Bounty, HMS

The Oxford Companion to British History | 2002 | 661 words | Copyright

Bounty, HMS. A 215-ton armed vessel, originally the Bethia but renamed after extensive alterations and refitting at Deptford (1787) for a specific mission to transport bread-fruit trees from Tahiti in the South Seas to the West Indies. She was small, overcrowded, and undermanned, so fragile discipline contributed to mutiny by some of the crew under the leadership of master's mate Fletcher Christian, near Tonga (28 April 1789); Captain William Bligh and eighteen loyal crewmen were set adrift in the long boat. The mutineers sailed eastwards, to settle eventually on Pitcairn Island (1790), where the Bounty was stripped and then burned.

A. S. Hargreaves

Cite this article
Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography.

MLA
Chicago
APA

JOHN CANNON. "Bounty, HMS." The Oxford Companion to British History. 2002. Encyclopedia.com. 27 May. 2012 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

JOHN CANNON. "Bounty, HMS." The Oxford Companion to British History. 2002. Encyclopedia.com. (May 27, 2012). http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O110-BountyHMS.html

JOHN CANNON. "Bounty, HMS." The Oxford Companion to British History. 2002. Retrieved May 27, 2012 from Encyclopedia.com: http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O110-BountyHMS.html

Learn more about citation styles