Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora | Page 9

upon the taffrail. By hugging the coast of New Guinea she would have won a clear passage through these wreck-strewn straits of Torres, but the navigators of those days counted on clear water to Endeavour Straits, and recked little of the dangers of the Great Barrier reef. Bligh, who chanced upon a passage in 12.34 S. Lat. so aptly that he called it "Providential Channel," cautioned future navigators in words that should have warned Edwards against the course he was steering. "These, however, are marks too small for a ship to hit, unless it can hereafter be ascertained that passages through the reef are numerous along the coast." Edwards was not looking for Bligh's passage, which lay more than two degrees southward of his course. He had lately adopted a most dangerous practice of running blindly on through the night. Until he made the coast of New Guinea, he had profited by the warning of Bougainville, the only navigator whose book he seems to have studied, and always lay to till daylight, but now, in the most dangerous sea in the world, he threw this obvious precaution to the wind. Hamilton, to whom we are indebted for this information (for it did not transpire at the court martial) says that "the great length of the voyage would not permit it." How fatuous a proceeding it was in unsurveyed and unknown waters may be judged from the fact that in coral seas that have been carefully surveyed all ships of war are now compelled to keep the lead going whenever they move in coral waters. On August 25th he discovered the Murray Islands, and, after spending the day in a vain attempt to force a passage through them, he followed the reef southward for two days without finding a passage. This must have brought him very near the latitude of Bligh's passage. On the morning of August 28th Lieut. Corner was sent to examine what appeared to be a channel, and an hour before dark he signalled that he had found a passage large enough for the ship. The night fell before the boat could get back, and this induced Edwards, who had already lost one boat's crew and his tender, to lie much closer to the reef than was prudent. The current did the rest. About seven the ship struck heavily, and, bumping over the reef, tore her planking so that, despite eleven hours incessant pumping, she foundered shortly after daylight. Eighty-nine of the ship's company and ten of the mutineers were picked up by the boats and landed on a sand cay four miles distant, and thirty-one sailors, and four mutineers (who went down in manacles) were drowned.
Having read the different versions of this affair both for and against Edwards, I think it is proved that, besides treating his prisoners with inhumanity, he disregarded the orders of the Admiralty. His attitude towards the prisoners was always consistent. We learn from Corner that he allowed Coleman, Norman and Mackintosh to work at the pumps, but that when the others implored him to let them out of irons he placed two additional sentries over them, and threatened to shoot the first man who attempted to liberate himself. Every allowance must be made for the fear that in the disordered state of the ship, they might have made an attempt to escape, but during the eleven hours in which the water was gaining upon the pumps there was ample time to provide for their security. That so many were saved was due, not to him, but to a boatswain's mate, who risked his own life to liberate them. Lieut. Corner, who would not have been likely to err on the side of hostility to Edwards, gives his evidence against him in this particular. But whether he is to be believed or not, the fact that four of the prisoners went down in irons is impossible to extenuate.
Edwards dismisses the boat voyage in very few words, though, in fact, it was a remarkable achievement to take four overloaded boats from the Barrier Reef to Timor without the loss of a single man. He made the coast of Queensland a little to the south of Albany Island, where the blacks first helped him to fill his water breakers, and then attacked him. He watered again at Horn Island, and then sailed through the passage which bears Flinders' name owing to the fallacy that he discovered it. After clearing the sound, he seems to have mistaken Prince of Wales' Island for Cape York, which he had left many miles behind him.
Favoured by a fair wind and a calm sea, he made the run from Flinders passage to Timor in eleven days. Like Bligh, he found that the young bore their privations better than the old,