pounds of execrable meat; one pound and a half of stock fish; the same weight of tamarinds and sugar; gee, and rancid oil, of each half a pint; and one pint of vinegar, per man, every fortnight:– two drams of arrack, equal to one-third of a pint, per day:– and an equally scanty proportion of the very worst rice, instead of bread. Miserable as this allowance was, the Dutch pursers contrived to distribute it in such a manner as to make fourteen rations last for sixteen days!
Mr. Heywood was removed into the Gorgon, of 44 guns, lying in Table Bay, March 19, 1792; and from that period till his arrival in England he appears to have been allowed the inestimable indulgence of walking upon deck for six or eight hours every day, whilst at other times he was only confined with one leg in irons. On the 21st of June, two days after his return to Spithead, he was transferred to the Hector 74, commanded by Captain (now Sir George) Montagu, who treated him with the greatest humanity both before and after his trial, which took place in September following, when we find him delivering the following address in vindication of his character:
“I call that God to witness, before whose awful tribunal I must one day appear, that I was entirely ignorant of the mutiny, which happened oa board his Majesty’s ship Bounty, previous to its perpetration on the morning of the 28th of April, 1789, or any circumstances relative to it.
“On the preceding evening, Monday, at eight o’clock, I went upon deck, and kept the first watch, with Mr. John Fryer, the master, who ordered me to keep the look-out upon the forecastle; and I remained there till past twelve o’clock, when I was relieved by Mr. Edward Young, a Midshipman, upon which I went down below into my berth, situated on the larboard side of the main hatchway, and slept in my hammock till about an hour after day-light, (perhaps it might have been earlier, I cannot positively tell) when I awoke, and laying my cheek upon the side of my hammock, chanced to look into the hatchway, where I saw Matthew Thompson, seaman, sitting upon an arm-chest, which was there secured, with a drawn cutlass in his hand; and as I knew him to be a man who had kept the middle watch, with Mr. William Peckover, the gunner, I was struck with surprise at a sight so unusual. Unable to conjecture the reason of his being there at so early an hour, I immediately got out of bed, went to the side of the berth, and asked him what he was doing there? Upon which he replied, ‘that Mr. Fletcher Christian had taken the ship from the Captain, whom he had confined upon deck, and was going to carry him home as a prisoner; and that they should have more provisions and better usage than before.’ Mr. Elphinstone, one of the Master’s . Mates, who was lying awake in his hammock, which hung at the outside
