Bligh eagerly accepted the new post, but when he arrived in New South Wales, he found that conditions were much worse than he had expected. The colony was dominated by an unscrupulous set of hard-drinking rum merchants and a corrupt military establishment. Bligh did his best to introduce order and sobriety to the colony, but the efforts of one man were ineffectual against the local kingpins. When the new governor clamped down on the production of alcohol, the rum-makers resolved to oust him. The military garrison, which itself accounted for much of the colony’s rum consumption, joined in the uprising, and for the third time Bligh faced a mutiny against his authority.

Subscribe Today

• Did you enjoy our article?
• Read more in British Heritage magazine
• Subscribe online and save nearly 40%!!!
 

The third rebellion was perhaps as damaging to his reputation as the first. Popular accounts of the mutiny depicted Bligh hiding under the bed in the Governor’s House during the uprising. While fictional, the incident was accepted as true back in England. Later, with order finally restored by a new military governor sent from England, Bligh returned home once again to face yet more courts-martial.

The leader of the mutineers was cashiered from the British Army, and Bligh subsequently applied for and received promotion to the rank of Rear Admiral of the Blue. But the latest in his series of unfortunate confrontations had left him finally discouraged. His wife, emotionally spent by the constant attacks upon her husband and her own efforts to comfort him, died shortly afterwards. Bligh spent his last five years in Farningham, Kent, cheered by the company of his daughters. He never went to sea again.

Though deeply saddened by the loss of his wife, he may have found this to be the most contented part of his life. As stormy as Bligh’s professional career had been, he had always enjoyed a blissful, though constantly interrupted, relationship with his family. From 1812 until death from cancer on 7th December 1817, he perhaps had time to share with his children the companionship he had been unable to find on all his voyages to exotic and uncharted lands.

This article was written by Bruce Heydt for British Heritage magazine.

For more great articles, subscribe to British Heritage magazine today!

Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to