52 WRECK OF THE PANDOKA. 
toyo, or chief friend, succeeded to his dignity 
and property, according to the established 
custom of the country. Thompson, envious 
of Churchill's honours, and angry at some 
fancied insult, took an opportunity of shoot- 
ing him. The natives rose to punish the 
murderer of their new sovereign, and stoned 
Thompson to death. This wicked man had 
before murdered a man and a child, but had 
then escaped punishment, in consequence of 
an error as to his person. Peter Heywood 
had been mistaken for him, and was on the 
point of being destroyed with an axe, when 
an old chief, who knew him, interposed, and 
saved his life. 
Captain Edwards, after many inquiries, 
could hear nothing of the Bounty, nor of the 
nine remaning mutineers. But he had on 
board fourteen prisoners, confined in a narrow 
space, which was called, " Pandora's Box." 
It was built on the after part of the quarter- 
deck, and was only eleven feet in length. 
The voyage homeward was very disastrous, 
the ship being wrecked on her return on a 
coral reef, off the coast of New Holland, on 
the 29th of August, 1791, and the crew 
