Norfolk Island after 1847, and the last convicts were removed to Tasmania in May 1855. The island was abandoned because transportation from the United Kingdom to Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) had ceased in 1853, to be replaced by penal servitude in the UK. The next settlement began on 8 June 1856, as the descendants of Tahitians and the HMS "Bounty" mutineers, including those of Fletcher Christian were resettled from the Pitcairn Islands, which had become too small for their growing population. On 3 May 1856, 193 people had left Pitcairn Islands aboard the "Morayshire". On 8 June 194 people arrived, a baby
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