--Text from Mutiny and Romance in the South Seas: A Companion to the Bounty
Adventure by Sven Wahlroos. Used by permission. See Book
Recommendations for more information about this book.
HEYWOOD, Peter Acting midshipman on the Bounty; kept
on board against his will; survived the wreck of the Pandora;
found guilty at court-martial but recommended for mercy and pardoned;
went on to a distinguished career in the Navy.
 |
Peter Heywood
(Oil by John Simpson) |
Heywood was born in Douglas on the Isle of Man on June 6, 1772,
and was therefore fifteen years old when he was entered on the rolls
of the Bounty. He was “of excellent lineage in the north
of England” according to Lady Belcher (his later stepdaughter)
and was recommended to Bligh by Dr. Richard Betham, Bligh’s
father-in-law. On board the Bounty he ate in Christian’s
mess together with George Stewart and Robert Tinkler. Heywood and
Christian (whose family was Manx) soon became good friends.
On Tahiti, Heywood was assigned to Christian’s shore party
and thus had an excellent opportunity to compile material for the
Tahitian dictionary which would later prove so valuable to English
missionaries. He adapted quickly to the Tahitian way of life, to
the point of having himself heavily tattooed (the word tattoo, by
the way, comes from the Tahitian tata’u). During the mutiny he had run up on deck but had been ordered to
go below and was there kept under guard together with George Stewart.
From what we know today – which is more than the judges knew
at the court-martial – it is clear that Heywood had nothing
to do with the mutiny. Bligh, however, was always convinced that
Heywood not only took an active part in the mutiny but had planned
it together with Christian. Since this was a firm conviction, not
just a suspicion, it is probable that it originated in Bligh’s
feeling hurt and left out by Christian and Heywood during the stay
at Tahiti. Bligh’s description of Heywood, written after the mutiny,
reads as follows:
[PETER HEYWOOD] Midshipman, 16 years, 5 feet 7 inches high,
fair complexion, light-brown hair, well proportioned. Very much
tattooed, and on the right leg is tattooed the Legs of Man, as
the impression on that coin is. At this time he had not done growing.
He speaks with the Isle of Man accent. Heywood kept a journal which he submitted to Edwards who made
some abstracts from it. The original was lost with the Pandora,
but the abstracts have survived among Edwards papers and support
the contents of Morrison’s narrative. During his second stay on Tahiti, from Christian’s departure
to the arrival of the Pandora, Heywood wisely refrained from
taking an active part in the island’s wars. There is no doubt
that he loved the Tahitians; in a letter to his mother he later
wrote:
Whilst we remained there we were used by our Friends (the Natives)
with a Friendship, Generosity, & Humanity almost unparalleled,
being such as never was equalled by the People of any civilised
Nations, to the Disgrace of all Christians. When the Pandora arrived, he was one of the first to go
on board and – like the other loyalists – was shocked
to find himself treated as if he was a mutineer. Heywood received strong support from his family on his return
to England. His sister Nessy and his mother spared no effort in
trying to see to it that he would be acquitted and – when he
was found guilty and condemned to death – to obtain the King’s
pardon for him. Heywood’s mother had wanted to engage two of England’s
most eminent attorneys for her son’s defense, but she was advised
against it by Commodore Thomas Pasley, Peter’s uncle, who knew
the prejudice captains sitting as judges at a court-martial had
against lawyers. Pasley instead recommended a friend of his, Mr.
Aaron Graham, who had extensive experience as a judge at naval courts-martial. It may nevertheless have been a mistake, because Graham, instead
of advising Heywood to concentrate on the hard fact that he had
been kept below deck by force, suppressed Heywood’s own defense
speech and, together with his associate Mr. Const, wrote a rambling
speech which was mawkish and over-emotional and hardly likely to
have a positive influence on the captains sitting as judges. Youth
was a poor defense in any case, as shown by the fact that Ellison,
who was about the same age as Heywood, also emphasized his tender
age at the time of the mutiny and was hanged nevertheless. It is possible, however, that a different defense would not have
led to acquittal; the testimony of Hayward and Hallett – which
both afterwards said they regretted – was highly damaging and
could not be ignored by the judges. After obtaining the King’s pardon, Heywood was highly instrumental
in helping Edward Christian in his efforts to have the whole story
of the mutiny told. Although the judges at the court-martial could not ignore Hayward’s
and Hallett’s testimony, it is clear that they had a favorable
impression of Heywood. On the very day that the pardon was issued,
the President of the court-martial, Admiral Lord Hood, wrote to
Heywood’s uncle, Commodore Pasley, offering his nephew a berth
as a midshipman on board his own flagship HMS Victory. Pasley,
however, wanted Heywood on board his own ship, HMS Bellerophon. Many years later, Heywood thought he saw Fletcher Christian on
a street in Plymouth. The man had run away, however, which Christian
would hardly have done. Nevertheless, the fact that Heywood talked
about the incident with his friends has led to many fanciful speculations
concerning Christian’s supposed departure from Pitcairn and
later adventures. Heywood had a highly distinguished career in the Navy. He became
a post captain in 1803 and his rising to the rank of Admiral was
prevented only by his death on February 10, 1831, at the age of
fifty-eight (he had, however, retired from active service in 1816).
Sir John Barrow, First Secretary of the Admiralty, wrote about
Heywood: “Having reached nearly the top of the list of captains,
he died in this present year, leaving behind him a high and unblemished
character in that service, of which he was
a most honourable, intelligent, and distinguished member.”
HILLBRANT, Henry (HEILDBRANDT, Heinrich) Able-bodied seaman
and cooper on the Bounty; mutineer; stayed on Tahiti; drowned
when the Pandora foundered. Hillbrant was born in Hanover
and spoke English poorly and with a heavy accent. He was twenty-four
years old when he signed on the Bounty. Bligh’s description of Hillbrant, written after the mutiny,
reads as follows:
[HENRY HEILDBRANDT] 25 years, 5 feet 7 inches high. Fair complexion,
sandy hair, very strong made. His left arm shorter than the right,
having been broke. Is an Hanovarian and speaks bad English. He
is tattooed in several places. Hillbrant triggered Bligh’s first major temper tantrum when,
during the famous cheese incident, he said that the ship’s
clerk, John Samuel, had ordered the cheeses – which Bligh claimed
had been stolen – to be taken to the captain’s residence
before the Bounty sailed. Bligh screamed at Hillbrant that
he would get “a damn’d good flogging” if he ever
said anything like that again. Hillbrant’s role in the mutiny could not have been very active,
since his participation is not detailed in any of the accounts.
He stayed on Tahiti, as did eight of the other mutineers, taking
the chance of being discovered by a British warship. Being a skilled
craftsman, he was of great help to Morrison in building the schooner
Resolution. He also took an active part in the wars on the
island. When the Pandora arrived, Hillbrant was one of the Bounty
men who took to the mountains. Like the other, he was soon captured
and confined to “Pandora’s box,” chained to
hands and feet. On May 14, 1791, six days out of Tahiti, he asked if he could
speak with Captain Edwards. What he told him was that, the evening
before Christian had left Tahiti for good, he had told Hillbrant
his destination: an uninhabited island to the west of Danger Island
discovered by John Bryon. Edwards knew that must be Duke of York’s
Island (Atafu), but he should have known it was a ruse designed
by Christian. Nevertheless he sailed there, stopping at Aitutaki
and Palmerston on the way, all the time getting farther away from
Christian.
If Hillbrant had hoped he would get any advantage for divulging
this “secret” to Edwards, he must have been bitterly disappointed.
Not only did he remain shackled in “Pandora’s box,”
but – due to Edwards’ inhuman orders to keep the prisoners
chained while the Pandora foundered – Hillbrant went
down with the ship without a chance to save himself. His fate is
a testimony to the unspeakable callousness of the ship’s commander.
HUGGAN, Thomas Surgeon on the Bounty; died on Tahiti
December 9, 1788. Bligh had noticed Huggan’s chronic drunkenness
long before the Bounty sailed from Spithead and had tried
to have him replaced, but the Admiralty had either refused or not
been able to find a replacement. Bligh had therefore taken on board
a surgeon’s mate, Thomas Ledward, an action which showed considerable
foresight. There is little doubt that it was Huggan’s fault that able-bodied
seaman James Valentine died. Valentine had been suffering from asthma.
Huggan bled him – a common enough procedure at the time –
and the wound became infected. Evidently gangrene set in because
of mismanagement and neglect. Huggan did not even notify Bligh of
the severity of Valentine’s situation until the latter was
already on the point of death.
Huggan was very much liked by the Tahitians during the six weeks
they got to know him. As far as I can determine, he was the first
Englishman to be buried on Tahiti (Domingo de Boenechea being the
first European to be buried there, in 1775).
LAMB, Robert Able-bodied seaman and butcher on the Bounty;
loyalist; went with Bligh; died on the passage from Batavia. Lamb
was born in London and was twenty-one years old when he joined the
Bounty. On December 29, 1788, he was given a dozen lashes
for “suffering his Cleaver to be stolen” by Tahitians.
He was the only man flogged during the voyage who did not end up
as a mutineer. “End up” is the correct expression here, because Lamb
initially joined the mutineers, accepting a musket from Thompson
and standing guard over the fore hatchway, but he changed his mind
later and went into the launch. On the open-boat voyage from Tofua to Timor, an incident took
place on an island within the Great Barrier Reef which Bligh called
Lagoon Key; he describes the event as follows:
. . . three men went to the East Key to endevour to take some
birds, . . . About 12 o’clock the bird party returned with
only 12 noddys . . . but if it had not been for the obstinacy
of one of the party, who separated from the other two and putting
the birds to flight, they might have caught a great number. Thus
all my plans were totally defeated, for which on the return of
the offender I gave him a good beating – The offender was Robert Lamb, who, upon arrival in Java, confessed
that he had alone eaten nine noddies and had frightened the others
away.
Lamb died, probably from a tropical disease contracted in Batavia,
on the passage from there to Capt Town.
LEBOGUE, Lawrence Sailmaker on the Bounty; loyalist;
went with Bligh on the open-boat voyage; arrived safely in England;
sailed again with Bligh in the Providence. Lebogue was aged forty when mustering on the Bounty, one
of the oldest men in the remarkably young crew. Glynn Christian
in his book Fragile Paradise (1982) states that Lebogue was
an American from Annapolis, but I do not know his source for the
claim. There is little mention of Lebogue in the literature on the mutiny.
He seems to have been highly competent in his craft and a man who
went about his work quietly. On the open-boat voyage from Tofua to Timor, Lebogue and Ledward,
the surgeon, came close to dying. On June 10, 1789, Bligh writes:
Lawrence Lebogue and the surgeon cannot live a week longer if
I do not get relief . . . the surgeon and Lawrence Lebogue are
indeed miserable objects – I issue them a few teaspoonfull
of wine out of the little I have remaining, which may secure their
existence as long as it lasts. If the word “indomitable” has any real meaning, it would
certainly be in reference to Lebogue, because he volunteered to
sail with Bligh again, this time in the Providence on the second
breadfruit expedition. Again, he is hardly mentioned in the accounts
of the voyage, but Bligh, in a letter to Banks, writes that Lebogue
had encountered Christian’s consort on this voyage and adds:
“We were with Christian always until his last Departure, which
was sudden and unknown.” If this is true, it virtually proves that Christian did not have
a permanent attachment among the women in Tahiti at the time of
the mutiny. If the woman Lebogue met was Christian’s consort,
why had she not gone with Christian to Tubuai and later to Pitcairn? The likelihood is that Christian knew both her and Mauatua during
his first stay in Tahiti, but that no permanent attachment was formed.
George Mackaness in The Life of Vice-Admiral William Bligh
(1951), mentions that a friend of the Bligh family once looked up
Lebogue and had some grog with him. “Lebogue,” said the
friend, “this is better than being in the boat.” “Oh
d----- me,” said the sailmaker, “I never think of the
boat!”
LEDWARD, Thomas DenmanSurgeon’s mate on the Bounty; acting surgeon after Huggan’s death; loyalist; went with Bligh to Batavia; probably lost at sea during the passage from Batavia to Cape Town.
Bligh had become aware of the chronic drunkenness of his ship’s surgeon, Thomas Huggan, long before the Bounty sailed from Spithead. He tried to get him replaced, but the Admiralty either refused or could not find a replacement. Bligh then tried to procure an assistant surgeon from one of the ships anchored at Spithead and found Ledward who had just been paid off with a good character from HM frigate Nymph, commanded by Captain Albemarle Bertie, which had just been stood down while in process of refitting for sea. (Captain Bertie, by the way, would later be one of the judges at the court-martial of the accused mutineers.)
Ledward was a man who went about his duty quietly and conscientiously. His initial view of Bligh was that “though a passionate Man, [he] is I believe a good-hearted Man, and has behaved very handsomely to me.” By the time the loyalists reached Batavia, however, he resented what he saw as his pettiness and self-interest in not being willing to advance him money save on very stringent terms (see Ledward’s letter in the November 1789 commentary).
Opposite the name Thomas Ledward the following note is written in the muster book of the Bounty: “17th Nov., 1789. Embarked on board the Rotterdam Welfare. Q. What became of him?”
The likelihood is that Ledward was lost when the Welfare (or more properly Rotterdams Welvaren, Captain Willem Jakob Rudde) went down with all 101 crew and passengers on board en route to Cape Town. His letter from Batavia suggests this since endorsed either by the recipient (his uncle) or another member of the family “Poor, unfortunate Thos. Ledward.” An erroneous belief (see Gavin Kennedy, Bligh, 1978) that he may have been surgeon on Vancouver’s Discovery from 1791 to 1795 is based on confusing him with Thomas Laithwood or Lathwood, a carpenter’s mate who fulfilled the role of surgeon’s mate later in that voyage.
Nordhoff and Hall use Ledward as the narrator for their epic story of the open-boat voyage, Men Against the Sea. [Note: this entry has been updated based on information provided by Dr. Pieter van der Merwe at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, UK, March 2017].
LINKLETTER, (Lenkletter), Peter Quartermaster on the Bounty;
loyalist; went with Bligh; died in Batavia. Linkletter was born
in Shetland and was thirty years old when he joined the Bounty. Linkletter is not mentioned much in the literature on the mutiny.
We do know that he belonged to the “anti-Bligh group”
among the men in the Bounty’s launch. According to Alexander
McKee in HMS Bounty (1962), Linkletter and Purcell had both
seen Bligh appropriate extra rations for himself during the voyage
and told Bligh so to his face. Bligh retaliated by imprisoning them
on a ship in the harbor of Coupang.
Linkletter died of a tropical disease (probably malaria) in Batavia
within a fortnight after Bligh’s departure for England.
MARTIN, Isaac Able-bodied seaman on the Bounty; mutineer;
went with Christian; died on Pitcairn. Martin was born in Philadelphia
and was probably American. “Probably,” because there is
also a small English community near Durham called Philadelphia.
He was thirty years old when he signed on the Bounty. Bligh’s
description of Martin, written after the mutiny, reads as follows:
[ISAAC MARTIN] 30 years, 5 feet, 11 inches high. Sallow complexion,
short brown hair, raw-boned. Tattooed on his left breast, with
a star. Martin was flogged on Tahiti for striking a native. Bligh’s
orders to the men were of the “damned if you do and damned
if you don’t” variety. A man would be flogged if he let
a native steal something, but would also be flogged if he struck
one of the thieves. The latter was the case with Martin: he had
struck a Tahitian in his effort to get back an iron hoop that the
islander had stolen. Bligh sentenced him to twenty-four lashes but
reduced them to nineteen after chief Teina and his wife Itia had
interceded on Martin’s behalf. A British sailor accepted even severe punishment if he considered
it just and did not think less of his commander for it. But if the
punishment was unfair, as in Martin’s case, it must have left
a lingering resentment. During the subsequent mutiny Martin vacillated.
He was in Christian’s watch and the first man that Christian
approached with his plan to take over the ship. Martin refused cooperation.
However, after Christian had succeeded in talking Quintal and Churchill
into the idea, Martin changed his mind and joined the mutineers. When Bligh was under guard on the quarterdeck, Martin fed him
with a shaddock to relieve his parched mouth with its juice. Bligh
later wrote:
Isaac Martin, one of the guard, I saw I had brought to a sense
of his duty, and as he fed me with shaddock . . . we explained
to each other by our eyes reciprocally our wishes. This was, however,
observed, and Martin was instantly removed from me whose inclination
then was to leave the ship, but for a threat of instant death
if he did not return out of the boat. It is possible, even probable, that Martin would not have vacillated,
and would have remained a loyalist had it not been for the unfair
punishment he had been subjected to in full view of the Tahitians
(during an era when a white man’s prestige had to be preserved
at all times). As it was, he would have remained in the boat if
Churchill and Quintal had not threatened to shoot him unless the
came back on board. At Tubuai Martin voted with Christian and joined him on the quest
which would finally lead to Pitcairn.
Martin’s consort was Teehuteatuaonoa; she had no children
with him. On Massacre Day, September 20, 1793, he was the fourth
mutineer to be killed by the Polynesians.
McCOY (Mickoy, McKoy), William Able-bodied seaman on the
Bounty; mutineer; went with Christian; died on Pitcairn.
The spelling McCoy has been used throughout this book, because that
is how the descendants spell it. In the muster book of the Bounty,
however, the name is spelled Mickoy. McCoy was twenty-three years old when he joined the Bounty.
Together with his buddy Matthew Quintal, he had transferred from
HMS Triumph. He was a violent man and had been involved in
many fights, as evidenced by several scars on his body and face.
His physical description, given by Bligh after the mutiny, reads
as follows:
[WILLIAM MICKOY] seaman, aged 25 years, 5 feet 6 inches high,
fair complexion, light brown hair, strong made; a scar where he
has been stabbed in the belly, and a small scar under his chin;
is tatowed in different parts of his body. The first significant mention we have of McCoy in the Bounty
literatures is that Bligh, in one of his hysterical outbursts, threatened
to shoot him if he did not pay attention (to Bligh’s incoherent
tirade). This was right after the Bounty had left Nomuka,
in other words, shortly before the mutiny. McCoy was one of the first to join Christian and took an active
part in the mutiny. On Tubuai he voted with Christian and went with
him to Pitcairn. McCoy was one of the three mutineers (the others were Brown and
Williams) who, with three Polynesians, went ashore with Christian
to explore the island. His consort was Teio whom he called Mary
and with whom he had two children, Daniel and Kate. He and Quintal
were notorious for the brutality with which they treated the Polynesians. On Massacre Day, September 20, 1793, McCoy narrowly escaped being
murdered and, together with Quintal, fled to the mountains. Together
they killed Manarii after he had joined them (see the September
1793 commentary in Part I). Once they had received proof of the
death of the remaining Polynesians, they rejoined the village.
McCoy had worked in a brewery in Glasgow and, after much experimentation,
he succeeded in distilling a strong liquor from the ti-root. The
first bottle was ready for consumption on April 20, 1797. This introduced
an era of wild drunkenness on the island. McCoy, especially, became
totally addicted to the “Demon’s Rum” and developed
delirium tremens. Before the end of the year he was dead; during
one of his attacks he tied a stone around his neck and jumped to
his death from a precipice.
McINTOSH, Thomas Carpenter’s crew on board the Bounty;
loyalist; kept on board against his will; survived the wreck of
the Pandora; acquitted at court-martial. McIntosh was born in North Shields and was twenty-six years old
when he joined the Bounty. The description Bligh later gave
of him reads as follows:
[THOMAS McINTOSH] Carpenter’s Crew. 28 years, 5 feet 6
inches high. Fair complexion, light-brown hair, slender made.
Pitted by smallpox. McIntosh and Norman were kept on board the Bounty by Christian
who needed their skills as carpenters; he did not want to force
the dour and strong-willed Purcell to remain. Neither one had taken
part in the mutiny, and both called out to Bligh to remember that
they were kept on board against their will. McIntosh had a woman on Tahiti whom he called Mary. Mary followed
him to Tubuai and back and bore him a daughter. When Christian left
with the Bounty, McIntosh was the first one that Morrison
approached with his plan to build a ship and he, together with Norman,
were of invaluable help in carrying through with the project. When the Pandora arrived, McIntosh was the only loyalist
who ran up into the mountains to hide with the mutineers. We will
never know why. Perhaps he had become attached to his wife and daughter
and wanted to remain on Tahiti. His attempted escape evidently did not count against him. He was
one of the three prisoners on the Pandora who were released
to work the pumps when the ship struck the reef and, once back in
England, he did not experience any significant trouble in being
acquitted at the court-martial. When Bligh returned to Tahiti on the second breadfruit expedition,
he was approached by “Mary,” McIntosh’s consort,
who showed him a beautiful little girl, about eighteen months old,
whose name was Elizabeth and who was McIntosh’s daughter. Whether
Bligh ever tried to let his former crew-member know about this encounter
when he returned to England, is unknown. It seems most unlikely;
Bligh could be sentimental about himself but he had little understanding
of the feelings of others.
I do not know what happened to McIntosh after the court-martial.
MILLS, John Gunner’s mate on the Bounty; mutineer;
went with Christian; was killed on Pitcairn. Mills was born in Aberdeen.
David Silverman in Pitcairn Island (1967) writes:
The few scraps of Mills’ pre-“Bounty”
history gleaned from the record suggests a sadistic bully-boy.
On the “Mediator,” under Collingwood, Mills was known
to send midshipmen on fools’ errands in order to steal their
food. Once he extracted tribute for retrieving a midshipman’s
cap from the pump well where he had got the mess boy to hide it. Captain Bligh described Mills’ physical appearance as follows:
[JOHN MILLS] gunner’s mate, aged 40 years, 5 feet 10 inches
high, fair complexion, light brown hair, strong made, and raw
boned; a scar on his right arm-pit, occasioned by an abscess. Mills was one of the oldest men on board the Bounty. On
October 19, 1788, he and William Brown, the gardener, had refused
to dance (the daily exercise ordered by Bligh) and had had their
grog ration stopped as a consequence. Apart from that incident,
there is hardly any mention of Mills in the Bounty literature
until the day of the mutiny. Mills was in Christian’s watch on that fateful morning, conning
the ship with Ellison at the helm. He was one of the men who went
below with Christian to arrest Bligh. On Tubuai, Mills was one of the eight mutineers who voted with
Christian and who later sailed with him to Pitcairn. He could hardly
have felt much loyalty to Christian, however, because while the
latter was ashore exploring the island, he suggested that those
aboard the Bounty make sail for Tahiti and leave Christian
and those who had gone ashore with him to their fate. Mills was one of the mutineers who treated the Polynesians brutally.
His consort was Vahineatua whom he called Prudence and with whom
he had two children, Elizabeth and John Jr. On Massacre Day, September 20, 1793, Mills was the third of the
mutineers to be killed.
John Mills Jr. fell from a steep precipice and died when he was
twenty-one years old. He had not been married, so the name Mills
died out on Pitcairn.
Elizabeth Young, daughter of John Mills, was born in 1792 and
witnessed the murder of Quintal in 1799. She migrated to Tahiti
in 1831 and to Norfolk in 1856, but she returned to, and died on,
Pitcairn at the age of ninety-one on November 6, 1883. She was the
last of the second generation descendants of the mutineers.
[HMS (HMAV) Bounty] [Crew List] | 
