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Most people know the story of the Mutiny on the Bounty: Fletcher Christian and his cohorts take over HMAV Bounty in the early morning hours of 28 April 1789, put the captain, Lieutenant William Bligh, into a boat with eighteen of his loyal officers and men, and sail the ship back to Tahiti to reunite with their island “wives” and friends. Leaving sixteen mutineers on the island by their own choice, Christian and nine British sailors, along with a handful of islanders, quickly depart Tahiti, feeling they would be too vulnerable to discovery because of the island’s well-known location and its accessibility to ships sailing the Pacific. Those who had stayed behind in Tahiti lived happily, for a time, among their native friends. Even knowing they would most likely be discovered, they established families and strong ties to their native hosts.
When told of the mutiny by Captain Bligh, the shocked Admiralty would not, could not, let this heinous crime go unpunished. They sent HMS Pandora, an armed frigate, to the Pacific to capture the mutineers and return them to England for court-martial and hanging.
When Fortune Frowns is the story of that mission; the preparations, the outbound voyage, finding the mutineers, and another epic small boat voyage following the shipwreck on a reef. Carefully researched and well-told by noted maritime author William H. White, this little-known story closes the final chapter of one of the most infamous mutinies in maritime history.
