Edward Edwards ( Royal Navy officer ) Admiral Edward Edwards ( 1742 – 1815 ) was a British naval officer best known as the captain of HMS " Pandora " , the frigate which the Admiralty sent to the South Pacific in pursuit of the " Bounty " mutineers . Biography . The early years . The fifth of six children , Edward Edwards was born in Water Newton , a village near Peterborough , to Richard Edwards of Water Newton and Mary Fuller of Caldicot . He was born in 1742 and christened in St Remegius Church , Water Newton . He never married . On 7 September 1759 , age 17 , he was commissioned as a lieutenant . To qualify for this commission he would have been required , in addition to passing a lieutenant ’ s exam , to produce evidence of at least six years of sea time . No documents have been located to date which would establish exactly when , and under whose patronage , he started his naval career . It is likely he first went to sea as a captain ' s servant when about 10 years old and subsequently completed at least part of the required sea time as a midshipman . His naval career after he was commissioned included service in the following ships , before being appointed to " Pandora " : " Pandora " and the " Bounty " . He spent the following six years on half - pay after the end of the American Revolutionary war ; until 6 August 1790 , when he was appointed to take command of the frigate " Pandora " . He received new orders on 11 August to prepare his new command for a journey to " remote parts " , on a mission in pursuit of the " Bounty " mutineers . With the help of former " Bounty " midshipman Thomas Hayward - a Bligh loyalist recently returned to England from the South Pacific - Edwards succeeded in finding fourteen mutineers , but the " Pandora " foundered on the Great Barrier Reef on 29 August 1791 during the journey home from the South Pacific . Four mutineers and 31 of " Pandora " s crew died in the destruction of the ship . After an arduous open boat voyage from the wreck to Timor and on to Batavia ( Jakarta ) , only 78 men of " Pandora " s original 134 - strong crew eventually reached England , accompanied by ten mutineers . For Hayward this was the second time in as many years that had he found himself in an open boat making for a safe haven in the Dutch East Indies . Edwards was court - martial led on 17 September 1792 for the loss of the " Pandora " . Immediately prior to the proceedings , he submitted to the Admiralty his account of the events leading up to the sinking . All of his officers supported Edwards ' contention that the frigate had been lost due to circumstances beyond anyone ' s control . The court - martial was attended by William Dillon , then a midshipman , who later became a vice - admiral in the Royal Navy and described Edwards in his memoirs as a " fine , venerable - looking officer . His appearance completely absorbed all my attention during the trial , and I felt an inward satisfaction at the result , after all the hardships and dangers he had overcome " . Captain Edwards and his officers were exonerated and subsequently Edwards served for a few years as a ' regulating ' captain ( recruiting officer ) in Argyle and Hull and then resigned himself to inactivity on the half pay list . However , he was promoted to vice - admiral in 1809 and eventually ended his career as admiral of the white , titularly the third most senior officer in the Royal Navy . He died aged 73 in 1815 and was buried in St Remigius Church in Water Newton , a village in Huntingdonshire . His reputation and character were effectively blackened by members of the Heywood family , who were unable to forgive him for what they perceived as excessively harsh treatment of their son , " Bounty " midshipman Peter Heywood , who was tried and convicted as a mutineer and pardoned . Yet Edwards had staunch supporters among other officers who had served under his command and he was also remembered by his niece as a " sweet old man " , often out on a walk in the country lanes around his native Water Newton and Uppingham where he owned several farms . According to an obituary in the " Lincoln , Stamford & Rutland Mercury " ( 21 April 1815 ) , he suffered for the rest of his life from the effects of the hardships he endured during the open boat voyage to Timor after the loss of the " Pandora " . This could be the reason the Admiralty never appointed him to a seagoing command after his court - martial in 1792 . Legacy . Notwithstanding his niece ' s fond memories , Edwards ' conduct on the " Pandora " has been regarded in some circles as every bit as cruel as popular opinion claims that William Bligh was on the " Bounty " . Edwards , as ordered , kept his captives in close confinement , as if they had already been convicted , in spite of the fact that four of them had been identified by Bligh as being innocent and were subsequently acquitted at the court martial in Portsmouth . Edwards was accused of being excessively callous when it came to the captives ' well - being - for instance by refusing to let them use an old sail to prevent them from being sunburned on a sand cay , and also by collectively referring to , and treating them all as mutineers and pirates . Indeed one of his officers , Lieutenant John Larkan ( 1746 – 1830 ) , is alleged to have been " brutal " to the prisoners , which Edwards allegedly condoned . One of Edwards ' main detractors was Commodore Sir Thomas Pasley , convicted mutineer Peter Heywood ’ s uncle , whose measured tone in one of his letters to Heywood leaves no doubt about his disapproval of ' that fellow ' Edwards ; he was especially critical of the prisoners ' confinement in ' Pandora ' s Box ' . Pasley omits to mention how he would have handled the situation had command been his . Presumably he might have occasionally let the prisoners out of their captivity location ; thus , midshipmen Stewart and Heywood might have been allowed to spend some time walking the quarterdeck , as Peter Heywood was permitted to do after his transhipment to HMS " Gorgon " in Cape Town during the last stage of his voyage home . Much was made of this by Heywood ’ s friends and defenders during his court martial , as if to underscore their plea that Edwards ' conduct towards the prisoners had been excessively harsh and that Heywood had already suffered disproportionately and therefore had , in fact , already been punished . Most damningly , Edwards is often accused of excessive callousness towards the prisoners by keeping all of them locked up in the prison cell after the frigate had run aground . However , this overlooks the fact that three prisoners were immdediately ordered out of the cell to help the crew man the pumps ; while several hours later , after the decision had been made to abandon ship because she could not be saved , Edwards gave orders to release the remaining prisoners . To this end Joseph Hodges , the armourer ' s mate , was subsequently ordered into the cell to knock off the prisoners irons , but he was not able to complete the job because the ship sank very quickly . On the other hand there is substantial documentary evidence that contradicts the critical view of Edwards ' actions , suggesting instead that he was fair and even - handed when it came to dealing with his prisoners and exercising the responsibilities of his command . In this respect it is noteworthy to cite the positive opinion the " Pandora " s midshipman James Atkins had of his commanding officer ' s conduct ; this was reported in May 1792 from Harwich , where Atkins had returned , having been one of the 16 " Pandora " s who accompanied Lieutenant John Larkan in the VOC ship " Zwaan " . Larkan ’ s group had been the first group of " Pandora " survivors to leave Batavia and to reach England via The Netherlands . Even though six of the captives were found guilty of mutiny , only three of them - Millward , Burkitt and Ellison - were eventually executed ; William Muspratt was acquitted on a legal technicality and the remaining two , Peter Heywood and James Morrison were subsequently pardoned by the King . Edwards ' search for the mutiny ringleaders ultimately proved fruitless , but his voyages might have provided clues to the fate of one of the 18th century ' s greatest mysteries , the fate of the Lapérouse expedition . When passing Vanikoro , Santa Cruz Islands in the Pacific Ocean on 13 August 1791 , smoke signals were observed rising from the island . However Edwards , who was only interested in prisoners , reasoned that mutineers fearful of discovery would not be advertising their whereabouts , so he ignored the smoke and sailed on . Sven Wahlroos , in his 1989 book , " Mutiny and Romance in the South Seas " , suggests that the smoke signals were almost certainly a distress message sent by survivors of the Lapérouse expedition , which later evidence indicated were still alive on Vanikoro at that time ; three years after the " Boussole " and " Astrolabe " had foundered in 1788 . Later life . Edwards is said to have retired to Cornwall ; according to a story linking him to the ' Pandora Inn ' along Restronguet Creek near Mylor , which he is alleged to have owned and renamed after retiring from the Navy . However , there is no documentary evidence to support this claim . Rather , together with a story about a figurehead adorning the Inn ' s stairwell , said to be based on an 18th - century original from the " Pandora " ; this claim can be confidently refuted and relegated to the realm of creative copy - writing to advertise the inn , which according to cadastral records was called ' The Passage House ' until 1851 , following the death of Alexander Luben , tenant and Restronguet Passage boatman from 1823 until his death in 1848 .