Ducie Island named it in honour of Francis Reynolds-Moreton, 3rd Baron Ducie, under whom he had served earlier in his career. HMS "Pandora" turned northwards from Ducie and, because of this change of course, Edwards did not sight the other islands of the group. If HMS "Pandora" had maintained its course, it would eventually have reached Pitcairn Island and found the "Bounty" mutineers. The crew of the whaleship "Essex", which a whale had attacked and sunk in November 1820, mistakenly believed that they had reached Ducie after a month at sea in two whaleboats. In fact they had reached Henderson Island. Captain
Mutiny on the Bounty on a British warship, , and arrived at Portsmouth on 19 June. There they were transferred to the guardship to await trial. The prisoners included the three detained loyalists—Coleman, McIntosh and Norman—to whom Bligh had promised justice, the blind fiddler Michael Byrne (or "Byrn"), Heywood, Morrison, and four active mutineers: Thomas Burkett, John Millward, Thomas Ellison and William Muspratt. Bligh, who had been given command of HMS "Providence" for a second breadfruit expedition, had left England in August 1791, and thus would be absent from the pending court martial proceedings. The court martial opened on 12 September 1792 on in