I have just watched the Marlin Brando movie of MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY and after watching the movie , I decided to do my own investigation into this terrible state of affairs.The first thing I have found out is that Captain William Bligh was not guilty of half the things that the movie dipicted. In the first place, he was if any thing , too soft with his men, thinking mainly of their welfare. If you read his ships log of the events from the time they were cast adrift in the pacific ocean and the way he looked after his men until they arrived back into civilization ,you could only come up with deep admiration for the way he ran the small boat through the toughest of seas. Bearing this in mind, why did Fletcher Christian mutiny? After reading the court readings and the ship logs that took place, I can only come up with a chain of events that leave the movie as make believe and not true. Also! Captain Bligh was no inhumane beast as the movie suggests . He was very strict when adhering to the rules, his temper was legendary and his swearing was known to all but he was slow to dish out corporal punishment. His service record before this happened showed him to be competent in every way and was given great praise by Captain James Cook who had sailed previously with him in the RESOLUTION . Taking this into account lets put the facts in order according to the records that were written at the time of the mutiny and see if we can come up with the real reason that the mutiny took place.

Well! I don’t know about anybody else, but I always thought that Captain Bligh was a mongrel, an absolute cad. After all, it is portrayed that way in the first two films on the subject. He was supposed to have keel hauled his men, whipped them into a frenzy, made them climb the mast in violent weather resulting in them falling to their deaths on decks below, starved them, and over all was supposed to be a monster on two legs. This is how it would seem according to the first two films on the subject. Mutiny on the Bounty with Marlon Brando depicts Captain Bligh as a stuck up Captain who thought nothing else except himself and how hard he could make it for his crew. It was for this reason that I decided to investigate the set of circumstances leading to the Mutiny and try to find out exactly what happened. To my surprise, after reading excellent daily journals written by Lieutenant William Bligh( he was not a captain as most people thought) of his trip back home after the mutiny in a long boat that was overloaded and the hull riddled with wood worm was nothing short of heroic. The log showed that he sailed back home by his knowledge of the waters when he sailed with Captain Cook earlier and a compass that Fletcher Christian gave him when he was set adrift.

The Movie The Bounty, 1984, a very accurate account of what happened starring Anthony Hopkins and Mel Gibson, also show that Fletcher and William were friends and had sailed together many times before so why did the mutiny happen at all?  Simply! Lieutenant William Bligh was too easy on his crew. While the breadfruit was growing on the island, the crew mixed with the natives. For two whole months his crew mixed with the islanders sitting down to lavished feasts, mixing with the girls and in general having the time of their lives. Is it know wonder that when the time come to sail off, three men deserted the ship right away. They were caught and taken back to the ship. Not long after they had sailed, early one morning the mutiny took place.  Lieutenant Bligh was flabbergasted that Fletcher would stoop so low and appealed to their friendship of long standing, to consider the consequences of his actions and come to his senses His reply is written in the journals.

“You do not know! I am going through hell!”

After the mutiny took place they went straight back to the islands showing exactly why the mutiny was done in the first place. If Lieutenant Bligh had tried to grow the plants on board and proceed to the West Indies the mutiny might never have taken place. The one thing that gets me is the way Lieutenant Bligh is portrayed in the first two films. He was not the sadistic monster that these films show him to be but a decent human being who made a mistake of letting his crew get away with mutiny. At one time, he gave his portion of food to a sick crew member so that he might survive. He arrived back in England by his knowledge of the sea and the small compass that Fletcher had given him losing only one man during a violent attack by natives while trying to gain supplies off a small island.

He was completely exonerated and made Captain right away and sent back to do the job once again. This time he was successful.

This man was a hero and should go down in history as one, not the fallacy that has smoldered his name all over the history books. Regards BRIAN