Читать книгу Men Against the Sea – Book Set. The Greatest Maritime Adventure Novels: The Bounty Trilogy, Lost Island, The Hurricane, Botany Bay, The Far Lands, Tales of the South Seas… онлайн

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Edwards sold the Resolution at Samarang, and the money was divided among the Pandora’s crew for the purchase of clothing and other necessities. This seemed hard upon Morrison and the other prisoners who had built the schooner. Not a shilling did they receive, but they at least had the satisfaction of knowing that they had built a staunch little ship, as good as any turned out by the shipwrights of England. After her sale at Samarang she had a long and honourable career in the western Pacific, and made the record passage between China and the Sandwich Islands.

At Samarang the Rembang was reconditioned and we proceeded to Batavia, where the company was divided and trans-shipped to four vessels of the Dutch East India Company for the long voyage to Holland. Captain Edwards, with Lieutenant Parkin, the master, purser, gunner, clerk, two midshipmen, and the ten prisoners from the Bounty, embarked on the Vreedenburg, and on January 15, 1792, we arrived at the Cape of Good Hope, where we found H.M.S. Gorgon awaiting orders for England. Edwards therefore left the Vreedenburg and took passage for all of his party on the Gorgon. We remained at the Cape for nearly three months, during which time we were confined on the Gorgon. Mr. Gardner, first lieutenant of that vessel, treated us with great humanity. We were chained by one leg only, instead of having both feet and both hands in irons as heretofore, and we were given an old sail to lie upon at night, a luxury we had not enjoyed during the previous twelve months. On the long passage to England we were permitted to remain on deck for several hours each day to enjoy the fresh air. This circumstance was galling to Edwards, who would have kept us below during all that weary time; but as the ship was not his, he was not in a position to protest.