severity and cruelty as being the cause of the mutiny. Yet it can
be proved from the minutes of the court-martial that Heywood on
his trial defended himself by swearing that he was kept on board
the _Bounty_ by force, and that it was 'impossible he could ever
willingly have done anything to injure Captain Bligh, who had
always been a father to him.' As to Christian, it can be shown
that this was the third voyage he had sailed with Captain Bligh.
Would a man go three times with a commander such as Bligh has been
described by his enemies?

"I have no object in writing this account but love for the memory
of a man who was my mother's father, and so beloved of her and his
other daughters (for he had no son), that the same love and
feeling were instilled into the minds of her children. It was
quite recently asserted in a newspaper that 'Bligh was dismissed
his ship for ill-conduct after the mutiny of the _Bounty_,' and
these attacks and false statements are frequent. I know that I am
asking what you may deem unusual and inconvenient, and yet I have
faith in your love of justice, and desire to clear the memory of
one who served his king and country as Bligh did."

Some years ago, an accomplished young lady, well known and much respected
in Norfolk Island, and one of the (two or three generations removed)
descendants by one side of her family from the mutineers, visited England.
An anecdote of this visit was told by the lady herself to one of these
authors. This lady's husband, proud of his wife, took her to England and
to his home in a certain English county, where, in her honour, her
husband's relatives had invited many friends, among them a dear old lady
who they knew was a descendant of Bligh. "What an interesting meeting this
will be!" thought they, not taking into account all the circumstances. The