The Mutiny of the Bounty | Page 2

commerce, and the increase and diffusion of
knowledge.' This excellent monarch was himself no mean proficient in
the science of geography; and it may be doubted if any one of his
subjects, at the period alluded to, was in possession of so extensive or
so well-arranged a cabinet of maps and charts as his was, or who
understood their merits or their defects so well as he did.

The first expeditions that were sent forth, after the conclusion of the
war, were those of Byron, Wallis, and Carteret. In the instructions to
the first of these commanders it is said, 'there is reason to believe that
lands and islands of great extent, hitherto unvisited by any European
power, may be found in the Atlantic Ocean, between the Cape of Good
Hope and the Magellanic Strait, within the latitudes convenient for
navigation, and in climates adapted to the produce of commodities
useful in commerce.' It could not require much knowledge or
consideration to be assured that, between the Cape and the Strait,
climates producing commodities useful in commerce, with the
exception of whales and seals, were likely to be found. The fact was
that, among the real objects of this and other subsequent voyages, there
was one which had engaged the attention of certain philosophers, from
the time of the Spanish navigator, Quiros: this able navigator had
maintained that a Terra Australis incognita must necessarily exist,
somewhere in the high latitudes of the southern hemisphere, to
counterbalance the great masses of land in those of the northern one,
and thus maintain a just equipoise of the globe.
While these expeditions were in progress, the Royal Society, in 1768,
addressed an application to the king, praying him to appoint a ship of
war to convey to the South Seas Mr. Alexander Dalrymple (who had
adopted the opinion of Quiros), and certain others, for the main purpose,
however, of observing the transit of Venus over the sun's disc, which
was to happen in the year 1769. By the king's command, a bark of three
hundred and seventy tons was taken up by the Admiralty to perform
this service, but, as Mr. Dalrymple was a civilian, he could not be
entrusted with the command of the ship, and on that account declined
going in her.
The command was therefore conferred on Lieutenant James Cook, an
officer of undoubted ability, and well versed in astronomy and the
theory and practice of navigation, with whom the Royal Society
associated Mr. Charles Green, who had long been assistant to Dr.
Bradley, the astronomer royal, to aid him in the observation of the
transit. Mr. Banks, a private gentleman of good fortune, who afterwards
became the valuable and distinguished President of the Royal Society,

and Dr. Solander, a Swedish gentleman of great acquirements,
particularly in natural history, accompanied Lieutenant Cook on this
interesting voyage. The islands of Marquesas de Mendoza, or those of
Rotterdam or Amsterdam, were proposed by the Royal Society as
proper places for making the observation. While fitting out, however,
Captain Wallis returned from his expedition, and strongly
recommended as most suitable for the purpose, Port Royal Harbour, on
an island he had discovered, to which he had given the name of 'King
George's Island,' and which has since been known by its native name,
Otaheite or Tahite.[1]
This lovely island is most intimately connected with the mutiny which
took place on board the Bounty, and with the fate of the mutineers and
their innocent offspring. Its many seducing temptations have been
urged as one, if not the main, cause of the mutiny, which was supposed,
at least by the commander of that ship, to have been excited by--
Young hearts which languish'd for some sunny isle, Where summer
years, and summer women smile, Men without country, who, too long
estranged, Had found no native home, or found it changed, And, half
uncivilized, preferr'd the cave Of some soft savage to the uncertain
wave.
It may be proper, therefore, as introductory to the present narrative, to
give a general description of the rich and spontaneous gifts which
Nature has lavished on this once 'happy island;'--of the simple and
ingenuous manners of its natives,--and of those allurements which were
supposed, erroneously however, to have occasioned the unfortunate
catastrophe alluded to;--to glance at
The nymphs' seducements and the magic bower,
as they existed at the period of the first intercourse between the
Otaheitans and the crews of those ships, which carried to their shores,
in succession, Wallis, Bougainville, and Cook.
The first communication which Wallis had with these people was
unfortunately of a hostile nature. Having approached with his ship

close to the shore, the usual symbol of peace and friendship, a branch
of the plantain tree, was held up by a native in one of the numerous
canoes that