Mutiny on the Bounty was then forced below at bayonet-point; according to Fryer, Christian told him: "I have been in hell for weeks past. Captain Bligh has brought this on himself." Christian originally thought to cast Bligh adrift in "Bounty"'s small jolly boat, together with his clerk John Samuel and the loyalist midshipmen Hayward and Hallett. This boat proved unseaworthy, so Christian ordered the launching of a larger ship's boat, with a capacity of around ten. However, Christian and his allies had overestimated the extent of the mutiny—at least half on board were determined to leave with Bligh. Thus the ship's largest boat, a
Mutiny on the Bounty were able to restore peace. After Young succumbed to asthma in 1800, Adams took responsibility for the education and well-being of the nine remaining women and 19 children. Using the ship's Bible from "Bounty", he taught literacy and Christianity, and kept peace on the island. This was the situation in February 1808, when the American sealer "Topaz" came unexpectedly upon Pitcairn, landed, and discovered the, by then, thriving community. News of "Topaz"'s discovery did not reach Britain until 1810, when it was overlooked by an Admiralty preoccupied by war with France. In 1814, two British warships, HMS "Briton" and HMS