the situation of 109 persons without clothing[1], crowded in a small vessel only capable of admitting one third of that number below at a time, may readily be conceived. Fortunately, however, they met with the most friendly and hospitable reception at Ty-pin-san, the natives of which place loaded their little bark with provisions, and thereby enabled them to reach Whampoa, in China, without feeling the pangs of hunger and thirst, too often experienced by persons placed in similar situations of danger.
The schooner, having met with no bad weather, nor any other obstacle, passed the Bocca Tigris on the 4th June, 1797, remained in the neighbourhood of Canton for a few days, and then worked down towards Macao roads, where a division of her officers and crew took place – 43 being discharged into the Swift sloop of war for the disposal of Rear-Admiral Rainier; 30 into a fleet of homeward bound Indiamen; and 35 retained by Captain Broughton for the purpose of completing his survey. Among those sent home were the first Lieutenant (now Captain) Zachary Mudge, Lord George Stuart, and the present Hon. Captain Alexander Jones. It is here worthy of remark that the Providence was the ship in which “Bounty Bligh” ultimately conveyed the bread fruit to St. Vincent’s and Jamaica; that Captain Broughton, when warping into Mataviabay, Nov. 30, 1795, swept an iron-stocked anchor which the Bounty’s mutineers left behind them when they cut their cable and bade an everlasting farewell to Otaheite, Sept. 22, 1789; that the schooner built by the poor fellows who had been innocently involved in their guilt was, as we have stated above, the vessel destined to preserve the crew of the Providence; and that the 43 officers and men who were drafted into the Swift, were doomed to perish under the command of an officer who was one of Bligh’s companions when turned adrift in the Bounty’s launch by Christian and his colleagues. Strange as the coincidence may appear, what we have stated admits of no contradiction.
- ↑ The Providence left England with a complement of 115 officers, seamen, and marines. Of this number one had died a natural death, three been killed by accident, and two murdered by the natives at one of the Sandwich Islands.
