John Adams (mutineer) John Adams (mutineer) John Adams, known as Jack Adams (4 December 1767 – 5 March 1829), was the last survivor of the HMS "Bounty" mutineers who settled on Pitcairn Island in January 1790, the year after the mutiny. His real name was John Adams, but he used the name Alexander Smith until he was discovered in 1808 by Captain Mayhew Folger of the American whaling ship "Topaz". His children used the surname "Adams". The mutineers of HMS "Bounty" and their Tahitian companions settled on the island and set fire to the "Bounty". Only the ballast stone remains of the wreck
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