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The name Bligh is now eponymous for a tyrannical, abusive commander--a "right tartar" in the terminology of the eighteenth century Royal Navy. However, by the standards of his times and profession, William Bligh was a progressive, philosophically minded officer. His care for his crew, in fact, stands out as atypical. Bligh first acquired a reputation as a navigator and cartographer on Captain Cook's third voyage (1776-1780). When he himself became a commander, he drew from Cook's ideas for maintaining crew health: regular exercise and bathing, clean laundry, and a diet that included sauerkraut and lime juice to ward off scurvy, the curse of long voyages. These measures, later officially adopted by the Royal Navy, were successful. The HMAV Bounty had a healthy crew. Some commentators, in fact, believe Bligh's sympathy for the sailors' lot went too far: He should not have let his men have a six-month furlough on Tahiti because it ruined their discipline.

Bligh's forty-two-day, 3,700-mile voyage in an open boat after the mutiny is famous, and he received the Society of Arts medal for the unequaled feat of navigation and leadership, but what is less known is the reason for his going to Tahiti in the first place. Sir Joseph Banks, president of the Royal Society, arranged for Bligh's trip there to acquire breadfruit trees. Bligh and his scientific assistants spent six months cultivated saplings from seeds in preparation for taking them to the West Indies. The Bounty's mission failed because of the mutiny, but Bligh's next attempt, as commander of the HMS Falcon, succeeded, and he introduced breadfruit from Africa to Jamaica in 1793. Banks and others hoped that the breadfruit could be grown as inexpensive food for the slave population that served the sugar plantations in the West Indies. It was later planted in Brazil, too, where it became feral.

For his achievements in navigation and botany, Bligh himself was elected a fellow in the Royal Society in 1801, and he rose in rank to vice admiral in 1814. His scientific efforts in support of slavery have been eclipsed by his notorious volatile temper (biographers have suggested that he suffered from paranoia or from Tourette's syndrome) and the mutiny.

Great Lives from History: Notorious Lives

Great Lives from History: Notorious Lives
William Bligh

Identity: British naval officer
Born: September 9, 1754; Plymouth, Devonshire, England
Died: December 7, 1817; London, England
Also Known As: Captain Bligh
Active: 1780's-1790's
Locale: South Pacific

Cause of Notoriety
Bligh became known for his role as the commander of a mutinous crew aboard the British vessel the Bounty.

Early Life
William Bligh (bli) was the son of Francis and Jane Bligh, and his family was known for its military accomplishments on land and sea for generations. Bligh went to sea by the time he was sixteen, largely as a result of having spent his youth Plymouth, a town with a wealth of nautical associations. The most memorable of his early voyages was the last one undertaken by Captain James Cook, which ended in Hawaii with the death of Cook at the hands of natives with whom Cook's relations had not previously been antagonistic. From this experience, Bligh probably drew the conclusion that it was better to err on the side of authoritarianism than to take the chance of rebellion. Moreover, Bligh later felt slighted when Cook's journals were published without giving credit to Bligh for the illustrations that he had provided. Bligh was inclined to outbursts of temperament, which, combined with his sense of merits unrecognized in Cook's journals and his understanding of the danger from insufficient discipline toward subordinates, would later prove destructive for him.

Naval Career
Bligh's most famous voyage was as commander of the Her Majesty's Armed Vessel Bounty, a British ship entrusted with the task of bringing back breadfruit from islands in the South Pacific. The journey was the brainchild of Sir Joseph Banks, a wealthy scientist who remained Bligh's patron for much of their lives. It was a long voyage, and the crew was glad to enjoy the warm welcome available in Tahiti (then called Otaheite).

Problems did not emerge until the start of the return trip, when the contrast between the untroubled (and companionable) life on the island and the arduous conditions on shipboard drove some of the mariners to mutiny. Accounts differ of how far Bligh went in his abuse of undisciplined crew members; his outburst was reported to be worse than his typical bouts with temper. At any rate, on April 28, 1789, the mutineers, led by master's mate Fletcher Christian, set Bligh and a number of the crew loyal to him adrift in a boat (with provisions) and proceeded back to the life of the South Pacific.

Bligh succeeded in navigating his way back to the Dutch East Indies, perhaps somewhat to the surprise of the mutineers, and from there he was able to travel back to England on a ship not under his own command. Bligh's return was the talk of the country, and the Navy managed to capture some of the mutineers and bring them to trial. To Bligh's disappointment, he was sent off on another breadfruit-collecting expedition during the course of the trial, so he did not manage to see the death sentences of the mutinous crew handed down and carried out. The second breadfruit expedition, on board the Providence, was less spectacular and more successful than that of the Bounty.

Bligh's naval career continued, and he did not altogether avoid the challenge of subsequent mutinies. In 1797, there was a general mutiny of the British fleet, and Bligh was one of the officers required to leave his ship, although there was no specific accusation made against him. Bligh was present at a few battles with the Danish fleet and served with distinction in 1801 at the Battle of Copenhagen, where he was under the direct command of British admiral Horatio Nelson. At the same time, he had to appear before a court-martial for insulting one of his subordinates. While the court-martial found him guilty of strong language, no penalty was exacted.

Bligh returned to the Pacific for one more command, as he was appointed governor of New South Wales in 1805. The army there was involved in various forms of illegal commerce, and Bligh's assignment was to stop all such activity. The forces arrayed against him proved too strong, however, and the army mutinied in 1808. Another round of trials in England ensued, and Bligh's reputation was the target of a campaign of innuendo by those who had been responsible for the mutiny. Nevertheless, his career did not suffer, and he was gazetted rear admiral in 1811. After his retirement from the British Navy, he lived in the country in the company of his wife Elizabeth. He died on a visit to London to see his doctor.

Impact
The mutiny on the Bounty was far from the most spectacular in the annals of the British Navy. It did not lead to any great reforms or interfere with Bligh's subsequent career. In general, Bligh's command on shipboard appears to have been well within the limits of acceptable behavior for naval officers, and he did not resort to flogging as often as many of his colleagues did. However, his well-known temper and choice of language probably help explain the reactions displayed by his subordinates.

Following the real-life events, the human drama of the mutiny interested literary fans and filmgoers of subsequent generations. A series of three books by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall devoted to the mutiny became best-sellers in the 1930's, and actors such as Charles Laughton, Clark Gable, Marlon Brando, and Mel Gibson appeared in feature films either as Bligh or as Fletcher Christian. Bligh felt that his merits were never fully recognized, but, aside from Horatio Nelson and James Cook, he is remembered better than any sailor of his time.

Further Reading
Alexander, Caroline. The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty. New York: Viking, 2003. A well-documented account with an eighteen-page bibliography.

Dening, Greg. Mr. Bligh's Bad Language: Passion, Power, and Theatre in the Bounty. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Investigates the story as drama and its subsequent history in various dramatic embodiments.

Hough, Richard. Captain Bligh and Mr. Christian: The Men and the Mutiny. London: Hutchinson, 1972. Argues that Bligh suffered from a form of paranoia.

Kennedy, Gavin. Bligh. London: Duckworth, 1978. Tries to play down the spectacular aspects of the mutiny in favor of Bligh's career as naval officer.

Nordhoff, Charles, and James Norman Hall. The Bounty Trilogy, Comprising the Three Volumes, "Mutiny on the Bounty," "Men Against the Sea," and "Pitcairn's Island." Boston: Little, Brown, 1951. A collection of three well-known stories about Bligh's adventures; Mutiny on the Bounty was made into two popular film versions during the twentieth century.

Toohey, John. Captain Bligh's Portable Nightmare. New York: HarperCollins, 1998. Recounts Bligh's later attitudes about his earlier journey with Cook.

Thomas Drucker

See Also
Samuel Bellamy; Stede Bonnet; Anne Bonney; Sir Henry Morgan; Jack Rackham; Mary Read; Bartholomew Roberts; Dominique You.