HMS PANDORA
On 16 March 1790 Lieutenant Bligh reported the loss
of his
ship HMS Bounty to the Admiralty.
The Admiralty commissioned HMS Pandora, a three masted frigate
with twenty-four guns and a complement of 160 to search for the
mutineers.
Captain Edward Edwards orders were to capture the mutineers
and return them to England alive to face Court Martial.
The punishment for mutiny was a slow agonizing death by
strangulation. The victim is run up to the yard-arm by his shipmates,
on the order being given, twisting and turning as he is slowly choked
to death.
There were two recently promoted lieutenants on board the
Pandora, Thomas Hayward and John Hallett. Both had been midshipmen in
the Bounty and had been commended by Captain Bligh. These two men knew
all the mutineers, the mutiny and the islanders.
Meanwhile on Tahiti the mutineers had built a schooner which
they named "Resolution" which in the event of a British ship arriving
at Tahiti they would be able to sail to and hide on one of the nearby
islands.
On 7 November 1790, eight months after Captain Bligh had
reported the loss of his ship the Pandora sailed from Portsmouth and
set a course for Tahiti.
The news that geeted Captain Edwards when he arrived in
Matavai Bay was that the Bounty was not at Tahiti but was sailed away
by nine of the mutineers.
The Mutineers who elected to stay at Tahiti were eventually
captured and put in irons on board Pandora.
The Pandora being a frigate with 160 crew, was not designed to
be a prison ship, so Captain Edwards ordered that a cage now known as
Pandora's Box be built on the deck to accommodate the prisoners.
Captured Were:
Only Matthew Thompson and Charles Churchill who had been
stoned to death were left behind.
On 8 May 1791 the Pandora with the schooner Resolution in
escort left Matavai Bay in search of Fletcher Christian and his
followers.
On the evening of 22 June during a tropical rain squall the
Pandora lost sight of the Resolution so sailed to Anamooka to
rendezvous with it only the Resolution failed to arrive.
On 2 August 1791, Captain Edwards set sail on his return
voyage to England. Admiralty had directed that he return via Endeavour
Strait which seperates Australia from New Guinea, and thence via the
Cape.
In the early morning of 29 August the Pandora sank having hit
a
Barrier
Reef
of the Australian Coast at night and the following Mutineers
died at sea.
Prisoners on board H.M.S. Pandora who
drowned at sea
Mutineers that survived
Like Captain Bligh before them the crew and prisoners of
Pandora were to face the open sea in four of the ships launches, but
not like Bligh they had very limited rations and drinking water.
Captain Edwards was in his fifttieth year where Bligh was only
thirty five during his ordeal in the ship's launch.
Edwards had not one
overcrowded launch but four with 98 men including the mutineers listed
above.
Seeing that the four boats were overcrowded they laid the oars
upon the thwarts to form a platform thus stowing two tiers of
men.
These men were to face the same route as Captain Bligh had
done before them in an open boat only this voyage was more treacherous,
little food or water and blistering heat from the sun which showed no
mercey.
On 13 September they sighted Timor and eventually landed at
Coupang where they were greated with hospitality.
On 6 October they sailed on board Rembang from Coupang to
Samarang arriving 30 October where they anchored in Samarang harbour
where in astonishment met the Schooner Resolution.
On 6 April the men sailed on board HMS Gorgan for England
where the Mutineers were to face Court Martial.
