Complement of HMS Bounty in the ship's launch, while 25, a mixture of mutineers and detainees, remained on board under Fletcher Christian. Bligh led his loyalists to safety in the open boat, and ultimately back to England. The mutineers divided—most settled on Tahiti, where they were captured by in 1791 and returned to England for trial, while Christian and eight others evaded discovery on Pitcairn Island. The Admiralty rated "Bounty" as a cutter, the smallest category of warship—this meant that she was commanded not by a captain but by a lieutenant, with no other commissioned officers aboard, and without the usual detachment of Royal
The Bounty (1984 film) The music score was composed by Vangelis and the cinematography designed by Arthur Ibbetson. The film is set as flashbacks from the court martial at Greenwich of Commanding Lieutenant William Bligh (Anthony Hopkins) for the loss of "HMS Bounty" to mutineers led by his friend Fletcher Christian (Mel Gibson), during its expedition to Tahiti to gather breadfruit pods for transplantation in the Caribbean. Bligh sets out from Great Britain in December 1787, electing to sail the "Bounty" west round the tip of South America in an attempt to use the expedition to fulfill an ambition to circumnavigate the globe. The