William Bligh | Minutes of the Proceedings of the Court-Martial held at Portsmouth, London, 1794, first edition

William Bligh—[Stephen Barney and Edward Christian]

Minutes of the Proceedings of the Court-Martial held at Portsmouth, August 12, 1792. On ten persons charged with Mutiny on Board His Majesty's Ship the Bounty. With an appendix containing a full account of the real causes and circumstances of that unhappy transaction, the most material of which have hitherto been withheld from the Public. London: fo J. Deighton, 1794

FIRST EDITION, 4to (271 x 205mm.), contemporary half calf over marbled boards, red morocco label, small closed tears to inner margin of title (one neatly repaired), rebacked

'EXCEEDINGLY RARE' (Ferguson), describing the court-martial of the ten mutineers aboard H.M.S. Duke.

Stephen Barney was the counsel of mutineer William Muspratt. The appendix is the work of Edward Christian, brother of the mutineer Fletcher Christian, on which Bligh commented that it was "written apparently for the purpose of vindicating his brother at my expense." According to Barney's advertisement, they were not intended for publication. Hill states that only a few copies were printed for distribution. This copy is annotated in a contemporary hand on page 5 with the fate of "the people who remained on the ship", and in three different places the same single derogatory word to describe Bligh has been erased.

Of the ten men tried, Joseph Coleman (armorer), Thomas McIntosh, Charles Norman (carpenter's mates), and Michael Byrn (able seaman) were acquitted. Bligh had singled out the first three as loyalists but as there was no more room in the launch on which he was set adrift, they were obliged to stay aboard the Bounty. Peter Heywood (midshipman), James Morrison (boatswain's mate), William Muspratt (cook's assistant), and able seamen Thomas Ellison, John Millward and Thomas Burkett were found guilty and condemned to death. Heywood and Morrison were later given royal pardons; and Muspratt was acquitted owing to the fact that certain evidence had not been entered at the time of the court-martial. Only Burkett, Ellison, and Millward were hanged.

LITERATURE:

Ferguson I, 175; Hill 1162