Tag: 1789

William Bligh, whatever else you might say about him, had three inarguable qualities. First, he had the strength of his convictions, and second, of course, he had appalling interpersonal skills. The latter wasn’t necessarily a problem to a ranking officer in the British Navy of the late 18th Century, or so you might think. (You might also think it wouldn’t be a huge impediment to a Governor of New South Wales in the early 19th Century, for that matter).

As it turns out, Bligh is one of the few men in the history of the British Empire to have been both the cause and loser of two rebellions against his authority. The first of these was the infamous mutiny on the HMS Bounty, led by Fletcher Christian, in which 18 mutineers defeated Bligh and 22 of his loyal men, setting all but 4 of them adrift in a single longboat. (2 other men stayed neutral through the mutiny, and remained on board the Bounty.)

It was at this point that Bligh showed his other skill: superb seamanship. Over the course of the next 47 days, Bligh steered his longboat from Tofua to Timor. Christian and the men on board the Bounty went to Tahiti and eventually fetched up on the Pitcairn Islands.