An alternative "Mutiny on the Bounty"

On April 28, 1789 the British warship HMS Bounty under Captain Bligh was taken over by its crew under the command of Lt. Fletcher Christian. As we all know Bligh and his supporters were set asea on a small boat which they sailed to a friendly port and many of the mutineers were later found and brought to justice. Except of course for Fletcher and a few of his men and their Tahitian wives who found a deserted island and settled there and werent discovered till around 20 years later.

But.

What if after Bligh was set asea his small boat capsized and he and all his men drowned.

1. How long do you think it would have taken for the British admiralty to discover the Bounty and her crew was missing? How long before they searched and how long before they found the truth? Or would they have ever found out the truth?

2. The mutiny, because of how it widely reported on in British newspapers, had a chilling effect on the British navy and forced the navy to take a hard look and how sailors were treated and if certain captains and ships officers were indeed sadists and not the gentlemen they were held up to be?

But lets say while the mutiny happened, nobody ever heard the truth because the guilty parties escaped justice. How would that effect the British navy?
 
It might be assumed that the Bounty was the ship lost with all hands. Such things happened.

I'm not sure it would greatly change the professional reexamination of the navy, but it might have some impact.
 
Bounty would have be come soming like the La Perouse expedition with several searchs sent out to find them and maybe claiming more of the South Pacific Islands for the British Empire.

With a dead Bligh who would come the Governor of New South Wales perhaps someone more sympathetic to Mcarthur and the Rum Corp lead to they cementing in their power to become the Australian upper class.

Bligh was by most accounts a strict discipliarian and could be irritating in person but he was a damn fine seaman who managed to navigate 6000 kms in a long boat from the Pacific to Batavia in Dutch East Indies without lossing a man.
 
Bligh was by most accounts a strict discipliarian and could be irritating in person but he was a damn fine seaman who managed to navigate 6000 kms in a long boat from the Pacific to Batavia in Dutch East Indies without lossing a man.
Not quite true, he lost one man on Tofua. Killed by natives.
 
If they all die then you probably wouldn't have had that the rape trial of Pitcairn back in 2004 that seemed to incriminate almost every white man on the island.
 
The biggest plausible butterfly I see would be prolonged, nastier Spithead and Nore mutinies. OTL a radical subset of the mutineers wanted the King to dissolve Parliament and make peace with France.
 
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Bligh was by most accounts a strict discipliarian and could be irritating in person...
That's not true. He was more gentle than all other captains at that time. He believed that wippings and scurvy are signs of bad leadership, so he tried to do without wippings and insubordinate officers were only reprimanded and not sanctioned (which could include the death penalty!).
BTW he was only a lieutenant and the Bounty was also only an armed vessel and not a ship thus HMAV Bounty instead of HMS Bounty.
 
The biggest plausible butterfly I see would be prolonged, nastier Spithead and Nore mutinies. OTL a radical subset of the mutineers wanted the King to dissolve Parliament and make peace with France.

Thats true. I think the mutiny on the Bounty stuck the idea in many a sailors head that they could mutiny. Also that the navy should consider how the sailors were treated and paid. For example pay had not increased in 100 years.
 
William Bligh had not reach the rank of captain when he was on HM Armed Vessel Bounty.


His rank was Commanding Lieutenant.
 
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