The mate Christian, who then commanded the watch,
entered, with two petty officers and a sailor, the cabin of Lieutenant
Bligh, whom they found tranquilly sleeping. They fell on him, bound his
hands behind his back, and threatened him with instant death if he
uttered a sound, or offered the smallest resistance. Bligh, perfectly
undaunted, endeavoured to grasp his weapons, and, on finding himself
overpowered, called aloud for help; but the mutineers having, at the
same moment, seized on all who were strangers to the plot, the
unfortunate Commander had no resource but submission to his fate. He was
carried on deck with no other covering than his shirt, and there found
his faithful followers, nineteen in number, bound in a similar manner.

The long-boat was now lowered; Bligh, in the mean time, attempting to
recall the mutineers to their duty by unavailing remonstrances, to which
renewed menaces of immediate death were the only answers.

When the boat was ready, and the officers and sailors had been
separately unbound and lowered into it, Christian addressed himself to
Bligh: "Now, Captain, your officers and crew are ready; it is time for
you to follow; any opposition will cost your life." He was then
liberated, and put into the boat with his companions in misfortune,
amidst the bitterest execrations for his past tyranny, from the
mutineers. After some provisions had been furnished to the boat, and a
compass, quadrant, and a couple of old sabres added, at the entreaty of
its occupants, the mutineers set their sails and abandoned their former
comrades to their fate, with shouts of "Down with Captain Bligh! Hurrah
for O Tahaiti!"

A regular narrative of what afterwards befell these unfortunate outcasts
would not be strictly in place here; but such of my readers as are yet
unacquainted with the facts, may learn with interest, that though
abandoned on the vast ocean, in an open boat only twenty-three feet
long, six feet nine inches broad, and two feet nine inches deep, very
scantily provisioned, and destitute of a chart, they ultimately
succeeded, by unparalleled efforts, in reaching a place of safety. The
boat being, at the period of its desertion, within about thirty miles of
the island of Tofoa, it was determined to land there, and take in a
store of provisions, then proceed to Tongatabu, and solicit permission
from the King of the Friendly Islands to put their boat into a
practicable condition for hazarding a voyage to