Admiralty Orders
The Admiralty held it essential that the Bounty mutineers
should not escape punishment for the capital crime of mutiny. About eight months had
passed after Bligh's return to England.
The Lords dispatched Captain Edward Edwards with the 24
gun frigate "Pandora" and 135 men in search of them. The "Pandora" was
loaded to the gunnels and provided with Extra officers, midshipmen and able seamen as well
as additional stores and fittings to man and refit the Bounty. They sailed on November 7,
1790.
The Pandora's first port of call was Teneriff in the Canary Islands where a cargo of wine
was taken on board for the crew. After a brief visit to Rio de Janeiro in early January
1791, the Pandora rounded Cape Horn on 2 February and set a direct course for Tahiti. They
anchored in Matavai Bay on March 23, 1791.
The Search and Capture of the Mutineers
During this early stage of the voyage the
Pandora came within one day's sail of Pitcairn Island which, unknown to Edwards, Fletcher
Christian and his associates had found in January 1790 and where, soon after their
arrival, they had set fire to and scuttled the Bounty. The mutineers were to remain
detected there until 1808.
When the Pandora dropped anchor in Matavai Bay the Bounty's armourer Joseph Coleman
immediately came on board to surrender His example was followed a few hours later by two
of the Bounty's midshipmen, Peter Heywood and George Stewart, a master's servant Richard
Skinner and the Bounty's nearly-blind fiddler Michael Byrne.
The heaviest tragedy fell on George Stewart,
the midshipman, who had married and lived in utter harmony with a chief's daughter who, at
the time of his arrest had a baby at breast. Several years later, when
missionaries told her about George's death, she died of a brroken
heart. It seems unlikely that Stewart played any real part in the mutiny; like
Heywood, the other midshipman to reach Tahiti he had been taken away in the Bounty under
duress.
Early the next day three more seamen, Thomas Ellison, Charles Norman and James Morrison,
also surrendered. (comment : They were actually captured in another
part of Tahiti - Morrison claims they surrendered to a shore party who were
rounding up mutineers). These three had spent their time on Tahiti building schooner in which
they had hoped to sail for America or the Dutch East Indies.
Within twenty-four hours of the Pandora's arrival at Tahiti, eight mutineers had given
themselves up From the information they gave about events after the mutiny, Edwards was
able to ascertain that the Bounty had sailed off for an unknown destination in September
1789. Sixteen of Bounty's crew had elected to stay behind on Tahiti while eight of their
former shipmates had chosen to throw in their lot with Fletcher Christian.
Of the sixteen mutineers on Tahiti, Charles Churchill and Matthew Thompson had been killed
in a feud. With these two and the eight who had surrendered, ten of the twenty-five
mutineers were accounted for. Edwards immediately made arrangements for the capture of the
remaining six known to be hiding on the island. Armed shore parties were sent out to hunt
them down and in a matter of days Henry Hildebrandt, Thomas McIntosh, Norman Birkett,
Jonathan Millward, Jonathan Sumner and William Muspratt were also sharing the same fate as
their former shipmates.
The Infamous Pandora's
Box
By coincidence, the day before the Pandora
arrived in Matavai Bay, the mutineers had returned to Tahiti after setting out for
Batavia. They had decided to abort their escape voyage because of problems with the
schooner's sails.
The captured men were manacled and locked
away in a makeshift prison, referred to as "Pandora's Box", which
Captain Edwards had ordered built on the ship's quarter deck.
As the prison was only 3.3 m by 5.4 m on deck
and about 1.5 m high, the mutineers' existence was cramped and miserable. Armed sentries
were placed around the prison and presumably for fear some of the crew could be incited to
mutiny or help with an escape attempt the Pandora's men were ordered not to communicate
with the prisoners.
Although he does not mention it in his account of the voyage, Edwards must have been
feeling satisfied with his progress so far. However, he did not have any reason to be
complacent as the eight mutineers who had joined Fletcher Christian and pirated the Bounty
were still at large.
As for the whereabouts of the Bounty, Edwards did not gather any additional details which
called for a change of plan or would have induced him not to act on his orders, which
specifically listed the islands he was to search after Tahiti.
The Pandora remained in Matavai Bay for several more weeks, during which time her crew
took on fresh water and provisions and prepared the captured schooner for duty as a
tender.
Oliver's Travels
At Samoa, Captain Edwards lost the mutineers'
schooner which he had put in charge of William Oliver, a master's mate.
Oliver, soon after, was attacked by canoes
which he and his men beat off with great difficulty. Since they feared another attack they
sheered off the island of Upolu altogether and headed south to Nomuka in the Tonga group
for a rendezvous previously arranged with his captain for just such a separation.
Oliver was too far downwind for the
rendezvous, and brought up at volcanic Tofua, where Bligh in the open boat had lost his
man. On this same day Edwards in Pandora arrived at the Nomuka rendezvous, sending off
Lieutenant Hayward in a double canoe to look for Oliver, a wise precaution in view of the
reefs abounding.
Oliver was very conscious of the treachery
Bligh had reported at Tofua, and that was as well. He traded nails for food and water, but
then, within 24 hours of his arrival, stood off a severe attack. Midshipman Renouard was
very seriously ill; the eight men remaining fought off their opponents and they headed
west.
Ahead of them lay the Fiji's, by then the
least explored group in the Pacific and the most savage. But Oliver was lucky. His
landfall was Matuku in the southern Lau, one of a small group of islands of purely
volcanic origin, rearing from a seabed two miles deep, well wooded, watered with streams,
and ranking amongst the most beautiful islands in the world.
Oliver in his schooner, a 35 foot vessel
which the mutineers who built it had named Resolution, (comment : Edwards
had renamed it 'Matavai") stayed at Matuku five weeks while
his men rebuilt their strength. First Europeans to live in the Fijis, or even anchor
there, they left a legacy of a strange new sickness which the Matukuans attributed to
supernatural agency. More probably it derived from the sickness of Midshipman Renouard.
From here Oliver threaded the New Hebrides,
presumably landing from time to time for water and food, and then crossed the Coral Sea.
Between New Guinea and Australia he cruised the length of that section of the Barrier
Reef.
In September the southeast monsoon blew as strongly as ever; he could not see a gap in the
long white breaks of surf upon the reef and eventually drove successfully where they
seemed the least. Mistaken as the Bounty Mutineers Oliver was arrested by Dutch
authorities at Surabaia in the nearer East Indies; eventually he and his men were taken
under guard with their schooner to Samarang.
Oliver was later released when Edwards
verified their identity.
Towards Disaster
On 8 May 1791 the Pandora sailed for Huahine, one of the
Northern Society Islands, on the first leg of what was to be a futile search lasting more
than three months and visiting most of the major Polynesian island groups west of Tahiti.
Admiralty's instructions to Captain Edwards included a
survey of the Endeavour Strait, where Cook had threaded the reefs to enter the straits of
Torres between Australia and New Guinea; those reefs that Oliver had successfully charged.
By August Edwards had begun to run short on supplies and had lost twelve men and two boats
which had become separated from the Pandora during storms." Edwards decided that
further efforts to find the Bounty would be to no avail. On 15 August 1791 the Pandora set
a westerly course for Timer via Torres Straits.
The Pandora reached the Great Barrier Reef on 26 August 1791 in the latitude of the Murray
Islands and then skirted the outer fringe of the reef southward in an attempt to find a
safe passage through these treacherous and uncharted waters.
He steered towards them only to discover a maze of reefs
as savage as any in the world, made probes north and south, and finding no opening stood
away to the south where indeed he would have already been had he followed Admiralty
instructions.
Shipwrecked !!!
Early in the morning of 28 August a promising opening was
discovered in the endless barrier of reef. The long boat was launched to
reconnoiter. The boat, commanded by Lieutenant John Corner, set off in a south-westerly
direction and was sighted again late in the afternoon. Corner had hoisted a pennant
signaling that the opening was safe to navigate. As it was almost dusk, Edwards considered
a passage through too dangerous and decided to wait until the next morning.
Orders were given to pick up Corner's boat and stand out
to ocean waters for the night. While maneuvering to pick up the boat, the Pandora struck
an isolated outcrop of submerged reefs nearly 4.6 km to the north-west of a sand cay at
the southern end of the opening.
Unfortunately she had run aground sometime close to low tide and within an hour of
striking the reef it was apparent that Pandora would not be refloated easily. With each
wave she was driven further onto the reef, her bottom grinding heavily on the hard coral.
The ship lost part of her rudder and steering gear and very soon afterwards, the
carpenters reported that there was almost 8 feet (2 m) of water in the hold.
The frantic efforts of the men at the pumps produced results and after several hours
aground the Pandora beat over the reef, aided by the rising tide. At about ten o'clock
that night she was brought to anchor in relatively sheltered waters in the lee of the
reef. Here, still buffeted by strong winds which had increased in strength since the
afternoon, the crew spent an anxious night working desperately to save their ship.
While the carpenters were below decks trying to repair the damaged hull, the rest of the
crew were busy throwing the Pandora's heavy iron guns overboard to lighten the ship. For a
moment it seemed that they might save the vessel, but disaster struck again. This time one
of the pumps broke down and very soon afterwards the water level in the hold started to
rise again. A last desperate attempt was made to save the ship by passing under the
damaged hull to stop the holes and stem the leaking.
All these efforts were fruitless and at first light on the 29 August Edwards and his
officers agreed that nothing more could be done to save the Ship. As the boats had already
been hoisted out, they were provisioned in readiness for the crew's escape. Orders were
given to cut loose from the decks any material which would float so that the men who could
not swim would have something to cling to while waiting to be rescued by the boats. Almost
immediately after these orders, the Pandora heeled over and sank within minutes.
During the night three prisoners, Coleman, McIntosh and Norman, had been allowed to help
at the pumps. The others had been kept in "Pandora's Box" under armed guard,
Edwards had left his prisoners ironed, even after Pandora 's fate was settled. They
certainly would have drowned but for the humanity of the bosun's mate William Moulter who
unlocked the hatch as he scrambled onto the prison to jump overboard.
Although all the prisoners, except Hildebrandt, managed to
struggle out of "Pandora's Box", not all of them succeeded in breaking their
manacles. Hildebrandt, Sumner, Skinner and Stewart perished with thirty-one of the
Pandora's crew. In all, four of the mutineers drowned here; all four left widows and
children in Tahiti.
Besides the four Bounty men he lost 31 of his crew.
Survival
The survivors, eighty-nine of the crew and ten prisoners,
spent three days on one of the sand cays near the wreck. During this time the four
boats were prepared for the arduous voyage to Timor where the survivors hoped to find
passage on ships bound for Europe.
While on the sand cay and during the open boat voyage the prisoners suffered unbearably.
Their clothing had been in poor repair when they had been taken prisoner and they were not
allowed to take shelter under the make-shift tents which had been pitched on the cay. And
so, almost naked, their skin softened by three months of confinement in their dark prison,
they were forced to bury themselves in the sand for protection from the burning
tropical sun.
At noon on 1 September, after Edwards had divided the
survivors into groups and distributed the remaining food and water, the boats departed
from Pandora Entrance on their 1100 nautical mile (2100 km) journey to Timer. For
Lieutenant Thomas Hayward, having been one of the loyalists cast adrift from the Bounty
with Bligh, this was to be his second open boat voyage through Barrier Reef waters.
The Ships Cat
Before leaving the cay, a boat was sent back
to the wreck to see if anything could be salvaged, but returned with only a few useful
items and, incredibly, with the ship's cat which had been found clinging to the masthead.
The cat's fate after the rescue is unknown.
Queensland Museum
sketch of the Pandora
To England
The survivors' progress through the Barrier Reef and the
Torres Straits was comparatively uneventful. According to the prisoner James
Morrison, Edwards continued his vindictive treatment of the surviving mutineers.
Within twenty-four hours of their departure from the wreck
they made landfall on the coast near Cape York where they found fresh water. In another
twenty-four hours they safely passed through the Torres Straits into the Arafura Sea,
which they traversed in ten days. They sighted Timer on 13 September and reached the Dutch
East India Company (VOC) settlement at Coupang three days later.
Their reception by the authorities at Coupang was cordial. The Governor did everything
possible to ensure that they made a speedy recovery from their ordeal. The mutineers'
hardships continued; they were not treated with the same solicitude and were confined to
the settlement's prison. Their situation was of course better than during their squalid
confinement in "Pandora's Box", but for most of them there was to be no real
improvement in their miserable conditions until after their trial on board HMS Duke in
England.
The Wrath of the Admiralty
Before reaching home, however, the prisoners were to become acquainted with several more
gaols: the VOC ships Rembang and Vredenburg in which they were transported to
Sourabaya, Batavia and Capetown; and HMS Gorgon which took them on to Portsmouth.
After. a six-day trial in September 1792, Byrne, McIntosh, Coleman and Norman were
acquitted. Heywood, Morrison, Burkitt, Millward, Ellison and Muspratt were found guilty
and sentenced to be hanged for their part in the mutiny. However, only three of these
sentences were carried out. On the recommendation of the court, Peter Heywood and James
Morrison were pardoned and William Muspratt's case was discharged on a technicality.
Burkitt, Millward and Ellison were hanged in October 1792.
Captain Edwards and his officers were not indicted for Pandora's loss. The court of
enquiry found no fault with Edwards or his officers and stated that the loss had been
unavoidable after the accidental grounding.
