Lieutenant William Bligh, Captain of His
Majesty's Armed Transport Bounty, had at age 24, served as Captain
Cook's sailing master. Nine years later he returned to the Pacific on a mission
to transport breadfruit plants to the West Indies, where it might be grown as
food for plantation slaves.
The Polynesian breadfruit tree does not produce viable seeds,
but must be propagated by transplanting young plants which sprout from the
roots of a mature tree.
Bounty was only 91 feet long, and the ship's company of
46 was further crowded by a large space designed for carrying the plants. After
enduring weeks of gales and heavy seas in an unsuccessful attempt to get into
the Pacific by rounding Cape Horn, Bligh turned his battered ship downwind and
ran for the Pacific across the South Atlantic and the Indian Ocean, arriving in
Tahiti after a ten month voyage with his men surly over the bad food and
Bligh's frequent ill temper.
In the painting, Bounty coasts off Tahiti, passing a
Tahitian sailing canoe headed the other way. The painting is based on the
original plans for the ship, now in the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich,
England.
Page 106, Voyagers
Link to on-line publication of Ancient Hawai'i
