98 



distinguish them ; however, observing one of the gangways in the water^ 

 I swam towards it, and got upon it. I then saw that our prison 

 (Pandora's box) had floated, and that some of the men were upon it. 

 Presently Mr. Heyvvood passed me swimming towards the boats (he had 

 his mother's prayer-book between his teeth), so I resolved to follow his 

 example, and after being an hour and a half in the water, we reached the 

 blue yawl, and were taken on board. After several others had been 

 taken up, we were landed on a small sandy reef about three miles from 

 the ship. Here we found that four of our fellow-prisoners had been 

 drowned, two with their handcuffs on, but Birkett had actually swam to 

 the land with his handcuffs on! Thirty-one of the 'Pandora's' crew 

 were lost, including the master-at-arms and the corporal, but all the 

 officers had saved themselves. A tent was pitched for the officers, and 

 another for the crew, but Captain Edwards would not allow us a sail to 

 shelter us from the sun, and we were ordered to keep apart by ourselves 

 and not to speak to anyone. The sun took such an effect upon us, after 

 we had been shut up for five months, that all our skin peeled off from 

 head to foot, although, during the heat of the day, we buried our bodies 

 in the sand, which was all the shelter we could get." 



I must now quit Morrison's diary, which goes on to narrate their 

 subsequent experience with a vividness and realistic force worthy of 

 Defoe, and give you the sequel in a few words* After many weeks of 

 privation and suffering in the "Pandora's" boats, the whole party at last 

 managed to reach Timor, the same Dutch settlement where you will 

 remember Captain Bligh and the other forlorn castaways of the "Bounty" 

 had landed the year before. Captain Edwards, whose treatment of the 

 prisoners in the boats had been as bad as in the "Pandora," no sooner 

 landed here than he ordered all the poor wretches, half dead with hunger 

 and exposure, and far more than half naked, to be put in the public 

 stocks. After many further vicissitudes. Captain Edwards and his 

 prisoners at last found their way to England, where they landed on the 

 19th June, 1792, four years and five months after the sailing of the now 

 missing "Bounty" for Otaheite. 



The same autumn the prisoners underwent trial by court-martial. 



