everyone on board. In proof of this, says Bligh,
Christian, when the boat was drifting astern, was asked by Bligh if this
treatment was a proper return for his commander's kindness, to which the
mutineer answered, "That, Captain Bligh, that is the thing. I am in hell;
I am in hell." Bligh on being asked by the friends of young Heywood if he
thought it possible that this boy of fifteen, who had been detained
against his will, could have a guilty knowledge of the mutiny, replied in
writing that the lad's "baseness was beyond all description. It would give
me great pleasure to hear that his friends can bear the loss of him
without much concern."

Bligh's story is contradicted by all of the mutineers--that, of course,
goes without saying--but here is the point: the evidence of the mutineers
is practically confirmed in every particular, and Bligh's version is
contradicted by the people who were with him in the boat, and these
people, Bligh himself says, were loyal. One man only, Hallett, had
anything to say in confirmation of Bligh's allegations regarding Heywood,
and Hallett afterwards recanted and expressed his sorrow at what he had
alleged against Heywood--his statements, he admitted, were made when he
was not fully responsible for what he said.

Labillardiere, in his _Voyage in Search of La Perouse_, says that one of
the officers of the _Pandora_ assured some of the people of the La Perouse
expedition, whom they had met at the Cape, that Bligh's ill-treatment of
the _Bounty's_ people was the cause of the mutiny. Fryer, the master of
the _Bounty_, who, it was shown during the court-martial, had more than
anyone else supported Bligh, confirmed the statement that what Christian
did say when the boat was cut adrift was, in answer to the boatswain, "No.
It is too late, Mr. Cole; I have been in hell this fortnight, and will
bear it no longer. You know that during the whole voyage I have been
treated like a dog." Further than this, the evidence given by the
mutineers, and supported in all essentials by the people cut adrift in the
boat, was to the effect that there had been repeated floggings; that Bligh
had continually used violent and abusive language to officers and men;
that he was a petty tyrant and was guilty of all sorts of mean forms of
aggravation. Here is one instance: he accused officers and men, from the
senior officer under him downwards, of being thieves, alleging publicly on
the quarter-deck that they stole his