"Lucy Ann" departed Sydney, on 26 December 1830, in company with HMS "Comet", to take aboard the inhabitants of Pitcairn Island and transfer them to Tahiti. Pitcairn, it was decided, had become too small and crowded for the descendants of the Bounty mutineers and the British government had obtained permission from the Tahitian leadership for their resettlement on Tahiti. A dozen of the 86 islanders died in Tahiti due to their susceptibility to disease. For that reason, and, being homesick, they were returned to Pitcairn five months later.