77 



FLETCHER CHRISTIAN AND THE MUTINEERS OF THE 

 "BOUNTY." 



By William Fletcher, F.G.S., (Cockermouth.) 



Many of you will not need to be reminded that in one of Sir Walter 

 Scott's most charming novels — " Peveril of the Peak"' — two of the lead- 

 ing characters are the brothers William and Edward Christian. They 

 were both real, and prominent historical personages in the times of the 

 Civil War, and as regards William, the part assigned to him by the 

 novelist very much agrees with the actual facts of his life. He was 

 Receiver-General of the Isle of Man, and used his influence to procure 

 the surrender, to the Parliamentary party, of Peel Castle, which had been 

 heroically held for the King by the famous Countess of Derby. For this 

 transaction he was brought to trial twelve years afterwards, found guilty 

 by a compliant jury, and condemned to death, and was executed on the 

 2nd of January, 1663. By the bulk of his fellow-Islanders he was looked 

 upon as a martyr, and his memory was embalmed in Manx patriotic 

 songs, one of which, entitled, " The heart-rending death of the fair-haired 

 William," survives to this day. The Edward Christian of real life was 

 not quite the detestable villain described by Sir Walter Scott ; but, as 

 the tool of Buckingham and the ally of the notorious Colonel Blood, he 

 probably deserved the long imprisonment which ended in his death. 

 The Christian family had been settled in the Isle of Man for many 

 generations, and they held, as they have since continued to hold, the 

 chief public offices in that little principality. 



Towards the end of the seventeenth century, Ewan Christian, anephew 

 of William and Edward's, originated the connection of the family with 



