Читать книгу The Sea: Its Stirring Story of Adventure, Peril, & Heroism (Vol. 1-4). The History of Sea Voyages, Discovery, Piracy and Maritime Warfare онлайн

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The Pandora, a frigate of twenty-four guns, and one hundred and sixty men, was selected for the service, and was placed under the command of Captain Edward Edwards, with orders to proceed to Otaheite, and if necessary the other islands. The voyage was destined to end in shipwreck and disaster, but the captain succeeded in securing a part of the mutineers, of whom ten were brought to England, and four drowned on the wreck.

The Pandora reached Matavia Bay on the 23rd of March, 1791. The armourer and two of the midshipmen, Mr. Heywood and Mr. Stewart, came off immediately, and showed their willingness to afford information. Four others soon after appeared, and from them the captain learned that the rest of the Bounty’s people had built a schooner, and sailed the day before for another part of the island. They were pursued, and the schooner secured, but the mutineers had fled to the mountains. A day or two elapsed, when they ventured down, and when within hearing were ordered to lay down their arms, which they did, and were put in irons. Captain Edwards put them into a round-house, built on the after part of the quarter-deck, in order to isolate them from the crew. According to the statement of one of the prisoners, the midshipmen were kept ironed by the legs, separate from the men, in a kind of round-house, aptly termed “Pandora’s Box,” which was entered by a scuttle in the roof, about eighteen inches square. “The prisoners’ wives visited the ship daily, and brought their children, who were permitted to be carried to their unhappy fathers. To see the poor captives in irons,” says the only narrative published of the Pandora’s visit, “weeping over their tender offspring, was too moving a scene for any feeling heart. Their wives brought them ample supplies of every delicacy that the country afforded while we lay there, and behaved with the greatest fidelity and affection to them.”126 Stewart, the midshipman, had espoused the daughter of an old chief, and they had lived together in the greatest harmony; a beautiful little girl had been the fruit of the union. When Stewart was confined in irons, Peggy, for so her husband had named her, flew with her infant in a canoe to the arms of her husband. The interview was so painful that Stewart begged she might not be admitted on board again. Forbidden to see him, she sank into the greatest dejection, and seemed to have lost all relish for food and existence; she pined away and died two months afterwards.127