Bligh himself, in his
journal, alludes to this feeling. Once, when he and his companions
landed on a desert island, one of them said, with a mutinous look,
that he considered himself "as good a man as he;" Bligh, seizing a
cutlass, called upon him to take another and defend himself,
whereupon the man said that Bligh was going to kill him, and made
all manner of concessions; now why did this fellow consider himself
as good a man as Bligh? Was he as good a seaman? no, nor a tenth
part as good. As brave a man? no, nor a tenth part as brave; and
of these facts he was perfectly well aware, but bravery and
seamanship stood for nothing with him, as they still stand with
thousands of his class; Bligh was not genteel by birth or money,
therefore Bligh was no better than himself. Had Bligh, before he
sailed, got a twenty-thousand pound prize in the lottery, he would
have experienced no insolence from this fellow, for there would
have been no mutiny in the "Bounty." "He is our betters," the crew
would have said, "and it is our duty to obey him."
The wonderful power of gentility in England is exemplified in
nothing more than in what it is producing amongst Jews, Gypsies,
and Quakers. It is breaking up their venerable communities. All
the better, some one will say.
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