. We in Britain say Lieutenant. Ah, in Britain, say lieutenant. Ah, well, try my Irish. Lieutenant Bly. There you go. So we've got him. He's a bit of a nuisance. The second in command is John Fryer, and he's not the biggest fan of Bly.

Yeah, correct. Right? Yeah, okay. And then we have the third in command, who's the master's mate, if I remember correctly, and that's Fletcher Christian. And then we have the third in command, who's the master's mate, if I remember correctly, and that's Fletcher Christian. He begins as a good friend of Bly's, but you've already hinted that that's about to change. Okay, so they set out from Deptford.

They stop briefly at Spithead in the Channel, which is the sort of last port of call for lots of ships from Britain going out into the world. They get the final orders. And almost immediately, Bly's personality becomes a problem. So he's observed on the cook voyage that he's been on an absolute investment in nutrition for the crew, for cleanliness of the ship. These are not necessarily bad things, but he pursues them with absolute fanaticism.

And he is constantly fussing getting angry with people making them redo their tasks when it comes to cleaning the deck the living quarters all of that and it really starts to grate on people really early on now the other thing that he does is because he's such good friends with fletcher christian he starts to show him favor over fryer who is his technical second in command so he's starting to get this tension among the officers that are in command, but also this frustration amongst the crew themselves, who are being made to constantly redo things.

Their rations are really tightly controlled, what they're eating. And from Blythe's perspective, he feels that he's being a good commander. He's taking responsibility for the ship, for the crew. He's enforcing discipline. These aren't necessarily bad things aboard a ship. These are really crucial and crucial to the wider Imperial project.

You know, you need your ships to be functioning machines to go out into the world to enact whatever you've sent them to do. This is really important. The other thing that Bly does, because it's a botanical mission, which as you said, maybe isn't the sexiest mission in the world, he wants to combine it to get himself some glory, some glory for the crew, with a task of circumnavigating the globe, which obviously is a massive deal. So he changes the route up. And one of the things that he does is he tries to take the ship around Cape Horn,

which is at the bottom of Chile. I didn't have to look that up at all. I already knew that. Now he is so stubborn about going this way. And what happens is they encounter terrible weather almost immediately. They get completely stuck in it. People in the crew get injured. They're exhausted.

They're constantly battling the elements for something like, I mean, it's days. It's get injured. They're exhausted. They're constantly battling the elements for something like, I mean, it's days, it's days, if not weeks that they're doing this, but it's so unnecessary and it creates such bad feeling early on. It's a wild decision. And again, it tells you so much about his ego, who he is as a person. You could see him from an 18th century perspective that he's wanting to be exploratory. He's wanting to bring glory on himself, on Britain, but at the expense of everyone around him. On, let's not forget, the tiny chamber pot that is HMS Bounty is a small space. That's one of the things that I have been really fascinated to learn recently about

18th century naval spaces and the positions within them. That lieutenant or captain, depending on their positions, and you've already said that's going to become relevant here, or is relevant in his limited advancement, I suppose, up the ranks, but he has to command the respect of the crew. Without that, he has nothing. His position becomes untenable. And that dynamic means that the person in the captain's role has to be a politician of sorts as well as a strategist. So we're talking about the strategy he's doing with eking out the food and all those things that make sense in a certain context. However, if you are seen by your crew to be putting their lives in danger, well, you're onto

a losing streak straight away because they are going to start peeling away from you as a figure of authority and disaster is the next thing around the corner. Yeah, and Bly very clearly is not a people person. He's not a people pleaser. He's not been to the leadership seminars. He's failing very, very quickly. So they've had this disaster at Cape Horn already. So the feeling on the ship, it's not great.

They do make it to Tahiti. And this is really where everything collapses inwards. So Tahiti is a fascinating place. And it's one that people already know about back in Britain. Cook has spent time there. Now it's in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, down towards Australia, and it's inhabited by Polynesians. And there's already an existing relationship because Cook's been there. He has interacted with the King of Tahiti, King Pomeroy I. So there's a precedent of European-Tahitian interaction already going on. Now, the relationship between the crew of the bounty when they arrive

and the Tahitians who are living there and whose lands they come into is a really interesting one. living there and whose land they come into is a really interesting one. The way that it's told in the accounts of the expedition is this, that when the men arrive, they are greeted by an incredible show of hospitality. The king welcomes them and there's a sort of sexual hospitality as well. There's this idea that the women on Tahiti, and presumably some of the men as well, are sexually available to the Europeans who've arrived, that it's their choice. And I think it's a really interesting dynamic. There's this sense that it's a sort of beautiful green paradise, this island in the middle of the ocean where European men, who are all under 30, very ambitious, raring to go, arrive and these beautiful women are waiting for them with open arms. Now, on the one hand, we can say that seems

a very Christianised story. It's a very sort of Garden of Eden situation. We get to the next stage of the story and realise what's going to happen to these men, this crew, the hierarchy of them, the structure of them, their discipline levels. There's a sense of temptation that they're led into so-called sin and bewitched in this magical place, and that that's why it all goes wrong for them. And of course, as well, something to say in terms of that narrative is that's the way that it's told in the 18th century. And we mustn't forget that across the British Empire, there is, of course, an element of sexual violence that is enacted with regularity. And we have to bear that in mind. However, I think it's important to give the women of Tahiti some agency here,

because actually what's happening is there's a coming together of cultures, and they are very different cultures. And these men have come from home where there are such strict rules around sex, around gender, around how you enact your gender, how you behave, and so many restrictions on women's sexuality, at least in so-called polite society. Of course, we know the reality is people were having sex back home as well. But they come to this island where these rules don't seem to apply in the same way and these women conduct themselves in a very different way and it's astonishing. So we have this cultural clash and I saw in the notes that you've given a really good recommendation which I have actually read a long time ago of Anne Salmon's book Aphrodite's Island

if anyone's interested in reading a little bit more about that, that's a really good exploration, right? It is. It's a really good book. And I think, I mean, it's maybe a decade old now and there's been a huge amount of work since, but I think it's a really good entry point. And what it does in that book is reverses this idea that Europeans went to places like Tahiti and quote unquote discovered the island and its inhabitants. And actually she talks about this relationship. It's not necessarily a cultural clash, I would say. It's a collaboration to a certain extent, and there's nuance within that. But I think there's a meeting of different kinds of people, different ideas. And for the crew of The Bounty, it's completely intoxicating. And the ideas that they bring with

them about politeness in the Enlightenment European world, this idea of hierarchy, of structure, of power, that is crucial to the ship and how you operate in terms of maritime voyages, in terms of empire, it disintegrates. So we have this interesting cultural meeting, which is fascinating, actually. And as I say, Ansbook is a great place to look at that. But didn't we come for plants? So we're here now. So what's going on with the plants?

The botanists who are on board, David Nelson and the other botanists. Here we go. They're going to start causing trouble, aren't they? Well, so they say that in order to take the plants and to get healthy baby plants, is there a technical term for that? To take from baby plants.

In order to get the healthy baby plants to go from Tahiti to Jamaica, they're really going to need to stay on Tahiti for six months. What? All of them? Yeah. So the whole crew for half a year are in this place, this island, where they are to a certain extent absorbed into the local community. Many of them start relationships. Some of them will be expecting children. This is very much an integrated community that now exists. And as that happens, Bly's authority

starts to break down. These men are having a fantastic time. It's a totally different environment to the one that they've lived in on the journey from Britain. Why would they want to leave? month mark he's like we need to go we need to leave now like if we don't leave now we'll never leave or i will be rowing himself back to britain and no one will be coming with him so that's the situation eventually he does get them back on the ship and a lot of them are leaving behind five month long relationships you know some of them have i don't know helped build things on the island or they've been taught skills by the locals they've made friendships they've done all of these things they're part of that community or they've been living within it at any rate at the hospitality of the king and now they're being dragged back and being asked or expected to just slot back into that world of the ship aboard the bounty

regulation in charge everyone's in charge yeah some of the people who aboard the bounty, lies in charge, everyone's in charge. Yeah. Some of the people who are most reluctant to do this actually are the officers, Fletcher Christian being one of them. Thank you. And this month on Not Just the Tudors, I'm joined by a host of experts to tell the stories of the six queens of Henry VIII, who shaped and changed England forever. Subscribe to and follow Not Just the Tudors from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts. Right, so we're putting the crew back on the ship. They don't want to go back on the ship. This is an episode about mutiny on the bounty. So I have a feeling we're setting ourselves up for some tension here, Maddy.

Am I right? You absolutely are. And we're now going to hear what happens in bligh's own words just before sun rising mr christian the master at arms gunner's mate and thomas burkett seaman came into my cabin while i was asleep and seizing me tied my hands with a cord behind my back and threatened me with instant death if I spoke or made the least noise. I, however, called so loud as to alarm everyone, but they had already secured the officers who were not of their party by placing sentinels at their doors. I was hauled out of bed and forced on deck in my shirt, suffering great pain from the tightness with which they had tied my hands. I demanded the reason of such violence, but received no other answer than threats of instant death.

The bosun was now ordered to hoist the launch out. Mr Hayward, Mr Hallett, midshipman, and Mr Samuel were ordered into it. I continued my endeavours to turn the tide of affairs when Christian changed the cutlass he had in his hand for a bayonet, and holding me with a strong grip by the cord that tied my hands, he with many oaths threatened to kill me immediately if I would not be quiet. The villains round me had their pieces cocked and bayonets fixed. I concluded I was to be set adrift. The boatswain and seamen who were to go into the boat were allowed to collect twine, canvas, lines, sails, cordage, an eight and twenty gallon cask of water, and the carpenter his tool chest.

Mr Samuel got a hundred and fifty pounds of bread with a small quantity of rum and wine, but was forbidden on pain of death to touch either map, sextant, timekeeper, or any of my surveys or drawings. After having undergone a great deal of ridicule, and been kept for some time to make sport for these unfeeling wretches, we were at length cast adrift into the open ocean. Right, what's happening here is very tension-filled, and that is purposeful, because they shouldn't be doing this. The section of the crew that are taking over from Bly shouldn't be doing this.

This is what is mutinous. It is illegal. We have had this idea that they don't like Bly in the first place, that he's taking them on some dangerous routes. Then they land in Tahiti and they actually acclimatise quite well. They're enjoying their time there. They've spent five months there. And then he instructs them to get back on the boat. So there's strike two against him. And apparently strike two is what knocks them over the edge because then in his sleep, he is violently awoken and he has guns and he has knives and swords

pointing in his direction and they are taking control of the ship. So where has this come from? Well, we know where it's come from, but why has this happened at this particular point in time? Well, I think one of the key things that we get from Bly's description of what was done to him is how central Fletcher Christian is to this. He seems to be leading the mutiny, and there's huge questions over whether this was actually the case. And to what extent Christian was driving the mutiny? Was he trying to at least keep some level of control? Sure, the crew felt the captain needed to be removed, the man in command, but is Christian trying to step into his shoes in order to keep some level

of regularity? It's really hard to tell. What's so remarkable is this is the moment of mutiny. It's the most feared moment that sailors have and certainly that commanding officers have. If you're an agent of the British Empire, for your crew to revolt against you and collapse that system of hierarchy and undermine your power is absolutely catastrophic. I have an image of the moment that the little launch boat, the sort of a large rowboat, I guess, that's set adrift. So we've got Bly going into the boat and we've got the men,

most of the men who remain loyal to him. There are, I think, four men who are loyal to him who won't fit on the boat and they're kept behind on the bounty. But most of them have gone in the ship. Don't forget, we've sailed away from Tahiti. We're well on the way to Jamaica. This them have gone in the ship. Don't forget, we've sailed away from Tahiti. We're well on the way to Jamaica. This is the middle of the ocean. What are they going to do?

Describe the scene to us and then we can talk about just what a dreadful moment this is for everyone involved. Yeah. So in the left-hand corner of this painting, we have the bounty, which actually looks like a beautiful, small, but beautiful ship. Three masts from what I can see. the bounty, which actually looks like a beautiful, small but beautiful ship, three masts from what I can see. There are people scattered all over, both below deck in windows, so we're not talking about some kind of steerage. It's clearly captain's quarters, probably, given the position. And then people on deck who are looking down at this other boat that has been set adrift that you've been describing. I presume the man, almost in his underwear, he is in his underwear

actually, is Bly. He's been in bed, of course. He's been brought out of bed. He's not properly dressed, which is a humiliation on top of the other humiliations that are happening. And he's kind of begging, he seems to be appealing to the men on the bounty as if to take him back. There are other men on the boat that's been set adrift with him who are pointing to him as if to say, he is the man that should be doing this. He has been appointed by the powers that be. Other people looking at him longingly as if to say, what, all men, of course, what are we supposed to do here? And the sea ripples quietly underneath as if there's this undercurrent of, well, tragedy, I suppose, that awaits these people and the skies are all grey.

That's poetic. Thanks very much. It's actually a beautiful image, despite the kind of trauma that's in it. It is. So this was a print that was produced and sold to mass markets in 1790, so shortly after the mutiny took place, back in Britain. And we'll talk about how the people in Britain get this news, but it is a huge moment that is replicated in art, in literature. What I love about this is, as you say, you see the back of the bounty. You can see the lowest ranking members of the crew in the captain's cabin, chucking things out the window. There's chaos going on. The plants are being hurled out as well. They're never going to make it to Jamaica.

This is just chaos. And Bly in this image is depicted almost as a romantic hero. The way that this image is done, I mean, it's not dissimilar to, he almost looks like a figure from a William Blake painting or drawing or something. There's something of the noble and the tragic about him. Because of course, in Britain, as we're going to hear, he will be really revered as a wronged hero in this regard. So what I think is fascinating from this point in the story is that we've got, on the one hand, the launch vessel, which has got all these men in. They've got no real protection from the sun. Of course, they've got minimal rations and they're going to float along the

ocean. The question of what they're going to do when they run out of food is going to come up at some point. And of course, the answer potentially will be cannibalism. According to Bly, luckily, they never get to that point. But again, it's this idea of these noble, in adverted commas, agents of empire being put into a situation where civilisation, European ideas of politeness, of nobility are being put at risk. And barbarism, cannibalism is creeping in. So that's happening on the boat that's been set adrift. Where has the bounty gone? So the bounty initially turns right back round and goes back to Tahiti.

Ah, okay. So that's the real crunch point then. They never wanted to leave. They never wanted to leave. So they all head back and they had enough of a crew to steer the ship and they get there now when they get there most of the mutineers decide they're going to stay and only a small number nine of them in fact decide to get back on the ship because they know once this news gets out because remember they haven't killed bligh they haven't killed those men on the launch boat there is a chance that someone's going to

find them i mean they're in mortal danger out on the ocean but there is always a chance they're not dead yet and they know that when news of the mutiny gets out the royal navy is going to come for them it's going to trace them and it's going to execute them because they've committed this catastrophic sin against britain and its empire and they're not going to let it stand so nine of the men including fletcher get back bounty. And again, it's just enough men that they can use the ship. They take with them a handful of Tahitian women that they are in relationships with or that want to come with them, and a handful of Tahitian men as well, presumably with the permission of the king there. And they set off in search of somewhere that they can hide.

And they set off in search of somewhere that they can hide. And don't forget, this is an ocean filled with little islands. They need to find somewhere that the British haven't colonised yet, somewhere that's hostile, where they will be able to survive. Also, where there are no indigenous people who aren't friendly to them, because the Tahitians are famously a friendly culture when it comes to the British coming through that space. Not all indigenous communities are, and fair enough. So they need to find somewhere safe, somewhere they can land. They eventually come upon an island called Pitcairn Island, which is really remote. It's not really been plotted. The British have mentioned it in a handful of handbooks for the Navy, but no one really knows where it is. Fletcher,

who has, don't forget, studied under Bly, he's a good navigator, he finds the island. They make the decision, and this is remarkable to me. And we are going to do, I think we need to do a follow-up episode on Pitcairn because there's just not enough time to tell a story. But they destroy the ship because, of course, you can see it from the ocean, but you need to get rid of the evidence. So they set the ship alight in the water, they destroy it, condemning them and the Tahitians who've come with them to be on that island forever. So as a way to take us towards the end of this story then,

we like a three-parter on After Dark. I presume there is one final piece of narration that's going to tell us what happened to Bly. If we've left the others on Pitcairn, Bly must be somewhere else. So Bly in the launch boat, things get pretty desperate for them. They are running really low on supplies, on water, they're getting ill. Everyone's probably questioning their choices. And miraculously, eventually, they do make it out of the ocean and into a port. I think it's a Dutch port. And they tell their story.

Bly identifies himself, says who he is. And on an incredible journey, which you can read about in his own words online, he gets on various merchant and Royal Navy ships. He gets back to Britain and tells his story. And things are about to blow up. This is a story that's about to go viral, essentially. By the time Bly returned to Britain in March 1790, the newspapers were quick to publish details of the mutiny and all that had unfolded. The failed mission was publicly lamented, and the mutineers condemned, their names immortalised in print for all to see.

Bly was initially court-martialed and brought before his superior officers, before being honourably acquitted. Now, all that remained was to capture the mutineers. Still, it was believed, in possession of of the bounty somewhere between Tahiti and the West Indies. A naval frigate, HMS Pandora, was sent to do just that. It is an object that the government will not lose sight of, promised one paper, to secure and bring to justice the mutineers on board the bounty. His Majesty, it continued, has recommended the measure in a very express and particular manner. The same reporter encouraged Bly to publish an account of his own, documenting how, when the king heard of his trials,

the lieutenant was rewarded with a royal audience. And publish Bly did. A narrative on the mutiny on board his majesty's ship Bounty became an instant bestseller, all written from Bly's perspective, and giving intimate and shocking details of the mutiny as it had unfolded, as well as an account of the crew set adrift in the launch boat and their adventures in getting back to Britain. It was, at least in part, Bly's literary endeavours as much as his maritime missteps that ensured the bounty and its story would be remembered. Indeed, the narrative he wrote formed the basis for several Hollywood films

and countless fiction and non-fiction retellings. But what should we make of the words of a man who lost his authority amid a crew whose welfare and safe return he had pledged responsibility for? Okay, so I did not expect myself to have this reaction, but I get that there's an issue with Bly and the way he led some of these men, but I'm actually starting to feel not sorry for him, but I feel like he also has been wronged. And okay, he may have brought that upon himself, but what's your thinking on him? Obviously he's a complex character. I think he's a character of conflict for a lot of historians who look at the Bounty's history. He's quite divisive. People have very different opinions about him. And certainly in the

quite divisive. People have very different opinions about him. And certainly in the retellings of this story, particularly in films, he is often painted as someone who was weak, who was vain, who was so ambitious for the power, but couldn't really hold on to it. And I think he's mutinied against. He loses grip of his position. And I think he does let down his men. We've seen him treating them potentially unfairly on board. He's so rigorous in terms of the discipline on board, which arguably is not a bad thing, but it grates on everyone, which is quite telling. He is put in an unfortunate position where when they get to Tahiti, how is he meant to compete with what that island seemingly offers his crew and how they feel about that paradise that he's asking them to leave. So I think it's really unfortunate in all of those ways. But I do think

when you read his narrative, and it's available online, anyone can go and read it, and I really recommend it. It's fascinating. The way that he writes is so resentful. It's so self-centred. that he writes is so resentful. It's so self-centred. And actually, one of the documents that we have from his return to England in 1789, 1790, is a handwritten list of all the mutineers. And you can see it online. It's in an archive, I think in Australia, but it's so aggressively written. You can see the anger in his penmanship. The ink is splattered everywhere. It's just so visceral. And I think he was very bitter. One of the most amazing documents, I just find this fascinating, is a letter that he writes to his wife, Betsy, when he's on his way back to Britain. He's learning I know he's okay. And he says things like, all these dreadful circumstances I have

combated with success, and in the most extraordinary manner that ever happened, never despairing from the first moment of my disaster, but that I should overcome all my difficulties. And he says to her, you're so lucky that I'm coming home to you. You don't have to worry about me dying at sea. I'm amazing. I'm a hero. I'm coming back. It's all great. There's a lot of eyes going on in that. I think he's a bit delusional. He's deluded about his own place in the world. He complains about not getting enough credit on Captain Cook's voyages. He complains all the time about people not taking him seriously on the bounty when he's in charge. As we've said, he's court-martialed, he's acquitted, charge. As we've said, he's court-martialed, he's acquitted, he's elected to the Royal Society,

and actually, eventually, he's appointed as Governor of New South Wales. In 1808, there is a mutiny, a Rum Rebellion, that is a rebellion against his taxation, his control on Rum rations. He's arrested by rebels and taken from a position of power again and toppled does he have the worst luck ever or is he a bad leader you know what i think he's a bad leader in that he isn't reading the room and potentially he's being a little bit too pedantic for use of a very basic word but he seems to be a stickler for the rules there's also I think I'm harping back now to the bounty here, but like the fact that he was the oldest person on the bounty at 33 says something because actually you hear about these crews and some of them are filled with, especially in the second captain or the third or whatever, of men who've been on that ocean for decades. And so the respect that they've built up just through sheer hard labour

helps to stabilise the captain's role if the captain has that person on site. So that's a really key relationship. But that relationship was iffy with him from the beginning. And okay, he had a relationship with his third, but that fell apart as well. So I think he's a stickler. I think he's a pedant. But particularly with what happened at the bounty and then for it to repeat itself in Australia. I mean, there's one common denominator there, isn't there? Yeah. Get ousted once, that's not great.

Get ousted twice. It's a reflection on you. I think the real tragedy, though, of this story is the breakdown of his relationship with Fletcher. Actually, with Fletcher Christian, the third in command, the guy who supposedly leads the mutiny against him. And I think had that relationship not broken down, and it seems to have broken down at least in part because of Bly's pedantry, then maybe the mutiny would never have happened. So I do see that as the biggest problem and the thing that sparks the mutiny. And of course, Fletcher Christian's story is so interesting because he followed Bly back

to England and eventually to New South Wales, and he has this career beyond the mutiny itself. Having miraculously survived being put in the launch boat and floated out into the middle of the ocean. Pretty incredible stuff. But the story of the mutineers, what happens to them, we found that HMS Pandora is sent out from Britain to basically chase them down and punish them because this mutiny can't be allowed to stand. I think that is as interesting a story as the mutiny itself and as interesting as Bly's story, actually.

Well, I'm glad you think it's interesting because we're doing another episode on it. That is, well, as you know, these are your episodes. What? No one told me. Get writing, Maddy. It is true. And it's almost the forgotten part of the mutiny, right? Because it's what's happening in between the actual mutiny and the discovery of the mutiny. So what's going on in that space? And that is going to be the subject of part two of this episode, which will be winging its way to your podcast sources in the very near future. Sailing its way. Thank you. Stick with the maritime metaphors.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure, sure. Let's keep it simple. In the meantime, while we wait to find out what happened to the mutineers, thank you for joining us on this part of the voyage. Sure, sure. Let's keep it simple. In the meantime, while we wait to find out what happened to the mutineers, thank you for joining us on this part of the voyage. See, Maddy? Nice. Now I'm using it. Now I'm into it now.

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