Science Friction_ Where the Known Meets the Unknown - Michael Shermer [72]
Emotions were riding high. William Purcell later recalled that Christian came away from the confrontation with tears “running fast from his eyes in big drops.” He inquired, “What is the matter Mr. Christian?” Christian replied: “Can you ask me, and hear the treatment I receive?” Yet Bligh again demurred, inviting Christian to dine with him that evening. The invitation was declined. Christian had something else in mind for that night.
Figure 8.3. The mutiny on the Bounty
All was quiet during the first two watches of the night, from eight to midnight, and from midnight to 4 A. M., when Fletcher Christian took the watch. An hour later, around 5 A.M., as the first light of the sun warmed the horizon, Christian and several others broke into the arms’ chest to procure some weapons, then moved to Bligh’s cabin, awoke him, tied his hands behind his back, and took him up on deck. Men on both sides were screaming and shouting, threatening and gesturing. Sometime amid the chaos, Christian was heard to tell Bligh: “Sir your abuse is so bad that I cannot do my Duty with any Pleasure. I have been in hell for weeks with you.” Details of the mutiny varied from eyewitness to eyewitness, but all remembered Christian’s haunting description of his torment. Bligh implored him, “Consider Mr. Christian, I have a wife and four children in England, and you have danced my children upon your knee.” Christian’s rejoinder was unequivocal: “That!—captain Bligh,—that is the thing—I am in hell—I am in hell.”
Christian then had Bligh and eighteen men placed in the Bounty’s twenty-three-foot launch, along with whatever possessions and supplies they could nab on the way to what appeared to be their doom: 150 pounds of bread, 32 pounds of pork, 6 quarts of rum, 6 bottles of wine, and 28 gallons of water. It was enough to support them for five days. They lasted forty-eight, covering a remarkable 3,618 miles without a single loss of life, in what has come to be regarded as the single greatest feat in ocean sailing. As the two ships diverged, the mutineers were heard to shout, “Huzza for Otaheiti.” Their worlds were forever rent asunder.
Although the immediate cause of the mutiny was the great coconut brouhaha, this is surely no cause for the ultimate high-seas crime. Why would an experienced commander like Bligh overreact to such a minor incident? Why would a hardy sailor like Christian take Bligh’s reproach so personally that it drew tears? Why was Fletcher Christian “in hell” and what role did Bligh play in putting him there?
Ultimate Causes
The emotions expressed in the mutiny were more than those triggered by immediate circumstances; there was a deeper foundation to them, of which we shall consider two: (1) bonding and attachment and (2) hierarchy and status.
Bonding and Attachment
With countless hours to reflect on what happened and why (it took him 10.5 months to wend his way back to England), Bligh worked through the proximate causal explanations of who did what to whom and when, and began to search for ultimate causes. Why would his men revolt against him? In his Narrative of the Mutiny on Board His Majesty’s Ship Bounty, which he penned during the open-boat voyage home, Bligh began to understand a deeper cause of the mutiny.
It is certainly true that no effect could take place without a Cause, but here it is equally certain that no cause could justify such an effect—It however may very naturally be asked what could be the reason for such a revolt, in answer to which I can only conjecture that they have Idealy assured themselves of a more happy life among the Otaheitians than they could possibly have in England, which joined to some Female connections has most likely been the leading cause of the whole business.
Although predating Darwin by a century, Bligh understood that the youth of his men meant that they had few permanent and lasting commitments at home, and that they could easily form bonds and