In December 1878, HMS "Bounty" sailed from Spithead to the South Seas; in April 1789 her crew mutinied in the vicinity of the Friendly Islands, and set the commander, William Bligh, and several of his companions adrift in an open boat. Sir John Barrow (1764-1848) was Permanent Secretary to the British Admiralty and the promoter of Arctic exploration and voyages of discovery. In this role, he had access to unpublished documents and to the papers of Captain Peter Heywood, a midshipman on the "Bounty" whose remarkable story he tells in full. He is able to answer two crucial questions raised by the whole incident - why the crew of the "Bounty" mutinied in the first place and how it happened that the mutiny was prompted and led by an officer. This book was first published in 1831 and has now been reissued to coincide with the bicentenary of the mutiny of the "Bounty".