William Bligh

Vice-Admiral William Bligh FRS (9 September 1754 – 7 December 1817) was a British officer in the Royal Navy and a colonial administrator. He is best known for the mutiny on HMS Bounty, which occurred in 1789 when the ship was under his command. The reasons behind the mutiny continue to be debated. After being set adrift in Bounty's launch by the mutineers, Bligh and those loyal to him stopped for supplies on Tofua, losing a man to natives. Bligh and his men reached Timor alive, after a journey of 3,618 nautical miles (6,700 km; 4,160 mi).

On 13 August 1806, Bligh was appointed Governor of New South Wales in Australia, with orders to clean up the corrupt rum trade of the New South Wales Corps. His actions directed against the trade resulted in the so-called Rum Rebellion, during which Bligh was placed under arrest on 26 January 1808 by the New South Wales Corps and deposed from his command, an act which the British Foreign Office later declared to be illegal. He died in London on 7 December 1817.

Quotes

• [Tahiti is] certainly the paradise of the world and if happiness could result from situation and convenience, here it is to be found in the highest perfection. I have seen many parts of the world, but Tahiti is capable of being preferable to them all, and certainly is so considering it in its natural state.
  • Logbook of HMS Bounty (1 November 1788), p. 194

• I can only conjecture that [the Mutineers] have ideally assured themselves of a more happy life among the Tahitians than they could possibly have in England, which joined to some female connection, has most likely been the leading cause of the whole business.
  • Logbook of HMS Bounty (28 April 1789), p. 356
  • Reported in Peter FitzSimons, Mutiny on the Bounty (Hachette Australia, 2018), epigraphs to chs. 4 and 8

• I find that two months after I left Tahiti in the ‘Bounty’, Christian returned in her to the great astonishment of the natives. Doubting that things had gone well with me the first questions they asked were: ‘Where is Bry?’ ‘He is gone,’ he replied, ‘to England’. ‘In what ship?’ asked the natives. ‘In Toote’s ship.’
  • Logbook of HMS Providence (9 April 1792)
  • Reported in Ida Lee, Captain Bligh’s Second Voyage to the South Sea (London: Longman’s, Green and Co., 1920), p. 43

External links

• Encyclopedic article on William Bligh on Wikipedia