THE SEA. 



made friends with a chief , and one of them, Churchill, was his tayo, or sworn friend. 

 The chief died suddenly without issue, and Churchill, according to the custom of the 

 country, succeeded to his property and dignity. The other, Thomson, murdered Churchill, 

 probably to acquire his possessions, and was in his turn stoned to death by the natives. 

 Captain Edwards learned that after Bligh had been set adrift, Christian had thrown 

 overboard the greater part of the bread-fruit plants, and divided the property of those 

 they had abandoned. They at first went to an island named Toobouai, where they 

 intended to form a settlement, but the opposition of the natives, and their own quarrels, 

 determined them to revisit Otahcite. There the leading natives were very curious to 

 know what had become of Bligh and the rest, and the mutineers invented a story to the 

 effect that they had unexpectedly fallen in with Captain Cook at an island he had just 

 discovered, and that Lieutenant Bligh was stopping with him, and had appointed Mr. 

 Christian commander of the Bounty; and, further, he was now come for additional 

 supplies for them. This story imposed upon the simple-minded natives, and in the 

 course of a very few days the Bounty received on board thirty-eight goats, 312 hogs, eight 

 dozen fowls, a bull and a cow, and large quantities of fruit. They also took with them a 

 number of natives, male and female, intending to form a settlement at Toobouai. Skirmishes 

 with the natives, generally brought on by their own violent conduct or robberies, and 

 eternal bickerings among themselves, delayed the progress of their fort, and it was 

 subsequently abandoned, sixteen of the men electing to stop at Otaheite, and the remaining 

 nine leaving finally in the Bounty, Christian having been heard frequently to say that 

 his object was to find some uninhabited island, in which there was no harbour, that he 

 would run the ship ashore, and make use of her materials to form a settlement. This 

 was all that Captain Edwards could learn, and after a fruitless search of three months he 

 abandoned further inquiry, and proceeded on his homeward voyage. 



Off the east coast of New Holland, the Pandora ran on a reef, and was speedily a 

 wreck. In an hour and a half after she struck, there were eight and a half feet of water 

 in her hold, and in spite of continuous pumping and baling, it became evident that she 

 was a doomed vessel. With all the efforts made to save the crew, thirty-one of the ship's 

 company and four mutineers were lost with the vessel. Very little notice, indeed, seems 

 to have been taken of the latter by the captain, who was afterwai-ds accused of considerable 

 inhumanity. " Before the final catastrophe/' says the surgeon of the vessel, " three of 

 the Bounty's people, Coleman, Norman, and M'Intosh, were now let out of irons, and 

 sent to work at the pumps. The others offered their assistance, and begged to be allowed 

 a chance of saving their lives; instead of which, two additional sentinels were placed 

 over them, with orders to shoot any who should attempt to get rid of their fetters. 

 Seeing no prospect of escape, they betook themselves to prayer, and prepared to meet 

 their fate, every one expecting that the ship would soon go to pieces, her rudder and part 

 of the stern-post being already beaten away." When the ship was actually sinking, it is 

 stated that no notice was taken of the prisoners, although Captain Edwards was entreated 

 by young Heywood, the midshipman, to have mercy on them, when he passed over theii 

 prison to make his own escape, the ship then lying on her broadside with the larboard 

 bow completely under water. Fortunately, the master-at-arms, either by accident, of 



