"
Another reason for retelling the story is, that, notwithstanding that the
name of the _Bounty_ sounds most familiar in most people's ears, yet we
have some evidence that the present generation has [Sidenote: 1776]
almost forgotten nearly everything relating to it.
A few years ago one of the authors went to Norfolk Island, so remote a
spot that visits are counted not so many to the year, but so many years to
a visitor. It was thought that an account of the descendants of the
_Bounty_ mutineers would be of interest to English magazine-readers.
Everyone, it was supposed, knew all about the _Bounty_ mutiny, so half a
dozen lines were devoted to it, the rest of the space to the present state
of the old Pitcairn families. The article was hawked about to most of the
London magazine offices, and was invariably rejected, on the ground that
no one remembered the _Bounty_ mutiny, and that an account of the event
would be much more acceptable. It appears from many recently printed
allusions to the mutiny that the magazine editors rightly judged their
public.
Bligh's first visit to the South Seas was when, under Cook, he sailed as
master of the _Resolution_ in 1776-9. A native of Plymouth, of obscure
parentage, he was then about twenty-three years old, and had entered the
service through the "hawse-pipe."
By Cook's influence, he was in 1781 promoted lieutenant, and later,
through the influence of Sir Joseph Banks, was given the command of the
_Bounty_, which sailed from Spithead on December 23rd, 1787, for Tahiti.
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