Pitcairn's Island (novel) settle on the island of Tubuai, the "Bounty" mutineers returned to Tahiti where they parted company. Fletcher Christian and eight of his men, together with eighteen Polynesians, sailed from Tahiti in September 1789, and for a period of eighteen years nothing was heard of them. Then, in 1808, the American sailing vessel "Topaz" discovered a thriving community of mixed blood on Pitcairn Island under the rule of "Alexander Smith" (the assumed name of John Adams, the only survivor of the fifteen men who had landed there so long before). Pitcairn's Island (novel) Pitcairn's Island is the third installment in the
Peter Heywood with a bayonet at his breast and his hands tied, had addressed a remark to Heywood who had "laughed, turned round and walked away". Another midshipman, Thomas Hayward, claimed he had asked Heywood his intentions and been told by the latter that he would remain with the ship, from which Hayward assumed that his messmate had sided with the mutineers. After the departure of Bligh's launch, Christian turned "Bounty" eastward in search of a remote haven on which he and the mutineers could settle. He had in mind the island of Tubuai, 300 miles south of Tahiti, partly mapped by