HMS Bounty table below. Four were detained against their will on the "Bounty" for their needed skills and for lack of space on the long boat. The mutineers first returned to Tahiti, where most of the survivors were later captured by the "Pandora" and taken to England for trial. Nine mutineers continued their flight from the law and eventually settled Pitcairn Island, where all but one died before their fate became known to the outside world. Luis Marden discovered the remains of the "Bounty" in January 1957. After spotting remains of the rudder (which had been found in 1933 by Parkin Christian,
HMS Bounty sailed for the island of Tubuai, where they tried to settle. After three months of bloody conflict with the natives, however, they returned to Tahiti. Sixteen of the mutineers – including the four loyalists who had been unable to accompany Bligh – remained there, taking their chances that the Royal Navy would find them and bring them to justice. Immediately after setting the sixteen men ashore in Tahiti in September 1789, Fletcher Christian, eight other crewmen, six Tahitian men, and 11 women, one with a baby, set sail in the "Bounty" hoping to elude the Royal Navy. According to a