The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1871-04-06
From the New York Evening Post.

]
lures OF the mutincers on Pitcairn's Island.
1t has been recited again and again in
magazines and books of travels, nor has
the repetition III any manner weakened
the spell it exercises over the English
reader 1t furnished Lord Byron with
the theme of one of the longest of his
narrative poems, and has almost realized
the dreams Of Eutopia or Atlantis.
From time to- time the matter has
been brought back freshly to the public
mind az later accounts were received
from the descendants OF the mutineers,
and now Lady Belcher has written out
the whole SAD affecting story, with the
/ help of original documents and cores
pondence never before printed, and the
volume is just ready for publication by
the Harpers. ~ 0
The Bounty sailed from the Downs on
the 23d of december, 1887, in command
/ of Lieutenant Bligh of the Royal Navy,
having Dren commissioned To trains port
young bread fruit trees from Otahelte to
| the British West Indies 1t had been
suggested to the government that the
bread fruit tree would be desirable &C.
| QUESTION for the colonies in the Caribbean
to afford food for the negroes, and it was
/ determined that the experiment should
be made After a tedious and stormy
passage, the Bounty arrived at Otaheite
on the 25th of October, 1888. Some
months were spent in collecting the
plants but at lass one thousand were
stored away in tsleship, and Lieutenant
Bligh set sail FOR the West Indies on the
Goth Of April 1889 a
Lieutenant Bligh, who was an excel
lent sailors and afterwards approved him
self as a daring officer in naval combat,
seems to have been man OF ungoyern-
able passions, and certainly treated his
officers and crew with cruelty, that might
i be called fiend;sh. The result of this
was that on the 2Sth Of April, the mate,
Fletcher Christian (the hero Of Lord
Byron's poem), with the aid of three or
four OF the crew, seized the ship, put
Lieutenant Bligh and eighteeu of the
officers and crew upon the launch, and
set them adrift, and went upon another
course. Bligh and his companions sue
ceeded in reaching one OF the Friendly
Isles to be assailed by the unfriendly
natives, with the loss of one of their num-
Der killed, and were thus compelled to
trust to the chances of the wide ocean in
their open boat with scanty provisions !;
but, alter many hardsllips, they gained
a port of safety having accomplished in
forty one days a voyage of 3,61S miles.
J Now III command OF the Bounty Chris
tian, after touching at several points in
the Pacific, and leaving SIXTEEN OF his
company on the island of Tahiti, sailed
away with eight white men and nineteen
of the natives men and women, to Pit
cairns Island
This was a small, lonely, almost mac
cessible and uninhabited rock, scarcely
two leagues IN extent, lying out of the
track OF the whaling ships and rarely
visited by them Or any other vessels
a mere speck on the wide waste of the
Pacific. Christian had selected it for a
retreat, rightly thinking that he would
there be safe from the reach Of the law,
under which his crime of mutiny was
punishable with death. He reached it in
safety early in january, 1890, and there
the Bounty, after having been stripped
Iof everything that could be Of value to
the fugltlves i'll their new home, was sunk
iii twenty five fathonls of water. o2
Before tracing the subsequent fortunes
OF the mutineers on Pitcairn's Island, it
MAJ be interesting to note what befel
the sixteen men who had been left by
Christian at Tahiti. After the departure
OF the Bounty they separated, going te
different parts of the Island to live, and
cultivating for the most part, friendly
relations with the natives. One married
the daughter OF native chief Two OF
the most turbulent, who guarrelled with
the natives and with each other, came to
violent deaths. The greater part or the
time tor geveral months was spent in
building vessel in which they hoped to
make their eS cape to Batavia. It was
schooner rugged and thirty feet in length
and they christened it, at the moment
of its successful launch, "The Resolution. y
But they had no sails, and the vessel was
useless for any lopg voyage. Two years
and half passed by without tidings
from England, when there came to the
island FL. NJ. s. Pandora, Captain Ed
wards, charged with experimenting the
mutineers and bringing them back to
England They were readily secured,
I fourteen In number, sand at 6nce trans.
ferred to the Pandora, where they were
heavily ironed and confined in narrow
cage or box, without even hope for com.
panion. The Resolution was made a
prize, and the two set sail for the island
of Timor. Of the barparities inflicted
upon the unhappy prisoners, some of
whom were innocent OF all PARTICIPATION
in the mutiny; of the wreck Of the Pan
dora, attended with the loss of several
lives, and of the other incidents OF the
return to England, it would prolong this
narrative unduly to speak. Suffice it to
say, that three of the prisoners were
hanged under the sentence of court
martial, and that with this vindication of