A Voyage to the South Sea

'A Voyage to the South Sea' is an interesting and thrilling autobiographical account by the Royal Navy Vice-Admiral William Bligh of the naval expedition of HMS Bounty under his command, including the mutiny against him that happened in 1789. In order to win a premium offered by the Royal Society, Bligh first sailed to Tahiti to obtain breadfruit trees, then set course east across the South Pacific for South America and the Cape Horn and eventually to the Caribbean Sea, where breadfruit was wanted for experiments to see whether it would be a successful food crop for African slaves there on British colonial plantations in the West Indies islands. However, The Bounty never reached the Caribbean, as mutiny broke out on board shortly after the ship left Tahiti. The reasons behind the mutiny are still debated. After being set adrift in Bounty's launch by the mutineers, Bligh and his loyal men were forced to start a completely new and an adventurous journey of their own...

William Bligh (1754-1817) was an officer of the Royal Navy and a colonial administrator. During his command of HMS Bounty, The Mutiny on the Bounty occurred in 1789, and he was set adrift. In 1806, he was appointed Governor of New South Wales in Australia, with orders to clean up the corrupt rum trade of the New South Wales Corps. His actions directed against the trade resulted in the so-called Rum Rebellion, during which Bligh was placed under arrest in 1808 by the New South Wales Corps and deposed from his command, an act which the British Foreign Office later declared to be illegal.