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The Fortunate Adversities of William Bligh

OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA

Beginnings

The most remarkable feature of William Bligh's early years was that his father, Francis, chose to place him in the navy. Not only was William an only son, but Francis was a high ranking customs official stationed in Plymouth. On the whole seamen and customs officers did not care for each other. Sailors were known to engage in a bit of smuggling; sometimes it was more than a bit. Customs agents tried to catch them. Equally as important, life as a revenue gatherer was anything but a mean existence. Their circumstances could be quite secure and comfortable — Francis Bligh possessed a rather flashy yellow-wheeled carriage. Despite all these considerations, in July, 1762, Francis arranged to have the name of seven year old William placed on the muster book of the H.M.S. Monmouth. According to most writers, it was Captain Keith Stewart, a relative of Jane Pearce (William's mother), who was directly responsible for procuring him this berth.

There were rules against having a child that young serve on a naval vessel, but they were broken as often as they were observed. It is true that sometimes the entry of a name on the muster was a financial ploy that increased the captain's pay from the Admiralty. It could also be a device to build seniority toward the needed six years service to become a lieutenant. Yet sometimes the child actually did sail with his ship. There is no way to know with certainty what happened to William. When he was appointed, a war was still being fought with France and Spain. However, the records indicate that the Monmouth mainly stayed in Plymouth Sound, and William may indeed have actually been on the vessel. If he did serve in person, he did not do so for very long. The war ended with the Peace of Paris in March, 1763. The crew of the Monmouth had been paid off and discharged the previous month.

For the next seven years, Bligh has no record as a seaman. It is not until the summer of 1770 that he reappeared on the muster list of a vessel. This assignment was the actual beginning of his naval career, and he served for the next thirteen years virtually without interruption. His first posting was modest enough. He was assigned to the ten gun sloop, Hunter, first as a volunteer seaman and then as a midshipman. This arrangement was not uncommon. Each vessel had a fixed allotment of officers and men. Though the midshipmen were actually officers in training, they were part of the quota. They were supposed to serve in this post for at least two years out of the required six before taking the lieutenant's examination. Since opportunities were less numerous than applicants, and since duties and nominal ratings did not necessarily coincide, it made sense to sail in any available ship, provided there was an officer expected to leave.

Bligh waited less than a year, and in February, 1771 he became a midshipman. Despite his undoubted pleasure at the promotion, this initial assignment had few attractions. In large measure it was an extension of his father's profession. The Hunter cruised the Irish Sea looking for smugglers. The Isle of Man was of particular interest. It had been a notorious haven for illegal traders until 1765 when the Duke of Atholl, the island's owner, sold it to the British government. Old habits were unlikely to fade in less than a decade, and consequently Douglas, the Isle of Man's capital, was a regular port of call for the Hunter. Two of the people who would have a major influence on Bligh's life had strong Manx connections: his future wife, Elizabeth Betham, and Fletcher Christian. It is at least possible that he met the first named at this early date. Like Bligh's father, hers was a chief customs officer.

Whatever personal contacts Bligh made, it must have been a relief when this dull assignment ended in September, 1771, and he was transferred to the Crescent. This ship was much larger: a fifth rate of thirty-two guns. The vessel had been a French privateer captured in the last war. As attractive as the new ship was, its location must have had even more appeal: the Leeward Islands in the Caribbean.

It was on this tour of duty while still a teenaged midshipman that Bligh got his first genuine taste of the trials and tribulations of naval life. His ship ran aground, men were lost while trying to launch an amphibious attack against hostile natives, disease took a large toll of the crew and the captain died. Bligh would repeat all of these experiences. The same is true of his final experience with the Crescent: the whole ship's company was paid off and there was no comparable vessel on which Bligh could serve. In August, 1774, he must have been very close to remaining on the beach, but he did receive a break of sorts. His former captain from the Hunter, Henshaw, now commanded another sloop, the Ranger, and he agreed to take Bligh aboard.

William's life repeated itself. Not only did he have to start as a volunteer seaman again, but he also went back to patrolling the Irish Sea. This time his term as a volunteer was quite brief. Before the month of September, 1774 was out, he was again a midshipman. Still, the ship and the assignment would win no prizes under the best of circumstances. It spent great stretches of time being repaired at Douglas, while Bligh presumably occupied himself on shore. In all likelihood the twenty-one year old Bligh was looking for a more certain path to promotion and success in the navy than the Ranger could provide. Yet the situation in the American colonies had become increasingly serious. No one could predict exactly what direction that conflict would take. The always impatient Bligh did not wait to find out. When an opportunity presented itself in early 1776, he took it.

During the summer of 1775, while William Bligh cruised the Irish Sea in search of smugglers, one of England's greatest explorers returned home from the South Seas. James Cook was greeted with well deserved enthusiasm by his friends and the scientific establishment. Cook and his voyages to the Pacific had captured a great deal of attention, and he was as close to a genuine scientific hero as the age could produce. The only twentieth century figures who came close to Cook's status are the astronauts and cosmonauts, but even they can only return with rocks and not tales of strange animals and romantic savages.

On February 10, 1776 with a £20,000 prize in prospect, Cook agreed to lead another expedition consisting of two vessels. He would search for the Northwest Passage that hopefully lay between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Just over one month later, Bligh joined Cook's third and final voyage.

From Cook's point of view there was very little in Bligh's record that would have made him an obvious choice as an explorer. It is safe to presume that either Cook met the young man and liked what he saw, or someone the captain knew and trusted made the recommendation. Unfortunately not enough information survives to make a certain judgement. We do know that after Cook's return from his second voyage, he remained largely in London. As Bligh's leaky ship often needed repairs, he would have had the time to travel. Unfortunately there is not enough surviving information to make a certain judgement.

There is, however, one negative statement that it is possible to make. Bligh did not apply to the Admiralty for the assignment or any other voyage of exploration for that matter. His most influential patron, Keith Stewart, did not recommend him either. These facts are known because the First Lord of the Admiralty, the Earl of Sandwich, had his clerks keep a detailed record of all those applying to him for naval positions. These men recorded the date of application, who made it, who recommended the applicant, the post requested, the reasons for the request, and the action taken or not taken. Though several people, including John Gore, the man assigned to Cook's vessel as first lieutenant and a veteran of his other voyages, did ask for positions, Bligh did not.

Another part of the mystery is the post Bligh received. He went from the role of midshipman or gentleman volunteer to the post of master of Cook's own ship, the Resolution.

In order to understand the importance of this post, it is necessary to take a brief look at the way in which the navy divided the command structure aboard its ships. In the later middle ages, the captain of the vessel had been its military leader who took charge when the fighting occurred. In a very real sense he was a distinguished passenger who took control when combat rather than seamanship was the primary concern. The master controlled the ship, guided it across the water and directed its nautical crew. Through the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as the line between naval and military personnel became blurred, and arrows gave way to cannon, the captain gradually assumed more and more authority until he became the supreme figure on a naval ship. This situation did not mean, however, that the mastership became a vacant title. The master continued to navigate and pilot the vessel and supervised the other warrant officers in the execution of their duties. If negligence took place in looking after either the equipment or the supplies, the master received a large share of the blame. On a long voyage of exploration, it is impossible to overrate the importance of doing this part of the master's job properly.

Yet another aspect of his position mattered most to Bligh: navigating the ship from port to port. On voyages through charted waters, though the captain might say where the ship would go, the master was the one who executed these directions. Every time the sails were furled or unfurled, every time the vessel changed course, the master oversaw the operation. In uncharted seas, the survival of the expedition could depend in large measure on his skill. Recording how all these deeds were accomplished also fell within the master's province. He kept a log of what he and his subordinates did, but more importantly he made charts, maps and sketches of where they had been. As events developed, this facet of Bligh's work was to have particular importance for his later career.

A master on a naval vessel had a unique status with respect to the other members of the crew and the officers. London's Trinity House pilots certified him as competent and the Navy Board assigned him. In modern terminology he held the post of the highest ranking warrant officer in the ship. Although he did not hold the king's commission as a naval officer, the other officers who did welcomed him to their "wardroom society." Unlike other non-commissioned sailors, he had his own cabin from which he navigated the ship.

As one might imagine, people with the necessary skills to serve as master were not easy to find, and once found, the navy did what it could to retain them in that position. Masters were given financial incentives to remain at their posts and to gradually qualify for larger and more profitable vessels. By the nineteenth century they were permitted to wear uniforms not unlike those the captain wore. It should also be said that the navy was not beyond applying negative pressure as well. Thomas Edgar, the master of the Discovery, the other ship on Cook's expedition, had passed his examination to become a lieutenant seven years before the 1776 voyage and had yet to receive the promotion. Lest anyone think he was an extraordinary case, no master who served with Bligh between 1795 and 1805 ever became a commissioned officer. A typical case was John Fryer, the master of the Bounty. He received his qualifications as master of a 6th rate vessel (a frigate) in 1781. He became master of a first rate in 1798 and never commanded anything larger than a store ship. Before Cook's expedition left England, Bligh did take and pass lieutenant's examination. It would take him six years and more than a bit luck to actually achieve that rank.

Cook's expedition, which lasted over four years, began the week after the Americans had signed the Declaration of Independence in July, 1776. By mid-October they reached Cape Town. There Cook waited nearly a month for the Discovery to catch him. Its commander, Charles Clerke, had been in debtors' prison (a relatively common event among the officers of the eighteenth century navy), and it had taken some time to gain his release. In late November they left for Adventure Bay on Tasmania, or Van Diemen's Land as it was then called, and it was nearly February before they arrived. With various stops on the way it was August 12, 1777 before Cook reached Tahiti. In October he set out for the North American coast, and he made what proved for him the unfortunate discovery of the Hawaiian Islands the following January while en route to this destination. The remainder of 1778 was spent trying to find the Northwest Passage. When the weather turned bad, Cook decided to winter in Hawaii and to make a further search the following year. Before February ended, Cook was dead, but under Clerke the exploration continued. Before 1779 ended, Clerke also died, and his successor, Gore, decided to return home touching at Kamchatka, Macao and the Dutch East Indies on the way. The ships did not reach the Orkney Islands until late August, 1780, and did not come to anchor in the Thames until the following October.

Given the length of time the adventure lasted and given the fact that Bligh survived in a reduced but very cohesive group of explorers, he should have been in a good position to make friends and advance his career. In fact his career did not immediately advance because of the voyage, and as for making friends, especially influential ones, the results were quite disappointing. On his return Bligh did write to Lord Sandwich requesting a promotion, but he had to recommend himself. Gore, the last commander of the Resolution, and Lieutenant James King, the Discovery's final commander, recommended many of their shipmates. But not William Bligh. The mastership of a fifth rate was the best he could do.

What had gone wrong? The deaths of Cook and Clerke, the two men whose respect he seems to have earned, created a good portion of the difficulty, but there must have been more to it. For the first time in the surviving record of Bligh's career, there are tantalizing hints that the personality defects that haunted him throughout his life now had begun to overshadow his competency.

Cook and later Clerke did find him competent and trustworthy. Time after time they sent Bligh in a small boat to chart previously unknown coasts. Though no one actually made the comment, it does appear the expedition came to rely upon Bligh to find safe passages and anchorages, often when no one else could do so. His part in locating a coral free passage through the reefs at Christmas Island in December, 1777 is but one example of what had become pretty much standard procedure. As ill luck would have it, he even found the "safe" anchorage at Kealakekua Bay where the Hawaiians murdered Cook.

It would be a gross exaggeration to say that Bligh's skills were frequently noted in the journals, or, indeed, that he was frequently noted on any account. At times he seems to drop completely from view. From August through October 1777, with the ship moored at Tahiti, he received no mention. After Cook's death, once more he warrants little notice.

Nor could anyone justly claim that Bligh did no wrong during the voyage. Though not numerous, his errors brought him to his captain's unfavorable notice. One incident occurred while exploring the Friendly or Tonga Islands. During June, 1777 both he and his companion, Lieutenant Williamson, found the natives had stolen their flintlocks — fowling pieces that were their own possessions. Letting the natives acquire firearms, regardless of who owned them, was one of the great sins to be avoided at all costs, and one that aroused Captain Cook's particular wrath. Therefore Williamson's penalty seems rather peculiar. Cook let the native chief involved keep Williamson's weapon. Lieutenant King retrieved Bligh's piece before Cook came on shore. Even so, the master may not have escaped his captain. Though no one ever said so, it is at least possible, while moored at Tahiti, Cook confined Bligh to the Resolution. He received no mention in the journals, and when Bligh returned in 1788, he never names any Tahitian as a former friend or acquaintance.

Bligh's tribulations did not end there. After they reached the North American shore, he ordered the crew to drop an anchor which, unfortunately, was attached to a rotten cable; it snapped. As master, Bligh had the ultimate responsibility for the ship's equipment, and Cook became furious with him again. He ordered Bligh over the side in a small boat to drag for the lost equipment. He was still at it a week later and managed to lose the grapnel with which he was dragging as well.

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Excerpted from The Fortunate Adversities of William Bligh by Roy Schreiber. Copyright © 2000 Roy Schreiber. Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA.
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