LETTERS. 79 
service are so strict, that prisoners are not per- 
mitted to have any communication with female 
relations." 
Two days after writing this letter, he addressed 
the following communication to Mrs. Bligh, who 
was then in London, Captain Bligh having, at 
that time, sailed for Otaheite, on his second 
commission for bread-fruit plants. 
The reader will observe with interest the poor 
youth's allusion to his clothes, which he had left 
in London nearly five years before, and which 
he seems to have wanted in time for his trial. 
" His MAJESTY'S SHIP, Hector, PORTSMOUTH. 
July Uth, 1792. 
" DEAR MADAM, I make no doubt you have 
already heard of my arrival here as a prisoner, 
to answer for my conduct done on the day that 
unfortunate mutiny happened which deprived 
Captain Bligh of his ship, and I then feared, of 
life; but, thank God, it is otherwise, and I 
sincerely congratulate you, Madam, upon his 
safe, and almost miraculous, arrival in England. 
I hope ere this you have heard of the cause of my 
determination to remain in the ship ; which was 
unknown to Captain Bligh, who, unable to con- 
jecture the reason, did, as I have reason to fear 
(I must say, naturally), conclude, or rather sus- 
pect, me likewise to have been a coadjutor, in 
that unhappy affair. But God only knows how 
little I merited so unjust a suspicion, if such a 
suspicion ever entered his breast. My thorough 
consciousness of never having merited it, makes 
me sometimes flatter myself that he could scarcely 
