THE TRANSPLANTATION OF THE BREAD-FRUIT TREE--THE VOYAGE OF THE
BOUNTY--A MUTINY--BLIGH, THE CAPTAIN, WITH EIGHTEEN MEN, CAST ADRIFT
IN THE LAUNCH--INCIDENTS OF THE VOYAGE FROM TAHITI TO TIMOR--TERRIBLE
SUFFERINGS AND A MARVELLOUS ESCAPE--ARRIVAL OF THE MUTINEERS AT
TAHITI--THEIR REMOVAL TO PITCAIRN's ISLAND--SUBSEQUENT HISTORY--VOYAGE
OF VANCOUVER--ALGERINE PIRACY--BURNING OF THE PHILADELPHIA--PROUD
POSITION OF THE UNITED STATES.
In the year 1787, the merchants and planters of England, interested
in his Majesty's West India possessions, petitioned the king to cause
the bread-fruit tree to be introduced into these islands; and, in
accordance with this request, the armed transport Bounty, of two
hundred and fifteen tons, was purchased and docked at Deptford to be
furnished with the proper fixtures. Lieutenant William Bligh, who
had been round the world with Cook, was appointed to command her.
Her cabin was fitted with a false floor cut full of holes sufficient
to receive one thousand or more garden-pots. She was victualled for
fifteen months, and laden with trinkets for the South Sea Islanders.
Her destination was Tahiti by way of Cape Horn. She sailed late in
December, 1787.
After a three months' tempestuous passage, she made the eastern coast
of Terra del Fuego. She contended thirty days here with violent
westerly gales, seeking either to thread the strait or double the cape.
Finding either course impossible, Bligh ordered the helm to be put
a-weather, having resolved to cross the South Atlantic and approach
Tahiti from the westward,--a determination which was successfully
executed.
Bligh gave directions to all on board not to inform the natives of
the object of their visit, lest, by the natural law of supply and
demand, the price-current of bread-fruit trees should suddenly rise.
He contrived to make the chiefs believe that he was doing them a favor
in conveying specimens of their plants to the great King of England. A
tent was erected on shore to receive the trees, some thirty of which
were potted every day. On the 4th of April, 1789, the vessel set sail,
with one thousand and fifteen roots in pots, tubs, and boxes.
It was now that an event took place which rendered the cruise of the
Bounty one of the most extraordinary in the annals of the sea. A
mutiny, which had been planned in secrecy, broke out on the 27th. The
whole crew were engaged in it, with the exception of eighteen men.
Bligh, with these eighteen,--most of them officers,--was hurried into
the launch, which was cut loose, with one hundred and fifty pounds of
bread, twenty-eight gallons of water, a little rum and wine, with a
quadrant and compass. A few pieces of pork, some cocoanuts, and four
cutlasses, were thrown at them as they were cast adrift. Some of the
mutineers laughed at the helpless condition of the launch; while others
expressed their confidence in Bligh's resources by exclaiming, with
oaths, "Pshaw! he'll find his way home if you give him pencil and
paper!" "Blast him! he'll have a vessel built in a month!"
Bligh was convinced that, defenceless and unarmed as they were, they
had nothing to hope from the inhabited islands of the surrounding
waters. He told the crew that no chance of relief remained except at
Timor, where there was a Dutch colony, at a distance of three thousand
five hundred miles. They all agreed, and bound themselves by a solemn
promise, to live upon one ounce of bread and a gill of water a day.
They then bore away across this unknown and barbarous sea, in a boat
twenty-three feet long from stem to stern, deep-laden with nineteen
men, and barely supplied with food for two. There is nothing in
maritime annals more worthy of a place in a work treating of "Man upon
the Sea" than is this marvellous voyage from Tahiti to Timor.
The first thing done was to return thanks to God for their preservation
and to invoke His protection during the perils they were to encounter.
The sun now rose fiery and red, foreboding a severe gale, which,
before long, blew with extreme severity. The sea curled over the
stern, obliging them to bale without cessation. The bread was in
bags, and in danger of being soaked and spoiled. Unless this could be
prevented, starvation was inevitable. Every thing was thrown overboard
that could be spared,--even to suits of clothes: the bread was then
secured in the carpenter's chest. A teaspoonful of rum and a fragment
of bread-fruit--collected from the floor of the boat, where it had been
crushed in the confusion of departure--was now served to each man.
They constantly passed in sight of islands, upon which they did not
dare to land. They kept on, alternately performing prayers, dining on
damaged bread, and sipping infinitesimal quantities of rum or other
cordial. On grand occasions, Bligh served out as the day's allowance
a quarter of a pint of cocoanut-milk and two ounces of the meat. One
half of the men watched while the other half slept with nothing to
cover them but the heavens. They could not stretch out their limbs,
for there was not room: they became dreadfully cramped, and at last
the dangers and pains of sleep were such that it became an additional
misery in their catalogue of sorrows. A heavy thunder-shower enabled
them to quench their thirst for the first time and to increase their
stock of water to thirty-four gallons; but, in compensation, it wet
them through and caused them to pass a cold and shivering night. The
next day the sun came out, and they stripped and dried their clothes.
Bligh thought the men needed additional creature comfort under these
dismal circumstances, and issued to each an ounce and a half of
pork, an ounce of bread, a teaspoonful of rum, and half a pint of
cocoanut-milk. They kept a fishing-line towing from the stern; but in
no one instance did they catch a fish.
Bligh now became convinced that in serving ounces of bread by
guess-work he was dealing out overmeasure, and that if he continued
to do so his stores would not last the eight weeks he had intended
they should. So he made a pair of scales of two cocoanut-shells, and,
having accidentally found a pistol-ball, twenty-five of which were
known to weigh a pound, or sixteen ounces, he adopted it as the measure
of one ration of bread. The men were thus reduced from one ounce to
two hundred and seventy-two grains. Another thunder-shower now came
on, and they caught twenty gallons of water. The usual consolation of
a thimbleful of rum was served when the storm was over, together with
one mouthful of pork. The men soon began to complain of pains in the
bowels; and nearly all had lost in a measure the use of their limbs.
Their clothes would not dry when taken off and hung upon the rigging,
so impregnated was the atmosphere with moisture. On the fifteenth
day they discovered a number of islands, which, though forming part
of the group of the New Hebrides, had been seen neither by Cook nor
Bougainville, and thus, in the midst of their agonies, the barren
satisfaction of contributing to geographical science was, as it were in
derision, awarded to them. The men now clamored for extra allowances
of pork and rum,--which Bligh sternly refused, administering his
bullet-weight of bread with the severest ceremony.
"At dawn of the twenty-second day," says Bligh, "some of my people
seemed half dead: our appearances were horrible, and I could look no
way but I caught the eye of some one in distress. Extreme hunger was
now too evident; but no one suffered from thirst, nor had we much
inclination to drink,--that desire, perhaps, being satisfied through
the skin. Every one dreaded the approach of night. Sleep, though
we longed for it, afforded no comfort: for my own part, I almost
lived without it." Bligh now examined the remaining bread, and found
sufficient to last for twenty-nine days; but, as he might be compelled
to avoid Timor and go to Java, it became necessary to make the stock
hold out for forty days. He therefore announced that supper would
hereafter be served without bread!
A great event happened on the twenty-seventh day. A noddy--a bird as
large as a small pigeon--was caught as it flew past the boat. Bligh
divided it, with the entrails, into nineteen portions, and distributed
it by lots. It was eaten, bones and all, with salt water for sauce.
The next day a booby--which is as large as a duck--was caught, and
was divided and devoured like the noddy, even to the entrails, beak,
and feet. The blood was given to three of the men who were the most
distressed for want of food. On the thirtieth day they landed upon the
northern shore of New Holland, and gave thanks to God for his gracious
protection through a series of disasters and calamities then almost
unparalleled.
They found oysters upon the rocks, which they opened without detaching
them. A fire was made by the help of a magnifying-glass; and then,
with the aid of a copper pot found in the boat, a delicious stew of
oysters, pork, bread, and cocoanut was cooked, of which every man
received a full pint. Spring water was obtained by digging where a
growth of wire grass indicated a moist situation. The soft tops of
palm-trees and fern-roots furnished them a very palatable addition to
their mess: After laying in sixty gallons of water and as many oysters
as they could collect, they re-embarked, after having slept two nights
on land and having been greatly benefited thereby. Keeping to the
northwestward, and coasting along the shore, they landed from time to
time in search of food. On the 2d of June, the watch of the gunner,
which had been the only one in the company successfully to resist the
influences of the weather, finally stopped, so that sunrise, noon, and
sunset were now the only definite points in the twenty-four hours. On
the next day, having followed the northeastern shore of New Holland as
far as it lay in their route, they once more launched into the open sea.
On Thursday, the 11th, they passed, as Bligh supposed, the meridian
of the eastern point of Timor,--a fact which diffused universal joy
and satisfaction. On Friday, at three in the morning, the island was
faintly visible in the west, and by daylight it lay but five miles
to the leeward. They had run three thousand six hundred and eighteen
miles in an open boat in forty-one days, with provisions barely
sufficient for five. Though life had never been sustained upon so
little nourishment for so long a time, and under equal circumstances
of exposure and suffering, not a man perished during the voyage. Their
wants were most kindly supplied by the Dutch at Coupang, and every
necessary and comfort administered with a most liberal hand.
On his return to England, Bligh published a narrative of his voyage
and of the mutiny, which was soon translated into all the languages
of Europe. He ascribed the revolt to the desire of the crew to lead
an idle and luxurious life at Tahiti, though subsequent developments,
and his own outrageous and brutal conduct when Governor of New South
Wales, proved quite conclusively that his cruelties and tyranny had
rendered him odious and intolerable. The British Government could not
allow such a transaction upon the high seas to pass unpunished, and
despatched the frigate Pandora, Captain Edwards, to Tahiti in the
month of August. Only ten of the mutineers were found, the rest having
withdrawn to another island through fear of discovery, as we shall now
relate, merely stating that the ten persons taken were conveyed to
England, where they were tried and executed.
[Illustration: COLONISTS OF PITCAIRN'S ISLAND.]
John Adams, one of the mutineers, being apprehensive that the English
Government would make an attempt to punish the revolt, resolved to
escape to some neighboring and uninhabited island, and there establish
a colony. With eight Englishmen, one of whom was Christian, the
ringleader in the mutiny, their Tahitian wives, and a few islanders
of both sexes, he sailed in the Bounty to Pitcairn's Island, which
had been lately seen by Carteret. They arrived there in 1790, and,
having unladen the vessel, burned her. A settlement was formed, which
prospered in spite of the continual quarrels between the males of the
two races. This hostility resulted, in three years, in the extinction
of the savages, leaving upon the island Adams, three Englishmen, ten
women of Tahiti, and the children, some twenty in number. One of the
Englishmen, having succeeded in distilling brandy from a root which
grew in abundance, drank to excess and threw himself headlong from a
rock into the sea. Another was slain for entertaining designs upon the
wife of the only remaining Englishman except Adams. Thus, in 1799,
Adams and Young were the only males of the original colony surviving.
They began to reflect upon their duties toward their children and those
of their companions: they commenced holding religious services morning
and evening, and instructed the rising generation in such rudimental
branches of education as their own learning would permit. Young died in
1801, and Adams became the administrator and patriarch of the colony.
He was assisted by the Tahitian women, who showed a remarkable capacity
for civilization and aptitude for refinement. An English frigate,
the Briton, touched at Pitcairn in 1814, and her captain offered to
take Adams back to England, promising him to procure his pardon from
the king. But the forty-seven persons, women and children, forming
the settlement, besought their patriarch not to leave them. In 1825,
Captain Beechey visited the island, and found the population increased
to sixty-six. Adams was sixty years old, but still vigorous and active.
He begged Beechey to marry him, according to the rites of the English
Church, to the woman with whom he had lived, and who was now infirm and
blind. Beechey gladly acceded to the request. Soon after, an English
missionary, named Buffet, went out to Pitcairn to assist Adams in the
discharge of his duties and to succeed him upon his death. The latter
event occurred in 1829. Vessels occasionally stopped at Pitcairn, and
the English Government was thus kept informed of the progress of its
interesting colony.
In 1856, the descendants of the original settlers, having increased
so much as to outgrow the resources of their sea-girt home, abandoned
Pitcairn's Island, and transferred themselves, with their goods and
chattels, to Norfolk Island, directly west and toward New South Wales.
They numbered one hundred and ninety-nine in all, the oldest man
being sixty-two, and the oldest woman eighty. Charles Christian is the
grandson of Christian the ringleader. Their new home contains about
fourteen thousand acres, and is well watered, fertile, and healthy,
the soil producing abundantly both European and tropical fruits,
vegetables, grains, and spices. The history of the present colony, the
offspring in the third generation of European fathers and Tahitian
mothers, is as remarkable as any tale in romance or any legend in
mythology.
In the year 1790,--to return to chronological order,--the British
Government determined to make one more attempt to discover a channel
of communication between the Atlantic and Pacific to the north of the
American continent, and selected to command the expedition Lieutenant
George Vancouver, who had accompanied Cook on his second and third
voyages. He was raised to the rank of captain and placed at the head of
an expedition consisting of the sloop-of-war Discovery and the armed
tender Chatham. He left Falmouth on the 1st of April, 1791; and, as the
Admiralty had designated no route by which to proceed to the Pacific,
he decided to go by way of the Cape of Good Hope. He arrived here
without adventure in July, and, late in September, struck the southern
coast of New Holland at a cape to which he gave the name of Chatham,
from the President of the Board of Admiralty.
The two vessels coasted to the eastward, surveying the indentations
and giving names to all points of interest. A harbor being discovered,
it received the name of King George the Third's Sound, and Vancouver
took possession of the land in the name of his Gracious Majesty. A
wretched hovel, three feet high, in the form of a bee-hive cut through
the centre from the apex to the base, and constructed of slender
twigs, here revealed the presence of inhabitants; while the singular
appearance of the trees and the vegetation, which had evidently
undergone the action of fire,--the shrubs being completely charred and
the grass having been shrivelled by the heat,--showed that, miserable
as they certainly were, they were acquainted with the uses and abuses
of fire. At last they discovered a deserted village, consisting of some
two dozen huts or hives, which had apparently been the residence of a
considerable tribe. They gratified their curiosity by contemplating and
investigating these humiliating efforts of human ingenuity.
[Illustration: A DESERTED VILLAGE.]
Continuing to the eastward, Vancouver touched at New Zealand, and
arrived at a spot where he had been with Cook eighteen years before. An
inlet which Cook had been unable to explore, and which he had named in
consequence "NOBODY KNOWS WHAT," was explored by Vancouver and called
by him "SOMEBODY KNOWS WHAT." Running to the north, he discovered an
island whose inhabitants spoke the language of the great South Sea
nation and who seemed perfectly acquainted with the uses of iron,
though they had little or none of that metal. A Sandwich Islander,
whom Vancouver had brought from London as an interpreter, and who was
named Towerezoo, was of very little assistance; for he had been so long
absent that he now spoke English much better than his mother-tongue,
and spoke the latter no better than Vancouver. The island appeared to
go by the name of Oparo, by which Vancouver thought fit to distinguish
it till it should be found more properly entitled to another. The
two vessels arrived in December at Tahiti, and anchored in Matavai
Bay. The chronometers were landed, in order to correct them by the
known longitude of the island; the sails were unbent, the topmasts
struck, for a thorough examination of the rigging. The Discovery went
by accident upon a rock, and was for a while in great danger. On
Sunday, the 1st of January, 1792, every one had as much fresh pork
and plum-pudding as he could eat, and a double allowance of grog was
served in which to drink the time-honored toast. The formula, however,
was slightly altered to suit the state of the case: the gunner of the
Discovery being the only married man of the party, the toast given was
SWEETHEARTS AND WIFE!
[Illustration: THE SHIP DISCOVERY ON A ROCK.]
On the 24th of January, the two ships turned their head to the
northward, now for the first time commencing the voyage in view of
which the expedition had been equipped. They ran the two thousand five
hundred miles that lay between them and the Sandwich Islands in the
space of five weeks, and anchored off Owhyhee on the 1st of March. They
touched the American coast, or that part of it known as New Albion,
in 39° north latitude, which Vancouver now explored and surveyed. In
August he entered Nootka, where, in accordance with his instructions,
he was to receive from the Spanish authorities the formal cession of
the colony they had established. He found his Catholic Majesty's brig
Active already there, commanded by Señor Don Juan Francisco de la
Rodega y Quadra. The two commanders agreed to honor each other by a
mutual salute of thirteen guns, which was done; while other courtesies
were cordially exchanged. The ceremony then took place. Vancouver now
returned to Owhyhee, and the king, smitten by a sudden and vehement
attachment for the English, proposed to make over the island to the
dominion of the King of England. All the insular dignitaries assembled
on the decks of the Discovery, and the surrender was made in the midst
of speeches and cannonades. Vancouver did not seem to have been deeply
impressed with the importance of this event. The solemnity of the
transaction was not increased by the circumstance that it took place
upon the spot where Cook had so recently been massacred.
Returning to the north, Vancouver continued his surveys and
explorations of the American coast as far as the fifty-sixth degree of
latitude. He terminated his operations on the 22d of August, at Port
Conclusion, where an additional allowance of grog was served, that the
day might be celebrated with proper festivity. He returned to Europe
with the certitude that no passage existed from the North Pacific
across the American continent into the Atlantic. His surveys remain
as a monument of his activity, skill, and perseverance. The present
charts of the coast of North America upon the Pacific are based upon
them. More than nine thousand miles of shore, with its headlands,
capes, rivers, bays, promontories, and labyrinths of islands, had been
carefully explored by surveying parties in boats, in superintending
which Vancouver injured his health and brought on the decline which
terminated in his death, in the year 1798, at the early age of
forty-eight.
We have now to record the remarkable series of acts by which the United
States of America, in the twenty-fifth year of their existence as a
nation, put an end to a humiliation to which the commercial powers of
Europe had submitted for centuries. From the time when the Spanish
Moors, driven out of Granada by Ferdinand the Catholic, settled on
the opposite coast and commenced the practice of piracy, the Barbary
States, Tunis, Tripoli, and Algiers, had been united against all
Christian commerce in the Mediterranean. Emboldened by impunity, they
extended their operations into the Atlantic, seizing the vessels of
all nations who did not pay them tribute. England under Cromwell, and
France under Louis XIV., however, caused their flags to be respected.
The Dutch, Danes, and Swedes, by paying an annual tax, purchased
exemption from seizure,--thus giving the sanction of a treaty to the
outrage and consenting to wear an odious badge of servitude. Russia and
Austria were protected by special agreements.
During the early years of the American Republic, Tripoli intimated to
the Government the propriety of paying tribute. Jefferson replied,
in 1800, by declaring war against Tripoli, and sent out an armed
naval force under Commodore Dale. This officer, with two frigates
and a sloop-of-war, blockaded Tripoli, preventing the cruisers from
getting to sea, and thus protecting our commerce. Commodore Preble
followed with seven vessels in 1803. In October, one of his ships,--the
Philadelphia, Captain Bainbridge,--engaged in reconnoitring the harbor
of Tripoli, grounded and was forced to surrender. The officers were
treated as prisoners of war, the sailors as slaves. The vessel was
floated and moored in the harbor, strongly manned by Tripolitans, whose
naval force was thus unexpectedly augmented.
The American squadron rendezvoused at Syracuse, in Sicily,--somewhat
over a day's sail from Tripoli. A young lieutenant under Preble,
named Decatur, formed a plan for destroying the Philadelphia and thus
reducing the Tripolitans again to their ordinary naval strength.
Preble consented to the scheme, and Decatur armed a ketch which he had
captured, and with it entered, in February, 1804, under cover of the
night, the harbor of Tripoli. He had with him an old pilot who spoke
the Tripolitan language. On approaching the Philadelphia, they were
challenged; but the pilot replied that he had lost his anchor and
merely wished to fasten his vessel to the frigate till morning. A boat
was sent ashore by the Tripolitans to ask permission, and then Decatur
and his men leaped upon the deck. They rushed upon the affrighted
corsairs, fifty in number, and drove them into the sea. They set fire
to the Philadelphia, and, by the light of the blaze, escaped without
the loss of a single man. One sailor was wounded by receiving upon
his arm a blow from a sabre with which the turbaned pirate meant to
decapitate Decatur.
The Tripolitans were enraged at the loss of their prize, and treated
Bainbridge and his enslaved crew with greater severity than ever. Three
times did Preble enter the harbor of Tripoli with his fleet and open
his broadsides against the town, destroying some of the shipping, but
making no material impression. At last, a series of brilliant actions
upon land under General Eaton, whose army consisted of nine Americans,
twenty Greeks, and five hundred Egyptians, and the arrival of the
frigate Constitution in June, 1805, forced the Bashaw of Tripoli to
come to terms; and he released his prisoners and abandoned forever the
levying of tribute upon American ships. Peace was at once concluded.
In 1812, the United States being at war with England, the Dey of
Algiers thought our Government would be unable to cope with two enemies
upon the ocean, and determined to resume piracy on our vessels. He
pretexted the unsatisfactory quality of a cargo of military stores
furnished by our Government, and ordered the American agent to leave
the capital. Depredations were immediately recommenced: our vessels
were plundered and confiscated and their crews enslaved. The President
suggested the importance of taking measures of prevention, in his
message to Congress in December, 1814, and, after the signing of
the treaty of peace with England, despatched two squadrons to the
Mediterranean, under Decatur and Bainbridge, both now commodores. The
former captured, in June, an Algerine frigate of forty-four guns and
a brig of twenty-two. He then sailed for Algiers. The American navy
had earned an enviable distinction in the war with England, and the
sight of our gallant fleet inspired the Dey with a salutary terror.
He consented to the terms imposed by Decatur, which were to give up
all captured men and property, to pay six million dollars for previous
exactions, and to exempt our commerce from tribute for all time to
come. A treaty was signed on the 4th of July,--an auspicious date for
so honorable an achievement.
[Illustration: BURNING OF THE PHILADELPHIA.]
The proud position thus attained by the United States attracted the
attention of Europe. Our Government had extorted expressions of
submission from the corsairs such as no other power had ever obtained.
The Congress of Vienna discussed the subject, and it was resolved that
from that time forward Christian slavery in Algiers was suppressed. The
English sent Lord Exmouth to bombard that city, and compelled the dey
to submit to conditions like those imposed by Decatur. The Algerines
were not yet broken, however. They placed their city in a formidable
state of defence, and then proceeded to intercept the trade of the
French. The French Government declared war,--a measure which resulted
in the capture of Algiers in 1830 and in the seizure of Abd-el-Kader in
the winter of 1847-48. These events have led to the colonization of the
territory by the French and to the partial extinction of the Algerine
people. Piracy in the Mediterranean may safely be said to be at an end
forever.
[Illustration: THE CLERMONT: THE FIRST STEAMBOAT.]