HMS Bounty on 23 January 1790 in what is now called Bounty Bay. The mutineers remained undetected on Pitcairn until February 1808, when sole remaining mutineer John Adams and the surviving Tahitian women and their children were discovered by the Boston sealer "Topaz", commanded by Captain Mayhew Folger of Nantucket, Massachusetts. Seventeen years later, in 1825, , on a voyage of exploration under Captain Frederick William Beechey, arrived on Christmas Day off Pitcairn and spent 19 days there. Captain Beechey later recorded this in his 1831 published account of the voyage, as did one of his crew, John Bechervaise, in his 1839
HMS Pandora (1779) learning of the mutiny on HMS "Bounty", the First Lord of the Admiralty, John Pitt, 2nd Earl of Chatham, decided to despatch her to recover the "Bounty", capture the mutineers, and return them to England for trial. She was refitted, and her 9-pounder guns were reduced to 20 in number, though she gained four 18-pounder carronades. "Pandora" sailed from The Solent on 7 November 1790, commanded by Captain Edward Edwards and manned by a crew of 134 men. With his crew was Thomas Hayward, who had been on the "Bounty" at the time of the mutiny, and left with Bligh