Book Review: Bligh

Book cover of Bligh: William Bligh in the South Seas. Photo / Supplied

Bligh: William Bligh in the South Seas by Anne Salmond
Viking $65

William Bligh, he of the mutiny on the Bounty, was arguably the most complex, interesting and observant of the European explorers in the South Pacific. As such, he has long needed a biographer with the breadth of knowledge and range of interests of Anne Salmond.

As she indicates in this remarkable book, Bligh was far from being the one-dimensional character he is usually portrayed as, being neither the brutal tyrant of Charles Laughton's film version of the mutiny, nor the misunderstood saint of some revisionist accounts.

Bligh first came to the Pacific on James Cook's third voyage in 1777, as sailing master on the Resolution, and proved himself as a fine seaman, superb cartographer and, as Salmon comments, possibly the most perceptive observer of local culture of any of the early European visitors.

The untimely death of Cook in Hawaii probably robbed Bligh of the promotion he merited after that voyage - he certainly felt hard done by - but thanks to the patronage of Sir Joseph Banks he was given command of the Bounty and tasked with taking breadfruit plants from Tahiti to the West Indies as a source of food.

So why did that voyage end in the famous mutiny with Bligh and a few supporters being set adrift in a small boat? As Salmond demonstrates conclusively, far from being a flogging captain Bligh actually used the cat-o'-nine-tails more sparingly than was the norm in the Royal Navy of the time - certainly less than the revered Cook - and also took unusually good care of his crew's health.

On the other hand he did have a vicious tongue and an explosive temper, lacked charisma and often showed poor people skills, failings which later produced another mutiny of sorts when he was Governor of New South Wales.

Salmond concludes that the primary cause of the mutiny lay with the tight-fisted Admiralty's provision for the voyage, allocating too small a ship, which prevented the usual distance between captain, officers and crew, failing to provide commissioned officers, thus forcing Bligh to rely on the inexperienced and self-indulgent Fletcher Christian (who, ironically, owed his position entirely to the patronage of his captain), and omitting the usual contingent of marines to back up the commander.

Certainly when Bligh was subsequently given command of the larger Providence and returned to the Pacific for a third time, successfully completing his breadfruit mission, his intemperate abuse again upset some of his officers but things never got close to mutiny.

In the end, of course, neither side came out of the Bounty affair well. Despite his relatively successful naval career, Bligh's reputation was forever scarred by the propaganda of the influential Christian family, while most of the mutineers were killed by their erstwhile Polynesian friends and three of the survivors were hung by the navy.

The mutiny has, however, inspired some marvellous books, of which this is possibly the finest. It offers not merely a balanced and perceptive biography of Bligh, but also an enlightening account of the exploration of the Pacific, a fascinating picture - via Bligh's observations - of Polynesian culture at the time of first contact, the ultimately tragic story of the mutineers and an insight into the workings of the navy and the system of patronage which underpinned the whole disastrous enterprise.

Jim Eagles is travel editor of the New Zealand Herald.