eite, and not
finding the mutineers there, to visit the different groups of the
Society and Friendly Islands, and others in the neighbouring parts of
the Pacific, using his best endeavours to seize and bring home in
confinement the whole or such part of the delinquents as he might be
able to discover.

This voyage was in the sequel almost as disastrous as that of the
_Bounty_, but from a different cause. The waste of human life was much
greater, occasioned by the wreck of the ship, and the distress
experienced by the crew not much less, owing to the famine and thirst
they had to suffer in a navigation of eleven hundred miles in open
boats; but the Captain succeeded in fulfilling a part of his
instructions, by taking fourteen of the mutineers, of whom ten were
brought safe to England, the other four being drowned when the ship was
wrecked.

The only published account of this voyage is contained in a small volume
by Mr. George Hamilton, the surgeon, who appears to have been a coarse,
vulgar, and illiterate man, more disposed to relate licentious scenes
and adventures, in which he and his companions were engaged, than to
give any information of proceedings and occurrences connected with the
main object of the voyage. From this book, therefore, much information
is not to be looked for. In a more modern publication, many abusive
epithets have been bestowed on Captain Edwards, and observations made on
the conduct of this officer highly injurious to his reputation, in
regard to his inhuman treatment of, and disgraceful acts of cruelty
towards, his prisoners, which it is to be feared have but too much
foundation in fact.

The account of his proceedings, rendered by himself to the Admiralty, is
vague and unsatisfactory; and had it not been for the journal of
Morrison, and a circumstantial letter of young Heywood to his mother, no
record would have remained of the unfeeling conduct of this officer
towards his unfortunate prisoners, who were treated with a rigour which
could not be justified on any ground of necessity or prudence.

The _Pandora_ anchored in Matavai Bay on the 23rd March 1791. Captain
Edwards, in his narrative, states that Joseph Coleman, the armourer of
the _Bounty_, attempted to come on board before the _Pandora_ had
anchored; that on reaching the ship, he began to make inquiries of him
after the _Bounty_ and her people, and that he seemed to be ready to
give him any information that was required; that the n