remainder, and all the prisoners late of the Bounty, in number ten (four having been drowned on the loss of that ship), are daily expected. They have been most rigorously and closely confined since taken, and will continue so, no doubt, till Bligh's arrival. You have no chance of seeing him, for no bail can be offered. Your intelligence of his swimming off on the Pandora's arrival is not founded: a man of the name of Coleman swam off ere she anchored,your brother and Mr. Stewart the next day. This last youth, when the Pandora was lost, refused to allow his irons to be taken off to save his life.

"I cannot conceal it from you, my dearest Nessy, neither is it proper I should,-your brother appears by all accounts to be the greatest culprit of all, Christian alone excepted. Every exertion, you may rest assured, I shall use to save his life; but on trial I have no hope of his not being condemned. Three of the ten who are expected are mentioned in Bligh's narrative as men detained against their inclination. Would to God your brother had been one of that number! I will not distress you more by enlarging on this subject; as intelligence arises on their arrival, you shall be made acquainted. Adieu, my dearest Nessy. Present my affectionate remembrances to your mother and sisters, and believe me always, with the warmest affection,

"Your uncle,

"THOS. PASLEY."

How unlike is this from the letter of Bligh! while it frankly apprizes this amiable lady of the real truth of the case, without disguise, as it was then understood to be from Mr. Bligh's representations, it assures her of his best exertions to save her brother's life. Every reader of sensibility will sympathize in the feeling displayed in her reply.

"Isle of Man, 22d June, 1792. "Harassed by the most torturing suspense, and

miserably wretched as I have been, my dearest uncle, since the receipt of your last, conceive, if it is possible, the heartfelt joy and satisfaction we experienced yesterday morning, when, on the arrival of the packet, the dear delightful letter from our beloved Peter (a copy of which I send you enclosed) was brought to us. Surely, my excellent friend, you will agree with me in thinking there could not be a stronger proof of his innocence and worth, and that it must prejudice every person who reads it most powerfully in his favour. Such a letter in less distressful circumstances than those in which he writes would, I am persuaded, reflect honour on the pen of a person much older than my poor brother. But when we consider his extreme youth (only sixteen at the time of the mutiny, and now but nineteen). his fortitude, patience, and manly resignation under the pressure of sufferings and misfortunes almost unheard of, and scarcely to be supported at any age, without the assistance of that which seems to be my dear brother's greatest comfort,-a quiet conscience, and a thorough conviction of his own innocence,when I add, at the same time, with real pleasure and satisfaction, that his relation corresponds in many particulars with the accounts we have hitherto heard of the fatal mutiny, and when I also add, with inconceivable pride and delight, that my beloved Peter never was known to breathe a syllable inconsistent with truth and honour;-when these circumstances my dear uncle, are all united, what man on earth can doubt of the innocence which could dictate such a letter? In short, let it speak for him. The perusal of his artless and pathetic story will, I am persuaded, be a stronger recommendation in his favour than any thing I can urge.'

"I need not tire your patience, my ever-loved uncle, by dwelling longer on this subject (the dear

* This interesting letter is given in the following chapter, to which it appropriately belongs.

L

est and most interesting on earth to my heart); let me conjure you only, my kind friend, to read it, and consider the innocence and defenceless situation of its unfortunate author, which calls for, and I am sure deserves, all the pity and assistance his friends can afford him, and which, I am sure also, the goodness and benevolence of your heart will prompt you to exert in his behalf. It is perfectly unnecessary for me to add, after the anxiety I feel, and cannot but express, that no benefit conferred upon myself will be acknowledged with half the gratitude I must ever feel for the smallest instance of kindness shown to

my beloved Peter. Farewell, my dearest uncle. With the firmest reliance on your kind and generous promises, I am ever, with the truest gratitude and sincerity,

"Your most affectionate niece,
"NESSY HEYWOOD."

CHAPTER V.

THE PANDORA.

"Oh! I have suffer'd

With those that I saw suffer! A brave vessel,
Who had, no doubt, some noble creature in her
Dash'd all to pieces. O, the cry did knock
Against my very heart! Poor souls! they perish'd
Had I been any god of power, I would

Have sunk the sea within the earth, or ere

It should the good ship so have swallow'd, and
The freighting souls within her."

THE tide of public applause set as strongly in favour of Bligh, on account of his sufferings and the successful issue of his daring enterprise, as its indignation was launched against Christian and his associates, for the audacious and criminal deed they

had committed. Bligh was promoted by the Admiralty to the rank of commander, and speedily sent out a second time to transport the bread-fruit to the West Indies, which he without the least obstruction successfully accomplished; and his majesty's government were no sooner made acquainted with the atrocious act of piracy and mutiny, than it determined to adopt every possible means to apprehend and bring to condign punishment the perpetrators of so foul a deed. For this purpose, the Pandora frigate of twenty-four guns, and one hundred and sixty men, was despatched under the command of Captain Edward Edwards, with orders to proceed in the first instance to Otaheite, and, not finding the mutineers there, to visit the different groups of the Society and Friendly Islands, and others in the neighbouring parts of the Pacific, using his best endeavours to seize and bring home in confinement the whole or such part of the delinquents as he might be able to discover.

This voyage was in the sequel almost as disastrous as that of the Bounty, but from a different cause. The waste of human life was much greater, occasioned by the wreck of the ship; and the distress experienced by the crew not much less, owing to the famine and thirst they had to suffer in a navigation of eleven hundred miles in open boats; but the captain succeeded in fulfilling a part of his instructions, by taking fourteen of the mutineers, of whom ten were brought safe to England, the other four being drowned when the ship was wrecked.

The only published account of this voyage is contained in a small volume by Mr. George Hamilton, the surgeon, who appears to have been a coarse vulgar, and illiterate man, more disposed to relate licentious scenes and adventures in which he and his companions were engaged, than to give any information of proceedings and occurrences connected with the main object of the voyage. From this book.

therefore, much information is not to be looked for. In a more modern publication many abusive epithets have been bestowed on Captain Edwards, and observations made on the conduct of this officer highly injurious to his reputation, in regard to his inhuman treatment of, and disgraceful acts of cruelty towards, his prisoners, which, it is to be feared, have but too much foundation in fact.

The account of his proceedings rendered by himself to the Admiralty is vague and unsatisfactory; and had it not been for the journal of Morrison, and a circumstantial letter of young Heywood to his mother, no record would have remained of the unfeeling conduct of this officer towards his unfortunate prisoners, who were treated with a rigour which could not be justified on any ground of necessity or prudence.

The Pandora anchored in Matavai Bay on the 23d March, 1791. Captain Edwards, in his narrative, states that Joseph Coleman, the armourer of_the Bounty, attempted to come on board before the Pandora had anchored; that on reaching the ship he began to make inquiries of him after the Bounty and her people, and that he seemed to be ready to give him any information that was required; that the next who came on board, just after the ship had anchored, were Mr. Peter Heywood and Mr. Stewart, before any boat had been sent on shore; that they were brought down to his cabin, when, after some conversation, Heywood asked if Mr. Hayward (midshipman of the Bounty, but now lieutenant of the Pandora) was on board, as he had heard that he was; that Lieutenant Hayward, whom he sent for, treated Heywood with a sort of contemptuous look, and began to enter into conversation with him respecting the Bounty; but Edwards ordered him to desist, and called in the sentinel to take the prisoners into ve custody, and to put them in irons; that four other mutineers soon made their appearance: and