416 VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



ten months, terminated on the 25th of October, by 

 the arrival of the Bounty at Otaheite. 



No time was lost in putting the instructions into 

 execution. The young shoots that sprung from the 

 lateral roots of the bread-fruit trees were taken up, 

 with balls of earth, where the soil was moist; and 

 this operation was continued till they were in posses- 

 sion of one thousand and fifteen live plants, secured 

 in seven hundred and seventy-four pots, thirty-nine 

 tubs, and twenty-four boxes. To complete this cargo 

 took them till the 3d of April, 1789; and Bligh 

 sailed on the fourth, passing from Otaheite through the 

 group of islands, and bidding adieu to the natives, 

 with whom he and his crew had been on the most 

 friendly terms during their stay. 



Hitherto there had been no perils to contend with 

 but those of the sea; but when four and twenty days 

 had elapsed, and they were of course, far from any 

 land, a new scene took place, which frustrated for a 

 time the bounty of the government and the skill of 

 the commander. Under the cloak of fidelity, a mu- 

 tiny had been forming of a very determined and 

 extensive nature; and so well had the mutineers 

 disguised their intentions, that not one but those 

 who were in the plot had the slightest suspicion of it. 



The known bravery of Lieutenant Bligh made the 

 mutineers afraid to attack him awake; and so, on the 

 morning of the 28th of April, he was seized while 

 asleep in his bed, by a band of armed traitors, and 

 hurried upon deck in his shirt ; and, on coming there, 

 he found the master, the gunner, one of the master's 

 mates, and Nelson the botanist, who had been with 

 him under Cook, confined in the fore hatchway, and 

 guarded by sentinels. The launch was hoisted; and 

 such individuals as the mutineers did not like, were 

 ordered to quit the ship, and forced if they refused 

 or hesitated. Eighteen individuals out of the forty- 



