Lieutenant Bligh, like most passionate men, whose unruly tempers get the better of their reason, having vented his rage about the cocoa-nuts, became immediately calm, and by inviting Christian to sup with him the same evening, evidently wished to renew their friendly intercourse; and happy would it have been for all parties had he accepted the invitation.  On the same night, towards ten o’clock, when the master had the watch, Bligh came on deck, as was his custom, before retiring to sleep.  It was one of those calm and beautiful nights, so frequent in tropical regions, whose soothing influence can be appreciated only by those who have felt it, when, after a scorching day, the air breathes a most refreshing coolness,—­it was an evening of this sort, when Bligh for the last time came upon deck, in the capacity of commander; a gentle breeze scarcely rippled the water, and the moon, then in its first quarter, shed its soft light along the surface of the sea.  The short and quiet conversation that took place between Bligh and the master on this evening, after the irritation of the morning had subsided, only to burst forth again in all the horrors of mutiny and piracy, recalls to one’s recollection that beautiful passage of Shakespeare, where, on the evening of the murder, Duncan, on approaching the castle of Macbeth, observes to Banquo—­

     —­’The air
     Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself
     Unto our gentle senses,’ etc.—­

a passage which Sir Joshua Reynolds considers as a striking instance of what in painting is termed repose.  ‘The subject,’ he says, ’of this quiet and easy conversation, gives that repose so necessary to the mind, after the tumultuous bustle of the preceding scenes, and beautifully contrasts the scene of terror that immediately succeeds.’  While, on this lovely night, Bligh and his master were congratulating themselves on the pleasing prospect of fine weather and a full moon, to light them through Endeavour’s dangerous straits, the unhappy and deluded Christian was, in all probability, brooding over his wrongs, and meditating on the criminal act he was to perpetrate the following morning; for he has himself stated, that he had just fallen asleep about half after three in the morning, and was much out of order.

The evidence on the court-martial is sufficiently explicit as to the mode in which this act of piracy was committed.  By the Journal of James Morrison, the following is the account of the transaction, as given by Christian himself to the two midshipmen, Heywood and Stewart (both of whom had been kept below), the moment they were allowed to come upon deck, after the boat, in which were Bligh and his companions, had been turned adrift.