What was the role of the HMS Pandora?
Answer
The HMS Pandora was the ship sent from England to find the mutineers, wherever they were in the Pacific Islands, and bring them back to England to stand trial for mutiny – a hanging offense.
Pandora’s captain was one Edward Edwards, a captain with a far, far worse record than the Bounty’s captain William Bligh. Fletcher Christian and other mutineers fled Tahiti and finally hid out on Pitcairn. It was 18 years from their arrival there until the world learned of their presence on Pitcairn. Captain Mayhew Folger of the sealing ship Topaz chanced upon Pitcairn in 1808 and learned that only one of the mutineers who came there in 1790 still lived – mutineer John Adams. Folger spread word of his find to the world.
Captain Edwards in Pandora found 14 of the mutineers still on Tahiti, put them in a big box on the ships deck and headed for England with them via sailing west past Australia and then planned to go under the Cape of Good Hope of Africa. But the Pandora went onto a reef of the Great Barrier Reef of Australia. As the ship was sinking, Edwards wouldn’t release the captive mutineers from the box on deck, but at last, after part of the box was flooded, one of the ship’s officers was able to open the box, and those alive were able to swim out; alas, some of the mutineers were drowned, and at least one of them was a loyalist to Bligh. He, an officer, had been kept on Bounty on mutiny day to make it appear that the whole ship was against Bligh. We have his story in a book, From Mission to Majesty, in the Study Center stacks. Eventually, only three of the mutineers were hanged for the Bounty mutiny.
- Herb Ford (Founder, Pitcairn Islands Study Center)
In summary:
- 14 mutineers stayed behind on Tahiti and were captured by the HMS Pandora
- 4 perished when the Pandora was shipwrecked on Australia's Great Barrier Reef while returning to England
- 4 were acquitted back in England after the trial
- 3 were pardoned (found guilty but relieved of serving sentence)
- 3 were hanged