FROM THE MUTINY TO PITCAIRN ISLAND—MAUDE 535 
who said that she “spoke tolerably good English, but with a foreign 
accent.” (Kotzebue, 1830, vol. 1, p. 225 ff.) 
Jenny’s narratives are not only consistent with each other, but in 
all cases where they can be checked from other material they have 
proved to be reliable. One has to remember that her interests were 
those of a woman, and a Tahitian, but her testimony is, in general, 
more trustworthy than that of Adams, who was apt to be careless with 
his facts even when not deliberately misleading; and she gives the best 
account we possess of events from the date of the final departure from 
Tahiti in September 1789, to Folger’s discovery of the Pitcairn settle- 
ment in 1808. 
In the following pages I have tried to piece together the story of 
the Bounty mutineers to the day of their landing on Pitcairn, using 
first Morrison and later Jenny as the main sources of information, but 
freely checking and amplifying by recourse to every other source that 
has come to light as a result of some years of delving into Pitcairn 
history, and 9 months spent on the island itself. 
TRIAL AND ERROR ON TUBUAI 
With the details of the mutiny which took place on the Bounty on 
the morning of April 28, 1789, we are not concerned here. (The best 
account is in Mackaness, 1931.) Nearly 170 years later the protago- 
nists of Bligh and Christian are still engaged in apportioning the 
blame; an exercise which one feels at times tells us more about the 
personality of the writer than the characters and motives of the two 
opponents. 
Our narrative commences as Bligh was cast adrift, 10 leagues south- 
west of Tofua, one of the Tonga Islands, to the sound of “Huzza for 
Otaheite” from the mutineers (Bligh, 1937, vol. 2, p. 122). Even 
these huzzas have been denied Bligh by his opponents (Barrow, 1914 
ed., p. 100; Mackaness, 1931, p. 172, quoting Lady Belcher), on the 
grounds that no one else appeared to have heard them. His vindica- 
tion, however, comes from Adams himself, who told Buffett that when 
the mutiny occurred “he was sleeping in his hammock, but as soon as 
he heard the proposal he exclaimed ‘Hurrah for Otaheite.”” (Buf- 
fett, 1846, p.2.) ° 
Christian now took charge and, after sounding the views of the 
25 men remaining on the Bounty, determined to make for Tubuai, in 
the Austral Group, with a view to prospecting it as their possible fu- 
ture home, before calling at Tahiti for provisioning. Tubuai had 
*See also Adams’s statement to Beechey that as the launch, with Bligh on board, was 
being cast off “immediately ‘Huzza for Otaheite!’ echoed throughout the Bounty” 
(Beechey, 1831, vol. 1, p. 76). 
536608—60——36 
