Complement of HMS Bounty Complement of HMS Bounty The complement of , the Royal Navy ship on which a historic mutiny occurred in the south Pacific on 28 April 1789, comprised 46 men on its departure from England in December 1787 and 44 at the time of the mutiny, including her commander Lieutenant William Bligh. All but two of those aboard were Royal Navy personnel; the exceptions were two civilian botanists engaged to supervise the breadfruit plants "Bounty" was tasked to take from Tahiti to the West Indies. Of the 44 aboard at the time of the mutiny, 19 (including Bligh) were set adrift
Mutiny on the Bounty of the "Britannia", a vessel owned by his wife's uncle Duncan Campbell. Bligh assumed the prestigious "Bounty" appointment on 16 August 1787, at a considerable financial cost; his lieutenant's pay of four shillings a day (£70 a year) contrasted with the £500 a year he had earned as captain of "Britannia". Because of the limited number of warrant officers allowed on "Bounty", Bligh was also required to act as the ship's purser. His sailing orders stated that he was to enter the Pacific via Cape Horn around South America and then, after collecting the breadfruit plants, sail westward through the