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
Bounty Bible due to discontent and disorder fuelled by home-distilled alcohol and disputes over women that eventually led to the deaths of all but two of the mutineers; the survivors being Ned Young and John Adams (also known as Alexander Smith). Young was an educated man and had been accepted as the leader of the island with Adams as his friend and deputy. He taught Adams to read using a Bible from HMS "Bounty", which had been presented to the ship by the Naval and Military Bible Society (now the Naval Military & Air Force Bible Society) prior to sailing from England.