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Tuesday 31 July 2012

New Blog Format

So ...the traffic on the Firecloud Report has gone up by a factor of five since I switched to this new dynamic view.

You can still post comments, but I think they are a little harder to find at the bottom of each post.

Note on the picture below that you can do some things with the black bar on the right if you hover your cursor near it to entice it out.


Any comments or feedback on the new format would be gratefully received.

Monday 9 July 2012

Bligh's Resting Place

William Bligh - Vice Admiral of the Blue


Taylor wanted to see Jane Austen's house in the worst way. We go on a trek from Paddington station to Waterloo and catch a train out into the boonies.On the way we pass the Pink Floyd power station. I'm  puzzled by his insistence that this is the most important point of the trip. Then I remember that I want to visit Bligh's grave again....six of one and seven of the other...


 Several years ago I wrote an article for the Hitchiker's Guide to the  Galaxy about William Bligh. I'm republishing it here along with some photos of his tombstone on the banks of the Thames. We walked a long way over the Lambeth bridge to visit him yesterday. Bligh is recognized by Phed Firecloud as the world's 2nd greatest navigator of all time. Modesty prevents me from naming the greatest navigator...


The courtyard of a building on the banks of the Thames is a splendid example of an English garden. There is a tombstone in the centre of the garden. The inscription on the stone reads:

SACRED
TO THE MEMORY OF
WILLIAM BLIGH ESQUIRE FRS
VICE ADMIRAL OF THE BLUE
THE CELEBRATED NAVIGATOR
WHO FIRST TRANSPLANTED THE BREADFRUIT TREE
FROM OTAHETTE TO THE WEST INDIES
BRAVELY FOUGHT THE BATTLES OF HIS COUNTRY
AND DIED BELOVED RESPECTED AND LAMENTED
ON THE 7th DAY OF DECEMBER 1817
AGED 64

Before the Bounty

Vice Admiral Bligh was born in Plymouth, England in 1754. Bligh sailed with Captain Cook on Cook's final voyage in 1776 - 1779 and was present at Cook's death after Cook unwisely provoked an armed conflict with natives in Hawaii. Bligh was only 23 at the time but he was a highly skilled chart maker and navigator. Bligh developed many charts during this voyage which were unfairly attributed to Cook's Lieutenants.



Bligh observed Cook's methods for preserving the lives of his crew. Cook's innovations included daily enforced dancing, regular baths, clean clothing, eating sauerkraut and drinking lime juice to prevent scurvy. British sailors are sometimes called 'limeys' as the result of the practices that Captain Cook developed.

in 1781 Bligh was promoted to Lieutenant after the naval action at Dogger Bank. He took part in the relief of Gibraltar in 1782. During a period of peace from 1773 - 1787 he joined the Merchant Service.


Mutiny on the Bounty

At the age of 33 Bligh was selected to command the Bounty on an expedition to take breadfruit from Tahiti1. and deliver it to the West Indies. Bligh was not promoted to Captain before the journey. As a result, the ship had no officers, other than Bligh, and no marines to enforce discipline. These handicaps, combined with Bligh's unfortunate temperament and lack of physical stature are factors which eventually allowed the mutiny to develop.



The voyage of the Bounty began at Spithead on the south-east coast of England on 23 December, 1787. More than 10,000 miles were added to the planned voyage when Bligh failed to navigate the Bounty around Cape Horn because of unfavourable winds and huge seas. Bligh then turned east and arrived at Cape Town on 24 May where he spent several weeks refitting and provisioning the Bounty before entering the Indian Ocean.

On 19 October, 1788, nearly 28,000 miles and ten months into the journey, John Mills and the assistant gardener, William Brown, refused to participate in the evening's mandatory dancing. Bligh's inhumane response was to cut off their grog2.



The Bounty arrived in Tahiti on 24 October. Following Cook's example, Bligh drafted a set of rules to govern contact with the natives. These rules were intended to keep the death of Captain Cook secret and also forbade discussion of the breadfruit mission. Another purpose was to establish an official market for trade with the natives; however, a black market trade for hogs soon was established by members of the crew.

On 5 April, 1789, loaded with breadfruit plants, the Bounty began a 12,000-mile journey westward toward home. On 27 April Bligh apparently provoked the mutiny in a dispute over coconuts. He questioned all the ranking men closely, especially Fletcher Christian, accused Christian of stealing from Bligh's coconut stack and threatened to make half the crew jump overboard. Bligh also threatened to cut the grog ration entirely and reduce the daily yam ration from 1 1/2 lb a day to 1/4 lb. Mr Christian was reduced to tears by this brutal tongue-lashing.



At dawn on 28 April, Christian and three other men entered Bligh's cabin. Bligh was bound and taken on deck. Eventually he was placed in a small 23-feet-long boat, but so many men wanted to accompany him that it was in danger of being capsized. Finally the boat was loaded with only 18 men, a sextant, four cutlasses, 150 pounds of bread, 32 lb of pork, six quarts of rum, six bottles of wine and 28 gallons of water. As he pulled away he shouted either:
'Never fear, my lads; I'll do you justice if I ever reach England'.3.
or
'You villains - you God-damned villains. I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you. I'll have every man jack swinging at the yardarm before I'm done - God damn me if I don't'.4.
Bligh suffers unfairly from a reputation as a bully and tyrant. He only had ten men flogged on the long journey with a total of 217 lashes. In contrast, before he was killed by his crew, Hugh Pigot ordered 85 floggings with a total of 1,392 lashes. Pigot's record was twelve times worse than that of Bligh for a voyage of similar length5.

The Long Row

Bligh bleakly assessed his situation and decided to head west to a Dutch trading post on Timor, nearly 3,618 miles distant. Bligh and his party landed on Tofoa in the Friendly Islands to seek water. One member of the party was killed by natives and the rest fled to the boat. After 48 days, on 14 June, 1789, helped by favourable winds, Bligh reached his destination in Timor. This was an astounding feat of navigation, through largely uncharted waters. He lost only one of the eighteen aboard, John Norton, at Tofoa.


The Aftermath

It was characteristic of Bligh's good character, generosity and deep concern for his men that he paid for their food and lodging in Timor from his own personal funds for an extended period. After arranging his own passage from Timor to England, Bligh was found not guilty of all charges at the Bounty inquiry and court martial.

The great botanist and gardener, Sir Joseph Banks, was always in the background guiding Bligh's career. He arranged both trips to Tahiti as well as Bligh's later Governorship of New South Wales. Eventually Banks arranged for Bligh to become a Fellow in the Royal Society, accounting for the FRS letters on his tombstone.

Banks made a spirited defence of Bligh:
'Of what use is 'the truth' to the journals and broadsheets? Their readers don't want the truth. They never do, and they never did. They want heroes and villains.' He thumped the table. 'They want men of wonder, handsome, tall, men of honour – like your supposed image of Fletcher Christian, and men of evil, cunning, unstoppable, who would spit roast their own relatives for the joy of hearing their screams. Like the Captain Bligh's of your fantasy world.'
Bligh was promoted to Captain and given command of the Providence. He returned to Tahiti, but gave few punishments during the voyage. This voyage was a triumphant success. Bligh delivered a load of breadfruit plants to St Helena and also St Vincent in the West Indies to feed the slave populations. He also delivered nearly 1300 plants to the Royal Gardens at Kew. The 36 species he brought back included apple, orange, mango, pear and yam. Some of these species still grow in the Royal Gardens.

 

 

The Mutinies at Spithead and the Nore

In 1797, Bligh found himself once again relieved of command by his men. He also learned that his common nickname among men in the fleet was 'that Bounty Bastard'. These two mutinies, however, were widespread, involved a fair number of English ships and were based on issues of pay and involuntary service for common seamen.

The Spithead mutiny did achieve some of its aims. The common sailors wanted better pay, better food and a dismissal of some of the more sadistic and brutal officers. All officers were sent ashore and the seized ships were run by committee.

Bligh became more directly involved in the Nore Mutiny. The Nore is a Royal Navy anchorage on the Thames estuary. This mutiny in the British fleet, just after the Spithead mutiny in 1797, failed to achieve its goals of a fairer division of prize money and an end to brutality. The Nore mutiny was led by Richard Parker, who was later hanged. About 30 others were also hanged but most of the mutineers were sent off to the prison colony in New South Wales.

The Rum Rebellion

Bligh was appointed Governor of New South Wales colony in Australia in 1805. Astonishingly, he was relieved of his command once again within eighteen months of his arrival. This time the 'mutiny' was a well-orchestrated coup led by a Major George Johnston. Bligh is perhaps the only English Captain to be credited with having an entire continent rebel against him. The rum rebellion grew from a dispute over Bligh's attempt to prohibit the use of spirits to pay for commodities.

Bligh spent nearly two years under guard on a ship offshore until a ship from England arrived and restored him to office. Bligh apparently lacked the diplomatic skills to manage the government which then was largely run by officers engaged in the rum trade. Johnston and others simply decided to remove him from power. One of Johnston's defences at the trial in England was Bligh's magnificently offensive bad language which apparently had overwhelmed the tender sensibilities of the Australian Major.

Promotion and Shore Duty

When the Rum Rebellion trial in London was concluded in 1810, Bligh was again completely exonerated. However, 'Breadfruit Bligh' or 'The Bounty Bastard', had by now acquired a widespread, if possibly unjustified, public reputation for tyranny and mismanagement.

Bligh was promoted to the rank of Rear Admiral of the Blue. The admiralty kept him on active pay rolls, later promoting him to Vice Admiral. Perhaps wisely, they did not send him to sea again. He died in 1817 and he now rests in an English garden in London.

The Museum of Garden History

In London, walk south from Westminster and Parliament to Lambeth Bridge and cross the Thames. Just on the other side of the river is a former church which is now the Museum of Garden History . The museum tells the story of the history of gardening and of the travels of royal gardeners who went to the new world to bring back new plants for the pleasure of Kings and Queens. The courtyard of the museum contains Bligh's tombstone.

It seems strangely fitting that the church of one of the finest gardeners and navigators the world has ever known now has become the Museum of Garden History.

1In the Eighteenth century Tahiti was called Otaheite, although the spelling on Bligh's tombstone differs slightly.
2The Bounty, Caroline Alexander, 2003, page 102
.3Alexander, p 141.
4That Bounty Bastard, Kenneth S Allen, p 85.
5Allen, p 96.

London: It's Only Rock and Roll

London, England



The two hour ride from Chipping Norton goes smoothly as it is Sunday morning with light traffic. The Hertz people are good about crediting my billl for the GPS rental. Brooke orders a banana split for breakfast. She claims she thought is was a health food dish.


We buy tickets for the hop on and off. It's raining again at times.


Our first stop is 221B Baker street to see where Sherlock Holmes used to live. I wonder what he would have concluded about 2012 had he seen the new T-shirt store accross the street from his home? The shirts are very nice, but at $40 a copy I have to pass.


The3 bus is very slow because they have closed central London for a race. Eventually we find our way to the Tower Bridge built in the late 1800s to look older than it really is.


The3 Belfast is docked in the river. It was built in 1938 and helped sink the battleship Scharnhorst.


The Tower Bridge.


Bubbye and the kids spend a few hours in the Tower of London. Some of the old kings kept exotic beasts here. They were all eventually sent to the London Zoo when the old castle became too expensive to heat.



City Hall


This is the new London Bridge. I remember playing "London Bridge is falling down" with cousins in 1948. The old bridge we have seen in Arizona.


The Eye.


Big Ben and Parliment.


Westminster Abbey.


Taylor Skypes his parents at 9PM.



Saturday 7 July 2012

A Rainy Day in Oxford

I'm too tired to write a blog. Besides I have aq copy of Stephen King's "11-23-63" which I would rather read.


Tomorrow we head for London  to turn in the car. We've been staying in the village of Chipping Norton near Oxford.


We saw Oxford, Tolkien's house, C.S. Lewis's house and Blenheim Castle which is quite nearby.


We are staying at the Crown and Cushion, which was once owned by Keith Moon of The Who.


We've been taking our evening meals in a pub which was established in 1683. I think that is before Columbus discovered America. The Steak and Ale pie is very good there.











Friday 6 July 2012

York: No Fly Tipping!

York, England




We pack some dirty laundry in a backpack and take the Park-and-Ride bus into York.


Our first stop is Clifford's Tower and the Museum of York.

York still has lots of walls and Clifford's tower looks about the same.


We buy a ticket on the double-deck red sight-seeing bus and ride around York,


We have roast beef sandwiches in a pub near the cathedral.
.



Yorkminster Cathedral is closed for a ceremony so we walk about a mile outside the walls to the nearest open Laundromat and wash clothes. In an alley behind the Laundromat is a sign over a dumpster that says "No Fly Tipping" The sign says the penalty for unauthorised use of the dumpster is 50,000 pounds and/or six month in jail. Another sign says that a CCTV camera is in use. Probably a second offence would bring deportation to Australia.


We return to Yorkminster, but it closed again for another service. Mrs. Phred demands to see inside anyway so they let her and the kids past.


Today we drive to Oxford. Maybe we'll see some sights on the way.


The new GPS is developing a large unreadable black spots. I may dispute the purchase with my credit card issuer.