I'm almost done reading The Bounty, and I must say that I've learned a great deal from the book. Since I last posted, I've read about the court martial, the aftermath for those accused, and the eventual discovery of where the mutineers who were never caught ended up.
The court martial was interesting in that the British Navy's method of conducting the trial was very different from how we conduct our courts martial today. One thing that struck me about the process was that the accused had to conduct their own questioning of witnesses, though they could solicit help from lawyers. The descriptions of what the various defendants asked each other was kind of strange and at times amusing. (Throughout the book, Alexander quotes from actual records.)
One thing that was also strange was that Bligh was not present at the court martial to testify against or for any of the accused. He was off on a second expedition to collect and transplant breadfruit, this time successfully. So at the court martial, the various defendants could lie without being contradicted by the chief witness, and it seems they all did, to one extent or another, judging by the number of different accounts of the events all of them took part in.
Another aspect of the court martial that seemed odd to me: of the six who were eventually convicted of mutiny and sentenced to death, three were allowed to seek pardon from the king. And as it turned out, all three were granted pardon. That means that despite being convicted of a capital crime, three of the mutineers walked away completely free men. (The others were hanged.) Imagine if we had that possibility in our Uniform Code of Military Justice. Or imagine the president being able to pardon murderers or kidnappers. Would that ever happen in our country? Don't think so.
But probably the most interesting part of the entire story was what happened later, once the mutineers were judged and sentences carried out. Over the course of 100 years or so, the original heroes and villains in the story became, in the eyes of the public, quite the opposite. Captain Bligh, who at first was praised for his extraordinary strength and skill in getting his men back to England, and who received sympathy from other ship's captains for what the mutineers had forced him and his loyalists to endure, began to seem the villain. And Fletcher Christian, who was at first seen as the evil leader of the mutiny, was gradually transformed into a hero, along with all his fellows.
The author of the book, Caroline Alexander, has her theories about how the switch occurred. She gives a detailed account of the campaign waged by the families of both Christian and Peter Heywood, who was one of those pardoned. Both Christian and Heywood came from prominent, wealthy families, with ties to powerful members of Parliament. Their families were intent on rebuilding the reputations of the young men, thereby saving themselves from disgrace. But in order to succeed in that endeavor, they also had to tear down the reputation of William Bligh.
Their strategy apparently worked, thanks in part to the public's willingness to see rebellion in a new light. Don't forget, the late 1700's was an era of revolution, and people were changing their minds about duty and the infallibility of those in power. Alexander also believes the change to the Romantic ideal with its brooding Byronic hero (epitomized in Shakespeare's Hamlet), made it possible to see Fletcher Christian as such a hero, standing for freedom and against tyranny, despite all evidence to the contrary. (Bligh was actually a fairly restrained disciplinarian compared to his fellow captains.) Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, this version of the mutiny on the Bounty has held, giving us movies and plays with a Romantic interpretation of the events and the people involved. But Caroline Alexander's book shows the story for what it was, in all its complexity, and makes the case that William Bligh was unjustly maligned.
In my next post, I'll talk about what happened to the mutineers and the end of the book.
Cheryl mentioned much of this to me -- that over the scores of years since the mutiny and subsequent court martial, the media, much like cable news today, had gradually told people what to think and completely switched the feelings people had about Bligh and Christian. This was also done somewhat by the pardoned mutineer's writings and the mutineer's families. I hope to also read this book if I ever find it in the vast and nebulous network of book cases. Lots of glare from those 400 windows.
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