Startling New

Theory On Cause

Of The "Bounty"

Mutiny

Ever since 1790 when Captain igh published his first account the mutiny on the Bounty, off ; Tongan island of Tofua on ?ril 28, 1789, people have en arguing over why the itiny took place and who was jponsible for it. iLIGH, himself, did not profess to 1 know the answers to these estions. But he conjectured that i mutineers hoped to lead a happier ; in Tahiti than they could ssibly enjoy in England, And he d that this “joined to some female mexions, most probably caused i whole transaction”.

Certainly, Bligh was of the opinion it the mutiny was not his fault, ad [the sailors’] mutiny been oc ioned by any grievances, either ,1 or imaginary,” he wrote, “I ist have discovered symptoms of ir discontent, which would have ; me on my guard; but the case s far otherwise.” >ther people, however, have taken very different view. They have jmpted to show that Bligh gave mutineers plenty of cause for intent through frequent and ere floggings, parsimony in the le of provisions, abusive language, uments with his officers, and lerally tyrannical conduct.

"Brilliant"

[he Swedish writer, Bengt Daniels 1, said in a book on the mutiny dished a couple of years ago, that mutiny could be interpreted most as a class struggle” and that was “a revolt of the oppressed, lected, poverty-stricken and home i seamen against a privileged and rbearing gentleman-class, the chief resentative of which in their eyes i Captain Bligh”.

Tiere have been all sorts of other lanations for the mutiny.

Jut possibly the most plausible lanation ever put forward is that Madge Darby, a young English orian, who has just published a -page book called Who Caused Mutiny on the “Bounty”?

Her book is a brilliant piece of analytical writing. It first examines and disposes of the various charges that have been laid against Bligh, and so eliminates Bligh as the person responsible for the mutiny. Then it eliminates other members of the Bounty’s crew until only Acting Lieutenant Fletcher Christian and Midshipman Edward Young are left.

But Miss Darby shows that right up to the Bounty’s departure from Tahiti with her cargo of breadfruit for the West Indies, Bligh and Christian were on the best of terms.

So the problem she next has to face is: “What changed Christian from the captain’s best friend to a

desperate mutineer ready to plunge a bayonet into his heart?”

Her answer to this is that after leaving Tahiti, where Christian had had a love affair with a Tahitian girl, Christian’s mind became so deranged that he became convinced —and he convinced several other people—that Bligh was ill-treating him beyond the limits of human endurance, whereas in reality Bligh was still treating him like a younger brother.

Miss Darby goes on: “Those taking part in the controversy [over the cause of the mutiny] have failed to pluck the heart out of the mystery because they have seized upon one

of these facts and tried to disprove the other, regarding them as mutually exclusive, but they are not. If they are both accepted and added together, they lead to the conclusion that Christian was suffering from paranoid delusions.”

Quoting the Encyclopaedia Britan nica, Miss Darby says that a person suffering from paranoid delusions often feels he is being “controlled, observed, influenced, criticised, called upon to give an account of himself, and punished” . . . and that such a person occasionally “explodes into action, either fleeing from his alleged persecutors or attacking them.”

Christian, of course, did plan to flee from his “alleged persecutor” on a raft before he staged the mutiny.

So his behaviour corresponded pre cisely with the Encyclopaedia’s des cription.

Miss Darby lends further weight to her argument by comparing the classic case of paranoid delusions of a Dresden judge, Dr. Shreber, with that of Christian. And she adds to this a quote from Freud, who said that these delusions could be detected from the fact that “the person who is now hated and feared for being a persecutor was at one time loved and honoured”—a definition which appears to fit Bligh completely.

Miss Darby is far less convincing in trying to make Midshipman Edward Young out to be a sinister third man and the cool-headed organiser behind the mutiny.

In the first place, she produces very little evidence in support of her contention; in the second, she appears to exaggerate the amount of organisa tion needed to stage the mutiny; and in the third, she does not seem to know of the existence of quite a bit of evidence that definitely con tradicts her theories on Edward Young.

Miss Darby, in fact, is like a number of recent writers on the Bounty. She has made good use of all the documents on her subject that have been published in books. But she seems to be completely ignorant of a considerable body of un published documents and periodical literature—most of which is in Sydney’s Mitchell Library—that any student of the Bounty story must consult to get a complete picture of the affair.

It is fortunate for her that little of the literature that she has not consulted has much bearing on the behaviour of Fletcher Christian, and so her book as a whole is not impaired.—RL.

(Who Caused The Mutiny On The

“BOUNTY”? Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 30/-).