THE TRANSPLANTATION OF THE BREAD-FRUIT TREE—THE VOYAGE OF THE BOUNTY—A MUTINY—BLIGH, THE CAPTAIN, WITH EIGHTEEN MEN, CAST ADRIFT IN THE LAUNCH—INCIDENTS OF THE VOYAGE FROM TAHITI TO TIMOR—TERRIBLE SUFFERINGS AND A MARVELLOUS ESCAPE—ARRIVAL OF THE MUTINEERS AT TAHITI—THEIR REMOVAL TO PITCAIRN's ISLAND—SUBSEQUENT HISTORY—VOYAGE OF VANCOUVER—ALGERINE PIRACY—BURNING OF THE PHILADELPHIA—PROUD POSITION OF THE UNITED STATES.

In the year 1787, the merchants and planters of England, interested in his Majesty's West India possessions, petitioned the king to cause the bread-fruit tree to be introduced into these islands; and, in accordance with this request, the armed transport Bounty, of two hundred and fifteen tons, was purchased and docked at Deptford to be furnished with the proper fixtures. Lieutenant William Bligh, who had been round the world with Cook, was appointed to command her. Her cabin was fitted with a false floor cut full of holes sufficient to receive one thousand or more garden-pots. She was victualled for fifteen months, and laden with trinkets for the South Sea Islanders. Her destination was Tahiti by way of Cape Horn. She sailed late in December, 1787.

After a three months' tempestuous passage, she made the eastern coast of Terra del Fuego. She contended thirty days here with violent westerly gales, seeking either to thread the strait or double the cape. Finding either course impossible, Bligh ordered the helm to be put a-weather, having resolved to cross the South Atlantic and approach Tahiti from the westward,—a determination which was successfully executed.

Bligh gave directions to all on board not to inform the natives of the object of their visit, lest, by the natural law of supply and demand, the price-current of bread-fruit trees should suddenly rise. He contrived to make the chiefs believe that he was doing them a favor in conveying specimens of their plants to the great King of England. A tent was erected on shore to receive the trees, some thirty of which were potted every day. On the 4th of April, 1789, the vessel set sail, with one thousand and fifteen roots in pots, tubs, and boxes.

It was now that an event took place which rendered the cruise of the Bounty one of the most extraordinary in the annals of the sea. A mutiny, which had been planned in secrecy, broke out on the 27th. The whole crew were engaged in it, with the exception of eighteen men. Bligh, with these eighteen,—most of them officers,—was hurried into the launch, which was cut loose, with one hundred and fifty pounds of bread, twenty-eight gallons of water, a little rum and wine, with a quadrant and compass. A few pieces of pork, some cocoanuts, and four cutlasses, were thrown at them as they were cast adrift. Some of the mutineers laughed at the helpless condition of the launch; while others expressed their confidence in Bligh's resources by exclaiming, with oaths, "Pshaw! he'll find his way home if you give him pencil and paper!" "Blast him! he'll have a vessel built in a month!"

Bligh was convinced that, defenceless and unarmed as they were, they had nothing to hope from the inhabited islands of the surrounding waters. He told the crew that no chance of relief remained except at Timor, where there was a Dutch colony, at a distance of three thousand five hundred miles. They all agreed, and bound themselves by a solemn promise, to live upon one ounce of bread and a gill of water a day. They then bore away across this unknown and barbarous sea, in a boat twenty-three feet long from stem to stern, deep-laden with nineteen men, and barely supplied with food for two. There is nothing in maritime annals more worthy of a place in a work treating of "Man upon the Sea" than is this marvellous voyage from Tahiti to Timor.

The first thing done was to return thanks to God for their preservation and to invoke His protection during the perils they were to encounter. The sun now rose fiery and red, foreboding a severe gale, which, before long, blew with extreme severity. The sea curled over the stern, obliging them to bale without cessation. The bread was in bags, and in danger of being soaked and spoiled. Unless this could be prevented, starvation was inevitable. Every thing was thrown overboard that could be spared,—even to suits of clothes: the bread was then secured in the carpenter's chest. A teaspoonful of rum and a fragment of bread-fruit—collected from the floor of the boat, where it had been crushed in the confusion of departure—was now served to each man.

They constantly passed in sight of islands, upon which they did not dare to land. They kept on, alternately performing prayers, dining on damaged bread, and sipping infinitesimal quantities of rum or other cordial. On grand occasions, Bligh served out as the day's allowance a quarter of a pint of cocoanut-milk and two ounces of the meat. One half of the men watched while the other half slept with nothing to cover them but the heavens. They could not stretch out their limbs, for there was not room: they became dreadfully cramped, and at last the dangers and pains of sleep were such that it became an additional misery in their catalogue of sorrows. A heavy thunder-shower enabled them to quench their thirst for the first time and to increase their stock of water to thirty-four gallons; but, in compensation, it wet them through and caused them to pass a cold and shivering night. The next day the sun came out, and they stripped and dried their clothes. Bligh thought the men needed additional creature comfort under these dismal circumstances, and issued to each an ounce and a half of pork, an ounce of bread, a teaspoonful of rum, and half a pint of cocoanut-milk. They kept a fishing-line towing from the stern; but in no one instance did they catch a fish.

Bligh now became convinced that in serving ounces of bread by guess-work he was dealing out overmeasure, and that if he continued to do so his stores would not last the eight weeks he had intended they should. So he made a pair of scales of two cocoanut-shells, and, having accidentally found a pistol-ball, twenty-five of which were known to weigh a pound, or sixteen ounces, he adopted it as the measure of one ration of bread. The men were thus reduced from one ounce to two hundred and seventy-two grains. Another thunder-shower now came on, and they caught twenty gallons of water. The usual consolation of a thimbleful of rum was served when the storm was over, together with one mouthful of pork. The men soon began to complain of pains in the bowels; and nearly all had lost in a measure the use of their limbs. Their clothes would not dry when taken off and hung upon the rigging, so impregnated was the atmosphere with moisture. On the fifteenth day they discovered a number of islands, which, though forming part of the group of the New Hebrides, had been seen neither by Cook nor Bougainville, and thus, in the midst of their agonies, the barren satisfaction of contributing to geographical science was, as it were in derision, awarded to them. The men now clamored for extra allowances of pork and rum,—which Bligh sternly refused, administering his bullet-weight of bread with the severest ceremony.

"At dawn of the twenty-second day," says Bligh, "some of my people seemed half dead: our appearances were horrible, and I could look no way but I caught the eye of some one in distress. Extreme hunger was now too evident; but no one suffered from thirst, nor had we much inclination to drink,—that desire, perhaps, being satisfied through the skin. Every one dreaded the approach of night. Sleep, though we longed for it, afforded no comfort: for my own part, I almost lived without it." Bligh now examined the remaining bread, and found sufficient to last for twenty-nine days; but, as he might be compelled to avoid Timor and go to Java, it became necessary to make the stock hold out for forty days. He therefore announced that supper would hereafter be served without bread!

A great event happened on the twenty-seventh day. A noddy—a bird as large as a small pigeon—was caught as it flew past the boat. Bligh divided it, with the entrails, into nineteen portions, and distributed it by lots. It was eaten, bones and all, with salt water for sauce. The next day a booby—which is as large as a duck—was caught, and was divided and devoured like the noddy, even to the entrails, beak, and feet. The blood was given to three of the men who were the most distressed for want of food. On the thirtieth day they landed upon the northern shore of New Holland, and gave thanks to God for his gracious protection through a series of disasters and calamities then almost unparalleled.

They found oysters upon the rocks, which they opened without detaching them. A fire was made by the help of a magnifying-glass; and then, with the aid of a copper pot found in the boat, a delicious stew of oysters, pork, bread, and cocoanut was cooked, of which every man received a full pint. Spring water was obtained by digging where a growth of wire grass indicated a moist situation. The soft tops of palm-trees and fern-roots furnished them a very palatable addition to their mess: After laying in sixty gallons of water and as many oysters as they could collect, they re-embarked, after having slept two nights on land and having been greatly benefited thereby. Keeping to the northwestward, and coasting along the shore, they landed from time to time in search of food. On the 2d of June, the watch of the gunner, which had been the only one in the company successfully to resist the influences of the weather, finally stopped, so that sunrise, noon, and sunset were now the only definite points in the twenty-four hours. On the next day, having followed the northeastern shore of New Holland as far as it lay in their route, they once more launched into the open sea.

On Thursday, the 11th, they passed, as Bligh supposed, the meridian of the eastern point of Timor,—a fact which diffused universal joy and satisfaction. On Friday, at three in the morning, the island was faintly visible in the west, and by daylight it lay but five miles to the leeward. They had run three thousand six hundred and eighteen miles in an open boat in forty-one days, with provisions barely sufficient for five. Though life had never been sustained upon so little nourishment for so long a time, and under equal circumstances of exposure and suffering, not a man perished during the voyage. Their wants were most kindly supplied by the Dutch at Coupang, and every necessary and comfort administered with a most liberal hand.

On his return to England, Bligh published a narrative of his voyage and of the mutiny, which was soon translated into all the languages of Europe. He ascribed the revolt to the desire of the crew to lead an idle and luxurious life at Tahiti, though subsequent developments, and his own outrageous and brutal conduct when Governor of New South Wales, proved quite conclusively that his cruelties and tyranny had rendered him odious and intolerable. The British Government could not allow such a transaction upon the high seas to pass unpunished, and despatched the frigate Pandora, Captain Edwards, to Tahiti in the month of August. Only ten of the mutineers were found, the rest having withdrawn to another island through fear of discovery, as we shall now relate, merely stating that the ten persons taken were conveyed to England, where they were tried and executed.

John Adams, one of the mutineers, being apprehensive that the English Government would make an attempt to punish the revolt, resolved to escape to some neighboring and uninhabited island, and there establish a colony. With eight Englishmen, one of whom was Christian, the ringleader in the mutiny, their Tahitian wives, and a few islanders of both sexes, he sailed in the Bounty to Pitcairn's Island, which had been lately seen by Carteret. They arrived there in 1790, and, having unladen the vessel, burned her. A settlement was formed, which prospered in spite of the continual quarrels between the males of the two races. This hostility resulted, in three years, in the extinction of the savages, leaving upon the island Adams, three Englishmen, ten women of Tahiti, and the children, some twenty in number. One of the Englishmen, having succeeded in distilling brandy from a root which grew in abundance, drank to excess and threw himself headlong from a rock into the sea. Another was slain for entertaining designs upon the wife of the only remaining Englishman except Adams. Thus, in 1799, Adams and Young were the only males of the original colony surviving. They began to reflect upon their duties toward their children and those of their companions: they commenced holding religious services morning and evening, and instructed the rising generation in such rudimental branches of education as their own learning would permit. Young died in 1801, and Adams became the administrator and patriarch of the colony. He was assisted by the Tahitian women, who showed a remarkable capacity for civilization and aptitude for refinement. An English frigate, the Briton, touched at Pitcairn in 1814, and her captain offered to take Adams back to England, promising him to procure his pardon from the king. But the forty-seven persons, women and children, forming the settlement, besought their patriarch not to leave them. In 1825, Captain Beechey visited the island, and found the population increased to sixty-six. Adams was sixty years old, but still vigorous and active. He begged Beechey to marry him, according to the rites of the English Church, to the woman with whom he had lived, and who was now infirm and blind. Beechey gladly acceded to the request. Soon after, an English missionary, named Buffet, went out to Pitcairn to assist Adams in the discharge of his duties and to succeed him upon his death. The latter event occurred in 1829. Vessels occasionally stopped at Pitcairn, and the English Government was thus kept informed of the progress of its interesting colony.

In 1856, the descendants of the original settlers, having increased so much as to outgrow the resources of their sea-girt home, abandoned Pitcairn's Island, and transferred themselves, with their goods and chattels, to Norfolk Island, directly west and toward New South Wales. They numbered one hundred and ninety-nine in all, the oldest man being sixty-two, and the oldest woman eighty. Charles Christian is the grandson of Christian the ringleader. Their new home contains about fourteen thousand acres, and is well watered, fertile, and healthy, the soil producing abundantly both European and tropical fruits, vegetables, grains, and spices. The history of the present colony, the offspring in the third generation of European fathers and Tahitian mothers, is as remarkable as any tale in romance or any legend in mythology.

In the year 1790,—to return to chronological order,—the British Government determined to make one more attempt to discover a channel of communication between the Atlantic and Pacific to the north of the American continent, and selected to command the expedition Lieutenant George Vancouver, who had accompanied Cook on his second and third voyages. He was raised to the rank of captain and placed at the head of an expedition consisting of the sloop-of-war Discovery and the armed tender Chatham. He left Falmouth on the 1st of April, 1791; and, as the Admiralty had designated no route by which to proceed to the Pacific, he decided to go by way of the Cape of Good Hope. He arrived here without adventure in July, and, late in September, struck the southern coast of New Holland at a cape to which he gave the name of Chatham, from the President of the Board of Admiralty.

The two vessels coasted to the eastward, surveying the indentations and giving names to all points of interest. A harbor being discovered, it received the name of King George the Third's Sound, and Vancouver took possession of the land in the name of his Gracious Majesty. A wretched hovel, three feet high, in the form of a bee-hive cut through the centre from the apex to the base, and constructed of slender twigs, here revealed the presence of inhabitants; while the singular appearance of the trees and the vegetation, which had evidently undergone the action of fire,—the shrubs being completely charred and the grass having been shrivelled by the heat,—showed that, miserable as they certainly were, they were acquainted with the uses and abuses of fire. At last they discovered a deserted village, consisting of some two dozen huts or hives, which had apparently been the residence of a considerable tribe. They gratified their curiosity by contemplating and investigating these humiliating efforts of human ingenuity.

Continuing to the eastward, Vancouver touched at New Zealand, and arrived at a spot where he had been with Cook eighteen years before. An inlet which Cook had been unable to explore, and which he had named in consequence "Nobody knows what," was explored by Vancouver and called by him "Somebody knows what." Running to the north, he discovered an island whose inhabitants spoke the language of the great South Sea nation and who seemed perfectly acquainted with the uses of iron, though they had little or none of that metal. A Sandwich Islander, whom Vancouver had brought from London as an interpreter, and who was named Towerezoo, was of very little assistance; for he had been so long absent that he now spoke English much better than his mother-tongue, and spoke the latter no better than Vancouver. The island appeared to go by the name of Oparo, by which Vancouver thought fit to distinguish it till it should be found more properly entitled to another. The two vessels arrived in December at Tahiti, and anchored in Matavai Bay. The chronometers were landed, in order to correct them by the known longitude of the island; the sails were unbent, the topmasts struck, for a thorough examination of the rigging. The Discovery went by accident upon a rock, and was for a while in great danger. On Sunday, the 1st of January, 1792, every one had as much fresh pork and plum-pudding as he could eat, and a double allowance of grog was served in which to drink the time-honored toast. The formula, however, was slightly altered to suit the state of the case: the gunner of the Discovery being the only married man of the party, the toast given was Sweethearts and Wife!

On the 24th of January, the two ships turned their head to the northward, now for the first time commencing the voyage in view of which the expedition had been equipped. They ran the two thousand five hundred miles that lay between them and the Sandwich Islands in the space of five weeks, and anchored off Owhyhee on the 1st of March. They touched the American coast, or that part of it known as New Albion, in 39° north latitude, which Vancouver now explored and surveyed. In August he entered Nootka, where, in accordance with his instructions, he was to receive from the Spanish authorities the formal cession of the colony they had established. He found his Catholic Majesty's brig Active already there, commanded by SeÑor Don Juan Francisco de la Rodega y Quadra. The two commanders agreed to honor each other by a mutual salute of thirteen guns, which was done; while other courtesies were cordially exchanged. The ceremony then took place. Vancouver now returned to Owhyhee, and the king, smitten by a sudden and vehement attachment for the English, proposed to make over the island to the dominion of the King of England. All the insular dignitaries assembled on the decks of the Discovery, and the surrender was made in the midst of speeches and cannonades. Vancouver did not seem to have been deeply impressed with the importance of this event. The solemnity of the transaction was not increased by the circumstance that it took place upon the spot where Cook had so recently been massacred.

Returning to the north, Vancouver continued his surveys and explorations of the American coast as far as the fifty-sixth degree of latitude. He terminated his operations on the 22d of August, at Port Conclusion, where an additional allowance of grog was served, that the day might be celebrated with proper festivity. He returned to Europe with the certitude that no passage existed from the North Pacific across the American continent into the Atlantic. His surveys remain as a monument of his activity, skill, and perseverance. The present charts of the coast of North America upon the Pacific are based upon them. More than nine thousand miles of shore, with its headlands, capes, rivers, bays, promontories, and labyrinths of islands, had been carefully explored by surveying parties in boats, in superintending which Vancouver injured his health and brought on the decline which terminated in his death, in the year 1798, at the early age of forty-eight.

We have now to record the remarkable series of acts by which the United States of America, in the twenty-fifth year of their existence as a nation, put an end to a humiliation to which the commercial powers of Europe had submitted for centuries. From the time when the Spanish Moors, driven out of Granada by Ferdinand the Catholic, settled on the opposite coast and commenced the practice of piracy, the Barbary States, Tunis, Tripoli, and Algiers, had been united against all Christian commerce in the Mediterranean. Emboldened by impunity, they extended their operations into the Atlantic, seizing the vessels of all nations who did not pay them tribute. England under Cromwell, and France under Louis XIV., however, caused their flags to be respected. The Dutch, Danes, and Swedes, by paying an annual tax, purchased exemption from seizure,—thus giving the sanction of a treaty to the outrage and consenting to wear an odious badge of servitude. Russia and Austria were protected by special agreements.

During the early years of the American Republic, Tripoli intimated to the Government the propriety of paying tribute. Jefferson replied, in 1800, by declaring war against Tripoli, and sent out an armed naval force under Commodore Dale. This officer, with two frigates and a sloop-of-war, blockaded Tripoli, preventing the cruisers from getting to sea, and thus protecting our commerce. Commodore Preble followed with seven vessels in 1803. In October, one of his ships,—the Philadelphia, Captain Bainbridge,—engaged in reconnoitring the harbor of Tripoli, grounded and was forced to surrender. The officers were treated as prisoners of war, the sailors as slaves. The vessel was floated and moored in the harbor, strongly manned by Tripolitans, whose naval force was thus unexpectedly augmented.

The American squadron rendezvoused at Syracuse, in Sicily,—somewhat over a day's sail from Tripoli. A young lieutenant under Preble, named Decatur, formed a plan for destroying the Philadelphia and thus reducing the Tripolitans again to their ordinary naval strength. Preble consented to the scheme, and Decatur armed a ketch which he had captured, and with it entered, in February, 1804, under cover of the night, the harbor of Tripoli. He had with him an old pilot who spoke the Tripolitan language. On approaching the Philadelphia, they were challenged; but the pilot replied that he had lost his anchor and merely wished to fasten his vessel to the frigate till morning. A boat was sent ashore by the Tripolitans to ask permission, and then Decatur and his men leaped upon the deck. They rushed upon the affrighted corsairs, fifty in number, and drove them into the sea. They set fire to the Philadelphia, and, by the light of the blaze, escaped without the loss of a single man. One sailor was wounded by receiving upon his arm a blow from a sabre with which the turbaned pirate meant to decapitate Decatur.

The Tripolitans were enraged at the loss of their prize, and treated Bainbridge and his enslaved crew with greater severity than ever. Three times did Preble enter the harbor of Tripoli with his fleet and open his broadsides against the town, destroying some of the shipping, but making no material impression. At last, a series of brilliant actions upon land under General Eaton, whose army consisted of nine Americans, twenty Greeks, and five hundred Egyptians, and the arrival of the frigate Constitution in June, 1805, forced the Bashaw of Tripoli to come to terms; and he released his prisoners and abandoned forever the levying of tribute upon American ships. Peace was at once concluded.

In 1812, the United States being at war with England, the Dey of Algiers thought our Government would be unable to cope with two enemies upon the ocean, and determined to resume piracy on our vessels. He pretexted the unsatisfactory quality of a cargo of military stores furnished by our Government, and ordered the American agent to leave the capital. Depredations were immediately recommenced: our vessels were plundered and confiscated and their crews enslaved. The President suggested the importance of taking measures of prevention, in his message to Congress in December, 1814, and, after the signing of the treaty of peace with England, despatched two squadrons to the Mediterranean, under Decatur and Bainbridge, both now commodores. The former captured, in June, an Algerine frigate of forty-four guns and a brig of twenty-two. He then sailed for Algiers. The American navy had earned an enviable distinction in the war with England, and the sight of our gallant fleet inspired the Dey with a salutary terror. He consented to the terms imposed by Decatur, which were to give up all captured men and property, to pay six million dollars for previous exactions, and to exempt our commerce from tribute for all time to come. A treaty was signed on the 4th of July,—an auspicious date for so honorable an achievement.

The proud position thus attained by the United States attracted the attention of Europe. Our Government had extorted expressions of submission from the corsairs such as no other power had ever obtained. The Congress of Vienna discussed the subject, and it was resolved that from that time forward Christian slavery in Algiers was suppressed. The English sent Lord Exmouth to bombard that city, and compelled the dey to submit to conditions like those imposed by Decatur. The Algerines were not yet broken, however. They placed their city in a formidable state of defence, and then proceeded to intercept the trade of the French. The French Government declared war,—a measure which resulted in the capture of Algiers in 1830 and in the seizure of Abd-el-Kader in the winter of 1847-48. These events have led to the colonization of the territory by the French and to the partial extinction of the Algerine people. Piracy in the Mediterranean may safely be said to be at an end forever.