Sir, - Character assassination is the name of the game when it comes to Captain Bligh of the Bounty. It's a method much used method by novelists attempting to justify something they cannot, or will not, come to terms with: the seizing of HMAV Bounty as a callous, premeditated act of piracy they prefer to interpret and portray as a "mutiny" (strike) by heroic freedom-fighters led by Hollywood's screen-idol character named Fletcher Christian.
Your reviewer Brian Fallon (on John Toohey's novel Captain Bligh's Portable Nightmare, Books, July 3rd) has reiterated many old myths and prejudices.
He makes a number of contemptible, sweeping statements and errors about Bligh, whom he describes as "not a nice man". I don't know how anyone is supposed to know what "nice" means without comparison. Yet Christian for one, as a friend of the Bligh family, had eagerly sailed with his patron on two voyages prior to Bounty (among others aboard) and had written home saying how kindly and generously he had been treated. Besides this, in the half-century career of a man who captained 15 ships and never lost one through bad seamanship or bad navigation, there are many testimonials to prove that Bligh was one of the most caring ship's captains who ever sailed the seven seas.
With regards to the 21-year-old William Bligh's envied role as "Sailing Master" during Captain Cook's third and last Pacific voyage, any historian worth the name would dismiss Mr Fallon's suggestion that somehow Cook's death in Hawaii raised a "question mark" about Bligh's character, or that Bligh was "a poor man-manager, a skinflint and pennypincher". The fact that he saved more lives on long-distance voyages than many of his contemporaries underlines his recorded concern for the health and welfare of his crews. When taking the Bounty he spared no expense in providing the best of available food and even dipped into his own pocket and spent seven months of his salary buying coals the Royal Navy itself refused to provide to fuel the ship's stoves.
But Mr Fallon's down-grading of Bligh's fantastic and unequalled open-boat voyage, with 18 castaways representing almost half the Bounty's crew, takes the prize for ignorance of the circumstances. I have yet to meet a professional mariner who thought he could have done better in Bligh's shoes. Only landlubbing critics seem to know better.
While I'm grateful that Irish readers learned that Bligh also surveyed Dublin Bay (not mentioned in the Toohey book) Mr Fallon himself made no reference concerning Mr legendary nice guy Fletcher Christian's activities after taking the Bounty with his "piratical villains", as they were known contemporaneously, before setting out on a nine-month rampage of kidnap, rape and bloodshed resulting in the slaughter of over 60 Polynesian natives. Indeed, the perpetrator of the original crime is lionised while a tirade of personal abuse is launched against one of its victims.
As for Bligh "being sometimes paranoid" and his family life being "either unhappy or unfortunate", it's pure rubbish. Archive documents prove that he was a wholly sane and very happily married man and father of eight, respected by those who knew him from his days with Captain Cook to his governorship of Australia's New South Wales Colony. He was not only battle-honoured and medallioned as a hero of Camperdown but received praise from Nelson himself at Copenhagen after saving Nelson's ship from bombardment when running aground. There could be no greater on-the-spot testament for my great-great-great-grandfather Vice-Admiral William Bligh RN, FRS, the most maligned man in maritime history. - Yours, etc.,
Maurice Bligh, Sittingbourne, Kent.