[61] Forty-one of his surplus pictures were offered for sale at Christie's on 8th May, 1824, when six of them were bought in, and the remainder sold for £703 13s. He was an early friend of Opie, and attended the great Cornish artist's funeral in 1807; and it may be added that he placed in a chapel, which he built at his own expense, in Cornwall, an altar-piece by that eccentric artist, Lane, which was exhibited in the Royal Academy, 1808. _ADMIRAL WILLIAM BLIGH, F.R.S._ [Illustration: (beginning of chapter vignette.)] _ADMIRAL WILLIAM BLIGH, F.R.S._ 'His name is added to the glorious roll Of those who search the storm-surrounded Pole.' BYRON. The name of Admiral Bligh will always be associated with that painful episode in the history of the British Navy--the Mutiny of the _Bounty_--and the settlement of the mutineers on Pitcairn and other of the South Sea Islands; whence we still occasionally obtain news of their happy and flourishing descendants--happier far than their progenitors.[62] He is another example of a Cornish circumnavigator of the globe; the first being a Michell of Truro, who went round the world with Sir Francis Drake. Captain Samuel Wallis, R.N., of Lanteglos juxta Camelford, also sailed round the world in the _Dolphin_ in 1766-68. The Admiral was born, in all probability (though there has been some uncertainty on the subject) on the Duchy Manor of Tinten,[63] in the parish of St. Tudy, about half a mile south of the 'Church Town,' about the year 1753,--the son of Charles and Margaret Bligh; although I am aware that, according to another account, he is said to have been the son of John Bligh, of Tretawne, in the adjoining parish of St. Kew. The earliest connexion which I have been able to trace between this family and the parish of St. Tudy is, that they acquired some property here of the Westlakes, in 1680-81; but there was a John Bligh, or Blygh, at Bodmin, who acted as an assistant to the Commissioners for the Suppression of Monasteries, temp. Henry VIII. To this ancient town a branch of the Bligh family contributed four mayors between the years 1505 and 1588--indeed, the Cornish Blighs may be traced back as early as the reign of Henry IV. I am not sure whether or not Admiral Sir Richard Rodney Bligh, G.C.B, (who died in 1821), was a member of this family; but he was a Cornishman, as were some other naval officers of the same name.