" There was the affair
of the "Bounty," for example: Bligh was one of the best seamen
that ever trod deck, and one of the bravest of men; proofs of his
seamanship he gave by steering, amidst dreadful weather, a deeply-
laden boat for nearly four thousand miles over an almost unknown
ocean--of his bravery, at the fight of Copenhagen, one of the most
desperate ever fought, of which after Nelson he was the hero: he
was, moreover, not an unkind man; but the crew of the "Bounty"
mutinied against him, and set him half naked in an open boat, with
certain of his men who remained faithful to him, and ran away with
the ship. Their principal motive for doing so was an idea, whether
true or groundless the writer cannot say, that Bligh was "no better
than themselves;" he was certainly neither a lord's illegitimate,
nor possessed of twenty thousand pounds. The writer knows what he
is writing about, having been acquainted in his early years with an
individual who was turned adrift with Bligh, and who died about the
year '22, a lieutenant in the navy, in a provincial town in which
the writer was brought up. The ringleaders in the mutiny were two
scoundrels, Christian and Young, who had great influence with the
crew, because they were genteelly connected. Bligh, after leaving
the "Bounty," had considerable difficulty in managing the men who
had shared his fate, because they considered themselves "as good
men as he," notwithstanding, that to his conduct and seamanship
they had alone to look, under Heaven, for salvation from the
ghastly perils that surrounded them.
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