Mutiny on the Bounty were able to restore peace. After Young succumbed to asthma in 1800, Adams took responsibility for the education and well-being of the nine remaining women and 19 children. Using the ship's Bible from "Bounty", he taught literacy and Christianity, and kept peace on the island. This was the situation in February 1808, when the American sealer "Topaz" came unexpectedly upon Pitcairn, landed, and discovered the, by then, thriving community. News of "Topaz"'s discovery did not reach Britain until 1810, when it was overlooked by an Admiralty preoccupied by war with France. In 1814, two British warships, HMS "Briton" and HMS
Mutiny on the Bounty officers. These signed the ship's roster as able seamen, but were quartered with the midshipmen and treated on equal terms with them. Most of "Bounty"'s crew were chosen by Bligh or were recommended to him by influential patrons. William Peckover the gunner and Joseph Coleman the armourer had been with Cook and Bligh on HMS "Resolution"; several others had sailed under Bligh more recently on the "Britannia". Among these was the 23-year-old Fletcher Christian, who came from a wealthy Cumberland family descended from Manx gentry. Christian had chosen a life at sea rather than the legal career envisaged by his