As Cook’s ships first coasted the main island, Hawaii, at makahiki time in November, 1778, the sails hanging on the yards looked like the traditional processional banners of the priests of Lono. The cry arose, “Lono is come again!” When the white-sailed floating islands came to rest at Kealakekua, ten thousand Hawaiians shouted and sang greetings as they swam out in shoals like fish, or rode canoes and surfboards. Cook had not seen such a large crowd in all his Pacific wanderings. It is not strange that he wrote in his journal—the last words he was fated to write—that his expedition had made a discovery “in many respects the most important that has hitherto been made by Europeans throughout the extent of the Pacific Ocean.”
At Kealakekua, Cook made a fatal mistake. It did no harm, he thought, to let these joyful heathens think he was a god.
The deification took place casually, as he stepped ashore at Kealakekua. A skinny old priest named Kuaha, red-eyed from drinking too much awa—made from the roots of a pepper plant—took charge. He led the captain to the rickety top of a temple platform hung with the skulls of men sacrificed at the dedication of this most famous shrine of Lono in all the islands. Here the embarrassed Britisher was wrapped in a robe of red tapa and, encouraged by signs from Kuaha, was led to kiss one of the hideous wooden images that decorated the scaffold. By that act Cook unwittingly assumed godship, and the Hawaiians officially recognized him as the god Lono. Thereafter he must act as one more than human.
The king of Hawaii accordingly exchanged presents with Cook and bountifully supplied the sailors with needed provisions. In exchange, the Englishmen furnished the warriors with two-foot iron daggers made by the ships’ armorers on the pattern of the native pahoa, sharpened at both ends.
After a fortnight of feasting, Cook’s two ships, the Resolution and the Discovery, departed to the north on February 4. But four days later the storm struck, and there was nothing for it but to limp back to Kealakekua to refit. This time the natives were not so friendly as before, and the petty thievery began. And now, on the morning of February 14, with the sailing cutter missing, Cook decided to teach a violent lesson.
Cook planned to use a scheme he had tried successfully in other parts of the Pacific. He would lure the king on board the flagship and hold him as a hostage until the cutter was returned.
Cook himself took charge of arrangements. He loaded both barrels of his gun, one with light birdshot, the other with deadly ball. Then, placing a cordon of boats to guard the bay, he left in a six-oared pinnace, accompanied by Lieutenant Molesworth Phillips and nine marines. A second boat, a launch under the command of Lieutenant John Williamson, was to stand by in case of trouble.
Cook and the marines landed on the cruel lava rocks edging the water and marched to the king’s house. The ruler had just wakened, and his friendly manner made it clear that he was innocent of any plot. He and his two sons agreed to visit the big canoe of the foreigners. But before the party could reach the shore, the queen and several chiefs pleaded with the king not to go. They argued that Lono was acting strangely.
A great crowd of natives gathered, brandishing clubs, spears and the newly made iron pahoas. The king sat down and pondered. During this hitch in the proceedings, bad news came. A native rushed up crying that a chief, while attempting to run the blockade on the bay, had been killed by a shot from one of the boats.
The warriors began tying on their armor of matting. Women and children slid out of sight. Cook was forced to abandon his plan, and looked about for a way to withdraw, but his retreat was almost cut off by the shouting throng. He placed his marines near the rocks by the water and ordered them to remain ready for firing, but since these natives had never seen the power of a bullet, he could not be certain that a fusillade would halt their attack.
Cook faced the brown-skinned horde. A burly chief made a pass at him with an iron pahoa. Cook first fired his charge of birdshot, which fell harmlessly off the woven armor. The peppery shot merely enraged the warriors, who became bolder. Lieutenant Phillips struck down one of them with his gun butt. Another aimed a dagger at Cook, who pulled the trigger of his second barrel. The man fell dead.
Now the sailors in Lieutenant Williamson’s launch offshore fired at the crowd, but the sound was lost in the shouts of the Hawaiian attackers. The marines on the beach were able to fire one volley only; then they were overwhelmed. Four were killed by the mob; the rest were pushed into the sea, and swam to the pinnace. Phillips, stabbed in the shoulder, was the last to make it. Williamson refused to move in to provide support.
In this manner Captain Cook was abandoned on the island he had discovered. He turned his back on his attackers and shouted an order to the boats to cease firing and come in closer. Lieutenant Williamson’s armed launch was not twenty yards away. Prompt action would have saved the captain, but Williamson, craven with fear, yelled to his oarsmen to pull back to the safety of the ship.
As the rescue launch drew away, a club struck down Captain Cook. He tried to rise. An iron dagger tore into his back. Blood spurted. He groaned. But gods must not show pain.
“This is not truly Lono!” the natives cried.
Cook, still trying to reach his boats, staggered into the water. Even then a daring move might have saved him. But none was made, and the great captain fell forward into the water. A howling mass of Hawaiians stormed over him, each eager to have a hand in his destruction.
Finally the boats took action and the native warriors retreated under a heavy fire. But they dragged Cook’s body with them, and proceeded to treat it like that of a god. It was cut into pieces, and each chief received a part. Not until after a week of desultory fighting were Cook’s men able to negotiate for the few remaining parts of his body, enough to enable a sea burial to be performed in the waters of the archipelago that Cook had discovered.
What part had William Bligh taken in the tragedy? When Cook fell, Lieutenant James King of the Resolution was in charge of the camp a mile down the bay, where the broken foremast was being repaired. He heard the distant firing, and tried to reassure the Hawaiians who crowded around him. But King’s fellow officers aboard the Discovery learned of Cook’s death and fired several cannon balls at the natives and set them scampering. King dispatched a boat asking that the firing stop, since all was well with him.
The boat returned with a strong party of marines led by William Bligh. He carried to King the sad word of the commander’s death, along with orders to strike the tents at the shore camp and send the sails on board. The remaining party was placed in a strong position on top of the temple platform, and Bligh was left there with positive orders to act entirely on the defensive. King departed for the Discovery to make a report. He had barely reached the ship when he heard the marines under Bligh open fire.
The natives had begun throwing stones at the Englishmen. A few daring Hawaiians then crept around to the side of the enclosure next to the beach and tried to storm the flank. Bligh was not the sort of person to brook such an attack. He promptly ordered the marines to shoot. Eight natives fell. The rest retreated to muster reinforcements. Lieutenant King hurried back on shore, and soon Bligh’s alarming position was relieved by the arrival of his own reinforcements. His musket fire had made a deep impression, and the Hawaiian priests sought a truce, under which Bligh recovered the mast and sails and took them back to the ship undamaged.
On the long return voyage to England, Bligh did most of the navigation work and arrived in London with a reputation for both bravery and competence. It was obvious to all that when the next important command arose, he would have to be considered.
By this time Bligh had spent more than half his life at sea. He had joined the Navy at the incredible age of seven, when he appeared upon the articles of His Britannic Majesty’s warship Monmouth as captain’s servant. This was a prudent move, common at the time, on the part of Bligh’s father, a customs collector. It enabled the boy to fulfill the time requirements for a lieutenancy and thus more quickly gain command of his own ship.
/> At sixteen young Bligh was actually at sea, but not as a common foremast hand, and six months later he was a midshipman well on his way to becoming an outstanding officer. At twenty-two he was a full lieutenant, thanks to his father’s foresight, and an officer under Captain Cook, in whose company he first tasted the tropical fruit that was to make him famous.
Breadfruit—an excellent starch food about the size of a cantaloupe—has a hard green rind and grows on spreading trees. Boiled it is tastier than a potato; fried it is delicious; and roasted it is best of all. Easily digested and rich in carbohydrates, it is still one of the finest South Pacific products. Bligh promptly agreed with previous experts that such a likely food should be transported from Tahiti, where the best variety flourished, to the British West Indies, where there was insufficient food to feed the slave population imported there from Africa.
In 1787 the British government decided that the breadfruit should be transplanted and appointed the ship Bounty for the task. Many of Cook’s former officers longed for this command, but to Bligh’s surprise and pleasure, it fell to him, and he proceeded to enlist a strong crew.
A man of below average height, Bligh was at this time robust and active, but inclined to corpulence. His forehead was high, and his black hair was usually concealed under a wig. His lips were taut. The most prominent of his features were his jutting nose and a pair of brilliant blue eyes. His complexion was “of an ivory or marble whiteness.” His face, though, exposed for years to all climates, was not weather-beaten or coarse, probably as a result of his temperate habits. Living in a time when drunkenness was a gentlemanly vice, Bligh was never accused of excesses. His family loved and respected him, and he was to bring into the world six beautiful daughters who were devoted to him. He was to have all through his life many admiring and loyal friends, some in the highest positions, including even the royal family.
He was, unquestionably, a man with a terrible temper, prone to sudden storms of anger. A contemporary described him as being “so uncertain in his manners, so violent in his conduct, and at the same time so eloquent in diction, that he overpowers or affrights every person that has any dealings with him; and particularly as he desires and expects all the deference and submission to be paid him that the proudest despot would covet.” Bligh himself knew he was of a choleric nature, but attributed his righteous anger to zeal for efficiency in service. He obeyed orders given him, and expected others to obey orders he gave them. Once, while defending himself against court-martial charges, he growled, “I candidly and without reserve confess that I am not a tame and indifferent observer of the manner in which officers placed under my orders conduct themselves in the performance of their several duties.” And he could swear—like a sailor, as Nelson swore. He was a martinet, but by no means harsh or unamiable. He wanted his orders obeyed on the double, but surprising as it may seem, he was always anxious for the comfort and happiness of the men under his command.
Combined with his choleric temper he had one unlucky trait: he seemed always to be on hand when mutinies were afoot or when lesser disciplinary problems were about to erupt into court-martial cases.
When Bligh heard that he had gained the breadfruit job, he energetically set to work to put his ship into the best possible shape for the long voyage to Tahiti. He was not completely happy about her. “Government, I think, have gone too frugally to work,” he wrote; “both the ship and the complement of men are too small, in my opinion.”
The Bounty was a 215-ton merchant vessel which had originally been the Bethia, owned by Duncan Campbell, an uncle of Elizabeth Betham, whom Bligh had married in February, 1781. Bligh had commanded vessels for Campbell in the West Indies trade for four years, and it was probably Campbell who recommended Bligh for command of the Bounty. The ship was ornamented with “a pretty figurehead of a woman in a riding habit,” and her chronometer was the most famous in England, for it had been twice around the world in the Resolution with Captain Cook. Unfortunately when the Bounty was refitted, the comfort of the crew was subordinated to the safe transportation of the plants to be taken on at Tahiti, and throughout the voyage breadfruit was to be more important than the forty-six souls who made up the ship’s complement.
The Bounty was delayed in the Channel, much to the irritation of Bligh, who foresaw that he thus ran the risk of arriving at Cape Horn during the period of foul weather. She did not leave Spithead until December 23, 1787. Bligh wrote to Campbell from Tenerife in the Canary Islands early in January that “I have her now the completest ship I believe that ever swam.” But he still feared Cape Horn.
Whatever Bligh’s faults of personal manner, no sensible critic can complain of his efficiency as seaman, navigator and officer. The safety of his vessel and the comfort of her crew were his chief concerns. The ship’s passages were continually aired, and fires were kept burning to dry out the crew’s quarters. Cook had discovered the cure for scurvy, and his apt pupil Bligh achieved a record on his voyages for the health of his crews at a time when other vessels arrived in port with most of the crew too sick for duty.
Upon leaving Tenerife for the run to Cape Horn, Bligh divided his crew into three watches instead of two. As he wrote: “I have ever considered this among seamen as conducive to health, and not being jaded by keeping on deck every other four hours, it adds much to their content and cheerfulness.” Control of the third watch was given to one of the mates, a Mr. Fletcher Christian, who had sailed with Bligh on two previous voyages and whom the captain trusted. Christian had a bright and pleasing face and a tall, athletic figure. Bligh described him as “strong made and rather bow-legged,” but “subject to violent perspirations and particularly in his hands, so that he soils anything he handles.”
Bligh also demanded that the men relax and obtain mirthful exercise. “After four o’clock,” he wrote, “the evening is laid aside for their amusement and dancing,” to the tune of a forecastle fiddle. In fact, his advocacy of the dance as a therapeutic measure for sailors was so great that he was later charged with cruelty in that he stopped the grog of John Mills and William Brown for having refused to dance one night.
But more serious matters soon attracted his attention, for as he feared, he arrived at desolate Cape Horn at a season when breasting that fearful point was impossible. From March 24 until April 22, 1788, the Bounty log records nothing but furious gales of rain, hail and snow.
The ship had to be pumped every hour and many men were injured or fell sick. At this point Captain Bligh surrendered his own cabin “to the use of those poor fellows who had wet berths.” Under their captain’s ministrations the crew remained in good spirits and were willing to tackle Cape Horn for another month, but there was real relief when Bligh passed the word that they would abandon the attempt. Instead, to save the men, he gave the order to weather the helm and run clean around the world via the easier Cape of Good Hope. In this way he entered the South Pacific.
After stops at Capetown, Tasmania and New Zealand, the Bounty sighted Tahiti on October 25. This lovely “new Cytherea,” as the French explorer De Bougainville called it, was destined to be the home of the mariners for the next six months.
De Bougainville, who missed by a few months the fame of discovering Tahiti, had found it a paradise filled with noble savages, who came out to his ships in the costume of Eden and offered close friendship with no uncertain gestures. “It was very difficult, amidst such a sight,” he wrote, “to keep at their work four hundred young French sailors, who had seen no women for six months. In spite of all our precautions, a young girl came on deck and placed herself upon the quarterdeck, near one of the hatchways, which was open in order to give air to those who were heaving at the capstan below it. The girl carelessly dropped a cloth which covered her and appeared, to the eyes of all beholders, such as Venus showed herself to the Phrygian shepherd, having, indeed, the celestial form of that goddess. Both sailors and soldiers endeavored to come to the hatchway; and the capstan was never hove with more alacrity than on this occasion
.”
The sea-worn mariners of the Bounty were greeted with similar affection by the Tahitians, whom Rupert Brooke later described as “the brown lovely people who sing strange slumbrous South Sea songs and bathe in the soft lagoons by moonlight.” Captain Bligh himself gave a good deal of space to descriptions of the sports and amusements of the people, such as the heiva dance performed by two girls and four men, “which consisted of wanton gestures and motions.” The moral Bligh found it shocking but not uncommon for brothers to dally with each other’s wives, particularly elder brothers with the wives of their younger brothers, without causing offense. “Inclination,” he remarked, “seems to be the only binding law of marriage at Otaheite.”
Cunningly the captain persuaded the head chief, Tinah, to think that it was the chief’s own idea that he should send a great many breadfruit trees to King George. “I had now,” Bligh wrote, “instead of appearing to receive a favor, brought the chiefs to believe that I was doing them a kindness in carrying the plants, as a present from them to the Earee Rahie no Britannee.”
The midsummer season was not favorable to the transplanting of the breadfruit plants, and against his inclinations, Bligh was forced to wait around until the proper time. Six months of exposure to the Society Islands was too much for the morale of his crew. For example, upon arrival at Tahiti, no members of the crew were suffering from any venereal disease; yet, after a short stay, a considerable number, including many of the future mutineers, had become infected. What was worse, attachments had been formed that were to lead to tragedy. While the Bounty was still anchored off Tahiti, three crewmen stole a cutter and some arms and deserted.
To what extent did Bligh himself cause the mutiny of the Bounty? He has been pictured as a sadistic monster whose unnatural brutality forced a fine, innocent crew to revolt. When the motion picture was made of the mutiny, the captain was described in the publicity in these restrained terms: “Bligh! His very name struck terror to the hearts of all his crew. A seagoing disaster, begotten in a galley, and born under a gun! His hair was rope, his teeth were marlinspikes, and the seamen who dared disobey his mad, ruthless orders seldom lived to do it twice.”