![]() John Jacob Turnstile, der einzige fiktive Charakter an Bord, ist es auch, der uns von der Reise der Bounty berichtet, und John Jacob Turnstile allein macht das Buch lesenswert: Einem so liebenswerten und unterhaltsamen Ich-Erzähler begegnet man selten. Für das jüngste Besatzungsmitglied, den Taschendieb und Lebenskünstler John Jacob Turnstile, wird er sogar zur Vaterfigur. Sein Kapitän Bligh ist ehrgeizig und überempfindlich, was seinen Status angeht, aber er ist auch ein Menschenfreund, besorgt um das Wohl seiner Mannschaft, die er vor Skorbut, Auspeitschungen und anderen typischen Übeln der Seefahrt seiner Zeit bewahren will. John Boyne erzählt eine etwas andere Geschichte. Der böse Kapitän wird auf hoher See ausgesetzt, und die Mannschaft segelt zur Belohnung ins nächste Südseeparadies. He died on December 7th 1817 at his London home.Bounty? Die Geschichte kennt man doch: Despotischer Kapitän quält tapfere Mannschaft, bis diese sich mit Gewalt wehrt. Not that this ended his illustrious career he was made an Admiral in 1814. However his strict discipline again proved difficult for people to accept, and his policy of preventing the importation of liquor provoked the ‘Rum Rebellion’: yet another mutiny then!īligh was arrested, this time by mutinous soldiers, and kept in custody until February 1809 before being sent back to England in May 1810. Meanwhile Captain Bligh prospered, and in 1805 he was appointed Governor of New South Wales in Australia. It is thought that he, along with three of the other mutineers, may have been killed by the Tahitians. It is not clear what happened to Fletcher Christian. The ones that stayed on Pitcairn Island formed a small colony and remained free under the leadership of John Adams. It is known however, that a little later some of the mutineers returned to Tahiti and were captured and punished for their crime. It is not known what happened to the ship Bounty after the mutineers reached Pitcairn Island in the South Pacific in 1790. He may have been a tyrant on-board ship but Captain Bligh was a brilliant seaman.Īfter a journey of almost 4,000 miles in an open boat, Bligh brought his men safely to shore in Timor in the East Indies, quite a staggering feat of navigation considering that they had been set adrift without charts. The result of this was that Captain Bligh and eighteen of his loyal crewmembers were put in an open boat, and set adrift in the Pacific by the mutineers. In April 1789, a mutiny involving many of the sailors took place their ringleader was Fletcher Christian. Tahiti was a beautiful place and when the time came to leave the island, the crew were understandably reluctant to say their goodbyes.įor it appears that the crew had been beguiled by the charms of the Tahitian women, (apparently Tahiti is not called the Friendly Island for nothing), which made the harsh conditions of the Bounty doubly difficult to stomach. The Bounty had orders to collect breadfruit trees from Tahiti, and take them to the West Indies as a food source for the African slaves there. To the men of the Bounty Bligh was a harsh and cruel taskmaster, and chief mate Fletcher Christian became, as did other members of the crew, increasingly mutinous over the course of their journey. He saw service in many naval battles, in 17, and in late 1787 he was chosen by Sir Joseph Banks to command HMS Bounty. He had a ‘colourful’ career, and was personally selected by Captain James Cook to be the sailing master of the Resolution on his second voyage around the world between 1772-74. William Bligh was born in Plymouth on September 9th 1754, and joined the Navy as young man aged 15. The ship was HMS Bounty and the captain, one William Bligh. The exact cause of the mutiny is unclear, but the captain’s harsh and brutal treatment of his men has been offered as a possible explanation that said, conditions on-board ships in those days were very hard. It tells the tale, which is in fact a true story, about a famous mutiny that took place in 1789 on an English ship. Back in the 1930s a blockbuster movie was made which reappears almost every year on the Christmas TV schedule.
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