HMS Bounty HMS Bounty HMS "Bounty, also known as HM Armed Vessel "Bounty, was a small merchant vessel that the Royal Navy purchased for a botanical mission. The ship was sent to the Pacific Ocean under the command of William Bligh to acquire breadfruit plants and transport them to British possessions in the West Indies. That mission was never completed due to a mutiny led by acting lieutenant Fletcher Christian. This incident is now popularly known as the mutiny on the "Bounty". The mutineers later burned "Bounty" while she was moored at Pitcairn Island. An American adventurer rediscovered the remains of the
Mutiny on the Bounty however Bligh's reputation as the archetypal bad commander remains: the "Baltimore Sun"'s reviewer of Alexander's book wrote "poetry routed science and it has held the field ever since". In addition to many books and articles about the mutiny, in the 20th century five feature films were produced. The first was a 1916 silent Australian film, subsequently lost. The second, also from Australia, entitled "In the Wake of the Bounty" (1933), and was the screen debut of Errol Flynn in the role of Christian. The impact of this film was overshadowed by that of the MGM version, "Mutiny on the Bounty"