Adams of the Bounty [antikvár]

Ah! What avails the classic bent And ívhat the ctdwred word Against the imdoctored incident That actually occurred? KIPLING 11 ' I u' ; , f .!. AUTHOR'S NOTE The title of this book may be thought to be a misnomer, since the name Adams does not appear in the Admiralty List of the Boimty^s crew. The explanation is that John Adams joined the Bounty as "Alexander Smith," an alias which he used right up to the arrival of the American whaler Topaz at Pitcairn Island in February 1808. In that same year his first and only son, George Adams, was born; apparently it was then, and for his son's sake, that Adams resumed his real name— the name by which he was known when Captain Sir Thomas Staines of H.M.S. Briton called at the island six years later. To avoid confusion Adams' real name has been used throughout this book—the name borne still by his descendants. Considerations of space have made necessary also a telescoping of events and a severe selection of the most significant from what amounted to a plethora of dramatic occurrences, particularly in the Pitcairn Island section of the narrative. The author is convinced that the popular legend which has made something of a hero and liberator of twenty-four-year-old Acting Lieutenant Fletcher Christian (such only by Bligh's favor) and has branded Bligh (also only a lieutenant of thirty-three) as a bullying, inhuman monster, is very far from the truth and a deep injustice to the public memory of a brave man—one whose bravery Lord Nelson recognized later in battle. This book is the first full account that has challenged From the straw hat above his neatly tied pigtail to the big buckles of his long-quartered shoes, John Adams, at twenty-six, looked the man-o'-warsman that he was. His shoulders were heavy and wide enough to have graced a man a foot taller than his five feet five inches. He was clean-shaven and brown-haired, his nose was slightly aquiline, his mouth well formed, and his chin firm. His cheeks were broad, and blue eyes, deep set and well spaced, looked from beneath wide brows with the directness of a man of action, giving strength to his face— strength'that was saved from aggressiveness by a quality of mildness in his eyes, a quality almost of aloofness, betokening the dreamer. In mid-September of 1787, on a morning barely nine hours old, John Adams, searching the ship-lined quays of Deptford by London River' for the breadfruit ship Bounty., halted beside a bollard that was almost hidden by the turns of a heavy hawser. Critically Adams looked up at the vessel from which the hawser hung, slacked off a little by an ebb-tide. She was bluff-bowed, squat, and at first glance her masts seemed unusually short. Ship-rigged and small, she looked anything but a Navy ship. But in the chill wind that harried the brown river waters a naval ensign streamed from her poop, and there was the figurehead—a woman in a riding-habit—he had been told to look for. She was the Bounty sure enough. Adams' eyes brightened: the ship might be the clumsy