e surprising feature of _The Island_ is that Byron
accepts, without qualification or reserve, the guilt of the mutineers
and the innocence and worth of Lieutenant Bligh. It is true that by
inheritance he was imbued with the traditions of the service, and from
personal experience understood the necessity of discipline on board
ship; but it may be taken for granted that if he had known that the
sympathy, if not the esteem, of the public had been transferred from
Bligh to Christian, that in the opinion of grave and competent writers,
the guilt of mutiny on the high seas had been almost condoned by the
violence and brutality of the commanding officer, he would have sided
with the oppressed rather than the oppressor. As it is, he takes Bligh
at his own valuation, and carefully abstains from "eulogizing mutiny."
(Letter to L. Hunt, January 25, 1823.)

The story of the "mutiny of the _Bounty_" happened in this wise. In 1787
it occurred to certain West India planters and merchants, resident in
London, that it would benefit the natives, and perhaps themselves, if
the bread-fruit tree, which flourished in Tahiti (the Otaheite of
Captain Cook and Sir Joseph Banks, see _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 7,
note 2) and other islands of the South Seas, could be acclimatized in
the West Indies. A petition was addressed to the king, with the result
that a vessel, with a burden of 215 tons, which Banks christened the
_Bounty_, sailed from Spithead December 23, 1787. Lieutenant William
Bligh, who had sailed with Cook in the _Resolution_, acted as commanding
officer, and under him were five midshipmen, a master, two master's
mates, etc.--forty-four persons all told. The _Bounty_ arrived at Tahiti
October 26, 1788, and there for six delightful months the ship's company
tarried, "fleeting the time carelessly, as in the elder world." But
"Scripture saith an ending to all fine things must be," and on April 4,
1789, the _Bounty_, with a cargo of over a thousand bread-fruit trees,
planted in pots, tubs, and boxes (see for plate of the pots, etc., _A
Voyage, etc._, 1792, p. 1), sailed away westward for the Cape of Good
Hope, and the West Indies. All went well at first, but "just before
sun-rising" on Tuesday, April 28, 1789, "the north-westernmost of the
Friendly Islands, called Tofoa, bearing north-east," Fletcher Christian,
who was mate of the watch, assisted by Charles Churchill,
master-at-arms, Alexander Smith (the John Adams of Pitcairn Island), an