The Wanganui Chronicle SATURDAY, APRIL 29, 1950 MUTINY OF THE “BOUNTY”

Wanganui Chronicle, 29 April 1950, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle SATURDAY, APRIL 29, 1950 MUTINY OF THE “BOUNTY”

VV7HEN Fletcher Christian looked out over the broad Pacific W swell on April 29, 1790. and saw no trace of the twenty-three-foot longboat in which Captain Bligh and eighteen of the crew of H.M.S. Bounty had been set adrift Without chart he knew that unless he was unlucky his contact with civilisation had gone forever.

It is not an easy task to reconstruct what must have been this man’s feelings on that first morning of his greatest adventure, for he had set his hand against his own country and the price.which he must perforce pay was the severing of all links with his own kith and kin. But Bligh had bullied his erew and ridden them too hard. In a more rigorous climate this might have been tenable but with the soft breezes and easy virtues of the Tahiti Isles the two were incompatible. But no Admiralty Court would listen to Pacific breezes as an argument in excuse for mutiny and hanging at the yardarm would be the penalty for being caught. So steering back to Tahiti to take on supplies and women companions the adventurers eventually turned to the uncharted sea to discover a hiding place. A lonely island off the beaten track was needed and this was found in Pitcairn Island. This island had been discovered in 1767 by Philip Cartaret, who had been commander of an illfounded and unseaworthy vessel which was part of Wallis’ expedition to the Southern Hemisphere. While clearing the Straits of Magellan, Cartaret had become separated from Wallis so the former went on his way alone to discover Pitcairns and some of the Solomon Islands. As young Lieutenant Pitcairn was the first to sight the island it was given his names and accounts for the possessive case being used in respect to it. When Christian landed on Pitcairns his party comprised six men and twelve women so harmony could not long reign. A chapter of treachery and murder followed resulting in the reduction of the population until Alexander Smith was left alone with eight or nine women and several children. Smith began reading the Church of England Prayer Book and the Bible. He saw the tragic necessity for religion and rose to the occasion and inculcated Christian doctrine into the little community. To mark his conversion he changed his name to John Adams and it must be confessed that in this out-of-the-way place a rough unlettered seaman bore true witness and did his best in unusual circumstances to meet the needs of the little community.

While interest today chiefly centres upon Fletcher Christian the mutineer, Captain Bligh, for all his overbearing manner and tactlessness, merits some notice. The West Indies, as now, was confronted with the problem of sustaining a population which pressed heavily upon the food production resources. Bligh had been sent to Tahiti to secure plants and particularly the breadfruit tree, for introduction to the West Indies. He mad a remarkable voyage in an open boat after the mutiny and eventually landed at the island of Timor. He had previously sailed with Captain Cook and had then gained a reputation for being a good navigator. He proved it when the need arose by navigating without a ehart. But his character was an abominable one. In later life he fomented an insurrection against himself in New South Wales and he was kept under arrest in Sydney for a year before being sent home. He earned the name of “Breadfruit Bligh” and died, an admiral, in London, England, in 1817. He was a very lucky man in more ways than one. . The little colony on Pitcairn’s Island remained unknown to the world until 1809 when it was visited by Captain Folger, of the American whaling ship Topazin; and 4>n this ship reporting, a British man-o’-war was sent there to find Adams the sole survivor of the mutineers. Interest in the little colony became very great in England and the British Government took a practical interest in its welfare. In this it was greatly encouraged by one of the most remarkable, men of the Pacific area, George Hunn Nobbs, thought to be the natural son of Lord Hastings, arrived at Pitcairn with a companion. He had been in the Chilian Navy but, buying a boat, had set. sail into the Pacific and arrived at Piteairns in 1828. Adams, dying in the following year, 1829, Nobbs became doctor, schoolmaster and eventually pastor. His work attracted the attention of the Church of England authorities and he was sent home for a year where he underwent a short course before being ordained a clergyman. He was called to audience with Queen Victoria and returned to be the pastor and chief magistrate of Pitcairns.

When the Pitcairners Colony was established on Norfolk Island in 1856 Nobbs went at the head of the new community and remained there until his death. He exercised a very strong- influence upon the people by his wise advice. The people had brought with them the problems which Mad roots in their mixed European and Tahitian origin; made the more intense by the close relationship of all the people and the effects of inbreeding or near inbreeding. But they have remained remarkably virile physically and subsequent infusions of new blood have brought them to a higher mental level. While the Bounty descendants on Pitcairns Island are to a large extent protected by the isolation of their home, those on Norfolk Island are now being exposed to the full impact of modern civilisation. A large airstrip is in the course of construction on Norfolk Island and it will be one of the meeting places of the Pacific airlines. From isolation in which older residents can remember taking 32 days to make the journey to Auckland, to an air age in which the journey may now be completed in four hours, makes many reaceommodations necessary in the lives of the people who comprise the present population of this pleasafit island. Thus the descendants of Fleteher Christian and his followers come back to the modern world with a speed that is breathtaking, while others in their rockbound fastness remain isolated from the world and live their circumscribed lives with but an occasional liner to add colour and variety thereto.