If what Bligh states with regard to the conduct of the master and the
carpenter be true, it was such, on several occasions, as to provoke a
man much less irritable than himself. He thus speaks of the latter, when
in the ship and in the midst of the mutiny. 'The boatswain and carpenter
were fully at liberty; the former was employed, on pain of death, to
hoist the boats out, but the latter I saw acting the part of an idler,
with an impudent and ill-looking countenance, which led me to believe he
was one of the mutineers, until he was among the rest ordered to leave
the ship, for it appeared to me to be a doubt with Christian, at first,
whether he should keep the carpenter or his mate (Norman), but knowing
the former to be a troublesome fellow, he determined on the latter.'
The following paragraph also appears in his original journal, on the day
of the mutiny, but is not alluded to in his printed narrative. 'The
master's cabin was opposite to mine; he saw them (the mutineers) in my
cabin, for our eyes met each other through his door-window. He had a
pair of ship's pistols loaded, and ammunition in his cabin--a firm
resolution might have made a good use of them. After he had sent twice
or thrice to Christian to be allowed to come on deck, he was at last
permitted, and his question then was, "Will you let me remain in the
ship?"--"No." "Have _you_ any objection, Captain Bligh?" I whispered to
him to knock him down--Martin is good (this is the man who gave the
shaddock), for this was just before Martin was removed from me.
Christian, however, pulled me back, and sent away the master, with
orders to go again to his cabin, and I saw no more of him, until he was
put into the boat. He afterwards told me that he could find nobody to
act with him; that by staying in the ship he hoped to have retaken her,
and that, as to the pistols, he was so flurried and surprised, that he
did not recollect he had them.' This master tells a very different story
respecting the pistols, in his evidence before the court-martial.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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