A Voyage to the South Sea (Illustrated Edition)

Bligh (1754-1817) was an officer of the British Royal Navy and a colonial administrator. In 1787 he took command of the Bounty and set sail for Tahiti to collect breadfruit to transport to the West Indies in the hope it would prove a successsful food crop for African slaves on the British colonial plantations. The Mutiny on the Bounty occurred in 1789 soon after they left Tahiti, and after being set adrift in the ship's launch by the mutineers Bligh and his loyal men eventually reached Timor, a journey of 3,618 nautical miles. Bligh's account of the mutiny and subsequent journey was published in 1790, shortly after he was honourably acquitted at the the court-martial enquiring into the loss of the Bounty, and this longer book detailing the entire breadfruit mission, including the mutiny, appeared in 1792.