CHAPTER III.

LEGAL PROCEEDINGS IN CONSEQUENCE OF THE MUTINYCHURCHILL AND THOMPSON-WRECK OF THE PANDORAPETER HEYWOOD AND HIS FAMILY-LETTERS FROM NESSY HEYWOOD AND OTHERS-PETER HEYWOOD'S NARRATIVETRIAL OF THE MUTINEERS-THE KING'S PARDON-HONOURABLE CAREER OF CAPTAIN HEYWOOD.

LIEUTENANT BLIGH, on his return to England in 1790, published an interesting narrative of the mutiny, and the hardships which he had endured until his landing at Timor. This excited much sympathy in his favour, and no little indignation. against the mutineers.

As soon as the English government were made acquainted with the atrocious act of mutiny and piracy of which Christian and his party had been guilty, they sent out the Pandora frigate, under Captain Edward Edwards, with orders to visit the Society and Friendly Islands, and use

every endeavour to seize and bring home the offenders. On the arrival of that officer at Matavai Bay, Tahiti, on the 23d of March, 1791, just eighteen months af ter the Bounty's last departure from the island, three of the men, who had remained there nearly two years, namely, J. Coleman, P. Heywood, and G. Stewart, came on board the Pandora, and surrendered themselves to the law. They were received with all the sternness of offended justice, and instantly put in irons. The captain succeeded in taking eleven others at Tahiti, who were also carefully ironed.

Two of the mutineers, Churchill and Thompson, who had landed with the rest. at Tahiti, were no longer in existence. The history of these two men has a dreadful kind of interest belonging to it. Within a short period of their quitting the Bounty, one of them, the ship's corporal, had become a king, and both had been murdered! Churchill, after residing a short time at Matavai, accepted an invitation to live with Waheeadooa, who was sovereign of Teiarraboo when Captain

Cook last visited that place. Thompson accompanied Churchill thither; but they very soon disagreed. Waheeadooa dying without children, Churchill, who had been his toyo, or chief friend, succeeded to his dignity and property, according to the established custom of the country. Thompson, envious of Churchill's honours, and angry at some fancied insult, took an opportunity of shooting him. The natives rose to punish the murderer of their new sovereign, and stoned him to death. This wicked man had before murdered a man. and a child, but had then escaped punishment, in consequence of an error as to his person. Peter Heywood (midshipman) had been mistaken for him, and was on the point of being destroyed with an axe, when an old chief, who knew him, interposed and saved his life.

Captain Edwards, after many inquiries, could hear nothing of the Bounty, nor of the nine remaining mutineers. But he had on board fourteen prisoners, confined in a narrow space, which was called, "Pandora's Box." It was built on the

after part of the quarter-deck, and was only eleven feet in length. The voyage homeward was very disastrous, the ship being wrecked on her return on a coral reef, off the coast of New Holland, on the 29th of August, 1791, and the crew compelled to navigate 1000 miles in open boats.

Just before the Pandora went down, Heywood and some other prisoners were able to disengage their hands and feet from the irons with which they had been fastened; the key of the chains having been providentially dropped through the scuttle into their prison, which was, at the time, fast filling with water. The master-at-arms, who, whether by design or accident, had dropped the key, was drowned, with thirty of the ship's company, and four of the unhappy prisoners. These four sank in their irons!

Young Heywood seized a plank, and was swimming toward a small sandy quay about three miles off, when a boat took him up, and conveyed him thither. The survivors assembled on the sandy quay, which was only ninety yards long by sixty

yards wide. There, under the meridian, and then vertical, sun, the only shelter the prisoners had was to bury themselves up to their neck in the burning sand. They were on this miserable spot for nineteen days. Captain Edwards had tents, made from the boat sails, erected for himself and his people. The prisoners petitioned him for an old sail, part of the wreck, which was lying useless: but it was refused. He seems to have been needlessly severe and harsh to men who had not yet been declared guilty, and who had an undoubted right to the common offices of humanity and respect. But, alas! there are those in every age who can find no pleasure in showing kindness to the unfortunate.

The only article saved by Heywood, on his escape from the wreck, was a Common Prayer Book, which, in swimming from the Pandora, he held between his teeth.

Peter Heywood had left a happy home in the Isle of Man, in August, 1787, when only fourteen years old, for his first voy