On the 7th March, a native Otaheitan, whom Bligh had confined in irons, contrived to break the lock of the bilboa-bolt and make his escape.  ’I had given,’ says Bligh, ’a written order that the mate of the watch was to be answerable for the prisoners, and to visit and see that they were safe in his watch, but I have such a neglectful set about me, that I believe nothing but condign punishment can alter their conduct.  Verbal orders, in the course of a month, were so forgotten, that they would impudently assert no such thing or directions were given, and I have been at last under the necessity to trouble myself with writing, what, by decent young officers, would be complied with as the common rules of the service.  Sir.  Stewart was the mate of the watch.’

These extracts show the terms on which Bligh was with his officers; and these few instances, with others from Morrison’s Journal, make it pretty clear, that though Christian, as fiery and passionate a youth as his commander could well be, and with feelings too acute to bear the foul and opprobious language constantly addressed to him, was the sole instigator of the mutiny;—­the captain had no support to expect, and certainly received none, from the rest of his officers.  That Christian was the sole author appears still more strongly from the following passage in Morrison’s Journal.  ’When Mr. Bligh found he must go into the boat, he begged of Mr. Christian to desist, saying “I’ll pawn my honour, I’ll give my bond, Mr. Christian, never to think of this, if you’ll desist,” and urged his wife and family; to which Mr. Christian replied, “No, Captain Bligh, if you had any honour, things had not come to this; and if you had any regard for your wife and family, you should have thought on them before, and not behaved so much like a villain.”  Lieutenant Bligh again attempted to speak, but was ordered to be silent.  The boatswain also tried to pacify Mr. Christian, to whom he replied, “It is too late, I have been in hell for this fortnight past, and am determined to bear it no longer; and you know, Mr. Cole, that I have been used like a dog all the voyage."’

It is pretty evident, therefore, that the mutiny was not, as Bligh in his narrative states it to have been, the result of a conspiracy.  It will be seen by the minutes of the court-martial, that the whole affair was planned and executed between the hours of four and eight o’clock, on the morning of the 28th April, when Christian had the watch upon deck; that Christian, unable longer to bear the abusive and insulting language, had meditated his own escape from the ship the day before, choosing to trust himself to fate, rather than submit to the constant upbraiding to which he had been subject; but the unfortunate business of the cocoa-nuts drove him to the commission of the rash and felonious act, which ended, as such criminal acts usually do, in his own destruction, and that of a great number of others, many of whom were wholly innocent.