By 1779, Ann had run up a debt of nearly £6,500 (equal to £1,103,433 today),[3] and faced the prospect of debtors' prison.
Moorland Close was lost and Ann and her younger children were forced to flee to the Isle of Man, where English creditors had no power.
The three elder Christian sons managed to arrange a £40 (equal to £6,790 today) per year annuity for their mother, allowing the family to live in genteel poverty.
In it, Edward did not try to excuse his brother Fletcher's conduct, but citing his interviews with several of the people involved (none directly), and listing the names and addresses of several prominent people as witnesses to these interviews, he recounted several of the excesses of William Bligh, Commander of the Bounty.
The process was aided by the efforts of the family of Peter Heywood, a midshipman on the Bounty, and others, but many attribute the source of William Bligh's bad reputation, to this day, to Edward Christian's Appendix.
It is believed by many that Edward Christian's impetus for both the Minutes and the Appendix, were a letter from, and a subsequent meeting with, Peter Heywood, after the latter's pardon.