504 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1959 
it is not surprising if a mistake was made on this point: McCoy was 
presumably the man with whom the informant spoke; was quite pos- 
sibly in charge of the watch at the time; and may well have conveyed 
the impression that he was in charge of the vessel. 
The Bounty, then, is the only ship believed to have visited Raro- 
tonga prior to 1820 without being in a position to have reported, and 
thus taken the credit for, such an important discovery; the only ship 
likely to have carried such an unusual cargo; and, with a lower degree 
of probability, the only ship with a European named McCoy on board. 
When one adds that, as we now know, her route would logically have 
taken her through the area in which the island is situated, it is hard to 
resist the conclusion that Christian was the rightful discoverer of 
Rarotonga. 
There remains the problem of Purutea. This island was almost 
certainly one of the Cook Group, though it cannot be found among the 
few local place names recorded, but the incident mentioned by Jenny 
is not recounted either by Williams or Maretu. All one can say, there- 
fore, is that Purutea could have been Rarotonga; but that from its 
position it could also have been Mauke, Atiu, or Mitiaro. 
It was not Palmerston Island, 270 miles to the northwest of Raro- 
tonga, where Captain Edwards found a yard marked “Bounty’s Driver 
Yard” and some spars with “Bounty” written on them, from which he 
at. first. concluded that the vessel had called there (Edwards and 
Hamilton, 1915, pp. 9, 43-44, 124). But as these were all lying on the 
beach at high-water mark, and worm-eaten from long immersion in 
the sea, they were clearly the spars lost while the Bounty was being 
warped up through the shallow lagoon at Tubuai when, as Morrison 
tells us: “After we had got about halfway, it became necessary to 
lighten the ship, by starting the Water; but that not being sufficient 
the Booms and Spars were got out and Moord at a Grapnel, but it 
coming on to blow fresh they went adrift and we saw them no 
more .. .” (Morrison, 1935, p. 55). 
Normal] set of wind and current could have easily taken them north- 
west to Palmerston. 
Tongatapu.—We have seen from Jenny’s narrative that from the 
Cook Group the Bounty continued to sail west until, several days 
later, she reached one of the Friendly Islands, where the mutineers 
traded with the Tongans for pigs, chickens, and yams. 
It is fortunately possible to identify, with a considerable degree of 
probability, the actual island at which they called, since Jenny men- 
tions that the natives told them that “Totee (Captain Cook) had been 
there, and that the horned cattle left by him were living” (Teehu- 
teatuaonoa, 1826) .”5 
25 Mackaness, who cites Jenny, omits from his quotation the passages referring to the 
visit to Tongatapu, at the same time repeating the story of the Bounty sailing direct from 
Piteairn (Mackaness, 1931, pp. 209-211). 
