ignominious death, one of whom was actually brought into this
predicament;--the other only escaped it by a premature death. It may be
asked, how did Bligh know that Stewart and Heywood endeavoured, but were
not allowed, to come to his assistance? Confined as he was on the
quarter-deck, how could he know what was going on below? The answer is,
he must have known it from Christian himself; Churchill, no doubt, acted
entirely by his leader's orders, and the latter could give no orders
that were not heard by Bligh, whom he never left, but held the cord by
which his hands were fettered, till he was forced into the boat.
Churchill was quite right as to the motive of keeping these young
officers; but Christian had no doubt another and a stronger motive: he
knew how necessary it was to interpose a sort of barrier between
himself and his mutinous gang; he was too good an adept not to know that
seamen will always pay a more ready and cheerful obedience to officers
who are _gentlemen_, than to those who may have risen to command from
among themselves. It is indeed a common observation in the service, that
officers who have risen from _before the mast_ are generally the
greatest tyrants.[31] It was Bligh's misfortune not to have been
educated in the cockpit of a man of war, among young gentlemen, which is
to the navy what a public school is to those who are to move in civil
society. What painful sufferings to the individual, and how much misery
to an affectionate family might have been spared, had Bligh, instead of
suppressing, only suffered the passage to stand as originally written in
his journal!
The _remarks_ of young Heywood above recited, were received and
transmitted by his sister Nessy in a letter to the Earl of Chatham, then
first Lord of the Admiralty, of which the following is a copy.
'_Great Russell Street, 11th Oct_. 1792.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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