His actions directed against the trade resulted in the so-called Rum Rebellion, during which Bligh was placed under arrest on 26 January 1808 by the New South Wales Corps and deposed from his command, an act which the British Foreign Office later declared to be illegal.

[5] Due to his weakened state, Clerke placed Bligh in charge as navigator of the expedition and attempted to explore the Northwest Passage for a second time.

[citation needed] Bligh married Elizabeth Betham, daughter of a customs collector (stationed in Douglas, Isle of Man), on 4 February 1781.

[9] A few days after the wedding, Bligh was appointed to serve on HMS Belle Poule as master (senior warrant officer responsible for navigation).

[7] In the early 1780s, while in the merchant service, Bligh became acquainted with a young man named Fletcher Christian (1764–1793), who was eager to learn navigation from him.

In order to win a premium offered by the Royal Society, he first sailed to Tahiti to obtain breadfruit trees, then set course east across the South Pacific for South America and the Cape Horn and eventually to the Caribbean Sea, where breadfruit was wanted for experiments to see whether it would be a successful food crop for enslaved Africans on British colonial plantations in the West Indies islands.

[14] Because the vessel was rated only as a cutter, Bounty had no commissioned officers other than Bligh (who was then only a lieutenant), a very small crew, and no Royal Marines to provide protection from hostile natives during stops or to enforce security on board ship.

Timor was the nearest European colonial outpost in the Dutch East Indies (modern Indonesia), 3,618 nmi (6,701 km; 4,164 mi) away.

[16] Despite the hardships he and his men had endured, upon reaching Kupang Bligh maintained his stubborn adherence to Navy protocol, insisting that a makeshift Union Jack be made up and hoisted and that Fryer remain aboard the launch to guard her.

[20] Three of the men who survived this arduous voyage with him were so weak that they soon died of sickness, possibly malaria, in the pestilential Dutch East Indies port of Batavia, the present-day Indonesian capital of Jakarta, as they waited for transport to Britain.

[citation needed] The reasons behind the mutiny are still debated; some sources report that Bligh was a tyrant whose abuse of the crew led them to feel that they had no choice but to take over the ship.

[23] They also argue that the crew—inexperienced and unused to the rigours of the sea—were corrupted by the freedom, idleness and sexual licence of their five months in Tahiti, finding themselves unwilling to return to the "Jack Tar's" life of an ordinary seaman.

In a letter to Sir Joseph Banks, dated 17 July 1791 (two weeks before departure), Bligh wrote:[32] Should Peckover my late Gunner ever trouble you to render him further services I shall esteem it a favour if you will tell him I informed you he was a vicious and worthless fellow—He applied to me to render him service & wanted to be appointed Gunner of the Providence but as I had determined never to suffer an officer who was with me in the Bounty to sail with again, it was for the cause I did not apply for him.Bligh's refusal to appoint Peckover was partly due to Edward Christian's polemic testimony against Bligh in an effort to clear his brother's name.

The following is a letter to Bligh's wife, written from Coupang, Timor, Dutch East Indies (circa June 1791), in which the first reference to events on the Bounty is made.

He with several others came into my Cabin while I was a Sleep, and seizing me, holding naked Bayonets at my Breast, tied my Hands behind my back, and threatened instant destruction if I uttered a word.

I however call'd loudly for assistance, but the conspiracy was so well laid that the Officers Cabbin Doors were guarded by Centinels, so Nelson, Peckover, Samuels or the Master could not come to me.

I was now dragged on Deck in my Shirt & closely guarded—I demanded of Christian the case of such a violent act, & severely degraded for his Villainy but he could only answer—"not a word sir or you are Dead."

[42] In February 1797, while Bligh was captain of HMS Director, he surveyed the Humber estuary, preparing a map of the stretch from Spurn to the west of Sunk Island.

[47] Bligh went on to serve under Admiral Nelson at the Battle of Copenhagen on 2 April 1801, in command of Glatton, a 56-gun ship of the line, which was experimentally fitted exclusively with carronades.

They included the wealthy landowner and businessman John Macarthur, and prominent Crown representatives such as the colony's principal surgeon, Thomas Jamison, as well as senior officers of the New South Wales Corps.

Jamison and his military associates were defying government regulations by engaging in private trading ventures for profit, a practice that Bligh was determined to end.

Bligh failed to gain support from the authorities in Hobart to retake control of New South Wales, and remained effectively imprisoned on the Porpoise from 1808 until January 1810.

In the days immediately prior to their departure, his daughter, Mary Putland (widowed in 1808), was hastily married to the new Lieutenant-Governor, Maurice Charles O'Connell, and remained in Sydney.

[63] The following year, the trial's presiding officers sentenced Johnston to be cashiered, a form of disgraceful dismissal that entailed surrendering his commission in the Royal Marines without compensation.

[64] (This was a comparatively mild punishment that enabled Johnston to return a free man to New South Wales, where he could continue to enjoy the benefits of his accumulated private wealth.)

The wall that was constructed used a design by George Halpin and resulted in the formation of North Bull Island by the sand cleared by the river's now more narrowly focused force.

[65] Bligh died of cancer in Bond Street, London, on 7 December 1817 and was buried in a family plot at St. Mary's, Lambeth (this church is now the Garden Museum).

[49] His tomb was notable for its use of Coade stone (Lithodipyra), a compound of clay and other materials that was moulded in imitation of carved stonework and fired in a kiln.

Bligh is humorously portrayed in Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch's short story "Frenchman's Creek" as a competent but irascible and tactless surveyor sent to a small fishing village in Cornwall during the Napoleonic Wars.

[75] The situation in Sydney in 1810, with Bligh returning from Tasmania to be restored as governor, is the setting of Naomi Novik's fantasy novel Tongues of Serpents (Harper-Collins, 2011).