Mutiny on The Bounty

Chapter 9 I joined Captain Montague’s ship in January, 1793, and hostilities broke out in the following month, the beginning of our wars with the allied nations of Europe—the stormiest and most critical period of British naval history, which was to culminate, after twelve years of almost constant actions, in the great sea fight off […]

Chapter 8 I had spent a week at Fig-Tree Court when I sent Sir Joseph the message he had asked for. I supposed that he wished to see me for some reason connected with my Indian dictionary, and now that the first numbness of mind succeeding my acquittal had passed, I looked forward with pleasure

Chapter 7 At nine o’clock the following morning the hearing was resumed. As we were marched into the great cabin I noticed that it was even more closely packed with spectators than it had been the previous day. The same solemnity marked the proceedings, and Court and spectators alike attended the examination of the witnesses

Chapter 6 One morning early in May, Stewart and I were freed from our leg irons and conducted to the place used as the sick-bay on the lower deck. We found Dr. Hamilton awaiting us in the passageway outside. He said nothing, but motioned us to enter. We went in, not knowing what to expect,

Chapter 5 During the next four days, Stewart, Coleman, Skinner, and I were conscious of little save our own misery. A frigate’s orlop deck is a foul place in which to be confined at any time, and with the ship at anchor, in the lee of a tropical island, the heat and stench were scarcely

Chapter 4 Shortly after daybreak I was awakened by someone shaking me roughly by the shoulder, and at the same time I was aware of loud voices, Mr. Bligh’s among them, and the heavy trampling of feet on deck. Churchill, the master-at-arms, stood by my hammock with a pistol in his hand, and I saw

Chapter 3 The lookout had sighted Mehetia, a small, high island forty miles to the southeast of Tahiti. I stared ahead, half incredulously, at the tiny motionless projection on the horizon line. The wind died away toward sunset and we were all night working up to the land.I went off watch at eight bells, but

Chapter 2 At daybreak on the twenty-eighth of November we got sail on the Bounty and worked down to St. Helen’s, where we dropped anchor. For nearly a month we were detained there and at Spithead by contrary winds; it was not until the twenty-third of December that we set sail down the Channel with

Chapter 1 Towards the end of November I joined the Bounty at Spithead. It makes me smile to-day to think of the box I brought down on the coach from London, packed with clothing and uniforms on which I had laid out more than a hundred pounds: blue tail-coats lined with white silk, with the