n, died at Batavia; Robert Lamb, seaman
(the booby-eater), died on the passage; and Mr. Ledward, the surgeon,
was left behind, and not afterwards heard of. These six, with John
Norton, who was stoned to death, left twelve of the nineteen, forced by
the mutineers into the launch, to survive the difficulties and dangers
of this unparalleled voyage, and to revisit their native country. With
great truth might Bligh exclaim with the poet,

--'Tis mine to tell their tale of grief,
Their constant peril and their scant relief;
Their days of danger, and their nights of pain;
Their manly courage, even when deem'd in vain;
The sapping famine, rendering scarce a son
Known to his mother in the skeleton;
The ills that lessen'd still their little store,
And starved even Hunger till he wrung no more;
The varying frowns and favours of the deep,
That now almost engulphs, then leaves to creep
With crazy oar and shatter'd strength along
The tide, that yields reluctant to the strong;
Th' incessant fever of that arid thirst
Which welcomes, as a well, the clouds that burst
Above their naked bones, and feels delight
In the cold drenching of the stormy night,
And from the outspread canvas gladly wrings
A drop to moisten Life's all-gasping springs;
The savage foe escaped, to seek again
More hospitable shelter from the main;
The ghastly spectres which were doom'd at last
To tell as true a tale of dangers past,
As ever the dark annals of the deep
Disclosed for man to dread or woman weep.

It is impossible not fully to accord with Bligh when he says, 'Thus
happily ended, through the assistance of Divine Providence, without
accident, a voyage of the most extraordinary nature that ever happened
in the world,[11] let it be taken either in its extent, duration, or
the want of every necessary of life.' We may go further and say, it is
impossible to read this extraordinary and unparalleled voyage, without
bestowing the meed of unqualified praise on the able and judicious
conduct of its commander, who is in every respect, as far as this
extraordinary enterprise is concerned, fully entitled to rank with
Parry, Franklin, and Richardson. Few men, indeed, were ever placed for
so long a period in a more trying, distressing, and perilous situation
than he was; and it may safely be pronounced, that, to his discreet
management of the men