Assistant was a brig of 110 tons burden, armed with four 4-pounders and eight swivel guns, and carrying a complement of twenty-seven. [1]
She accompanied HMS Providence (1791) as tender on William Bligh's second breadfruit expedition from August 1791 to August 1793. Her commander was Lieutenant Nathaniel Portlock.
Vice-Admiral William Bligh was an officer of the Royal Navy and a colonial administrator. The Mutiny on the Bounty occurred during his command of HMS Bounty in 1789; after being set adrift in Bounty's launch by the mutineers, Bligh and his loyal men all reached Timor alive, after a journey of 3,618 nautical miles. Bligh's logbooks documenting the mutiny were inscribed on the UNESCO Australian Memory of the World register on 26 February 2021.
The Rum Rebellion of 1808 was a coup d'état in the then-British penal colony of New South Wales, staged by the New South Wales Corps in order to depose Governor William Bligh. Australia's first and only military coup, it is named after the illicit rum trade of early Sydney, over which the Rum Corps, as it became known, maintained a monopoly. During the first half of the 19th century, it was widely referred to in Australia as the Great Rebellion.
The mutiny on the Royal Navy vessel HMS Bounty occurred in the South Pacific Ocean on 28 April 1789. Disaffected crewmen, led by acting-Lieutenant Fletcher Christian, seized control of the ship from their captain, Lieutenant William Bligh, and set him and eighteen loyalists adrift in the ship's open launch. The mutineers variously settled on Tahiti or on Pitcairn Island. Bligh navigated more than 3,500 nautical miles in the launch to reach safety, and began the process of bringing the mutineers to justice.
Lieutenant General Watkin Tench was a British marine officer who is best known for publishing two books describing his experiences in the First Fleet, which established the first European settlement in Australia in 1788. His two accounts, Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay and Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson provide an account of the arrival and first four years of the colony.
Desolation Island is the fifth historical novel in the Aubrey-Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian. It was first published in 1978.
Pōmare I was the unifier and first king of Tahiti and founder of the Pōmare dynasty and the Kingdom of Tahiti between 1788 and 1791. He abdicated in 1791 but remained in power as the guardian regent during the minority of his successor Pōmare II from 1791 until 1803. He is best known in the western world for being the ruler of Tahiti during the mutiny on the Bounty in 1789.
George Dixon was an English sea captain, explorer, and maritime fur trader. George Dixon was "born in Leath Ward, a native of Kirkoswald". The son of Thomas Dixon, he was baptised in Kirkoswald on 8 July 1748.
Peter Heywood was a British naval officer who was on board HMS Bounty during the mutiny of 28 April 1789. He was later captured in Tahiti, tried and condemned to death as a mutineer, but subsequently pardoned. He resumed his naval career and eventually retired with the rank of post-captain, after 29 years of honourable service.
Admiral Edward Edwards (1742–1815) was a British naval officer best known as the captain of HMS Pandora, the frigate which the Admiralty sent to the South Pacific in pursuit of the Bounty mutineers.
The following lists events that happened during 1806 in Australia.
HMS Providence was a sloop of the Royal Navy, famous for being commanded by William Bligh on his second breadfruit voyage between 1791 and 1794.
Captain John Richards Lapenotière was a British Royal Navy officer who, as a lieutenant commanding the tiny topsail schooner HMS Pickle, observed the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October 1805, participated in the rescue operations which followed it and then carried the dispatches of the victory and the death of Admiral Nelson to Britain.
Captain John Gore was a British American sailor who circumnavigated the globe four times with the Royal Navy in the 18th century and accompanied Captain James Cook in his discoveries in the Pacific Ocean.
Francis Godolphin Bond was a Rear-Admiral in the British Royal Navy. He was a nephew of William Bligh and grandfather of Frederick Bligh Bond. He sailed as Bligh's First Lieutenant on HMS Providence, Bligh's second breadfruit mission to Tahiti following the ill-fated Bounty voyage.
HMS Bounty, also known as HM Armed Vessel Bounty, was a small merchant vessel that the Royal Navy purchased in 1787 for a botanical mission. The ship was sent to the South Pacific Ocean under the command of William Bligh to acquire breadfruit plants and transport them to the West Indies. That mission was never completed owing to a 1789 mutiny led by acting lieutenant Fletcher Christian, an incident now popularly known as the mutiny on the Bounty. The mutineers later burned Bounty while she was moored at Pitcairn Island. An American adventurer helped land several remains of Bounty in 1957.
The King George's Sound Company, also known as Richard Cadman Etches and Company after its "prime mover and principal investor", was an English company formed in 1785 to engage in the maritime fur trade on the northwest coast of North America. The company had nine partners in 1785: Richard Cadman Etches, John Hanning, William Etches, Mary Camilla Brook, William Etches, John Etches, Nathaniel Gilmour, Nathaniel Portlock (captain), and George Dixon (captain). No change in the list of partners after 1785 has been found.
Nathaniel Portlock was a British ship's captain, maritime fur trader, and author.
John Bligh CB was an officer in the Royal Navy who served during the American War of Independence and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.
Matavai Bay is a bay on the north coast of Tahiti, the largest island in the Windward group of French Polynesia. It is in the commune of Mahina, approximately 8 km east of the capital Pape'ete.
The complement of HMS Bounty, the Royal Navy ship on which a historic mutiny occurred in the south Pacific on 28 April 1789, comprised 46 men on its departure from England in December 1787 and 44 at the time of the mutiny, including her commander Lieutenant William Bligh. All but two of those aboard were Royal Navy personnel; the exceptions were two civilian botanists engaged to supervise the breadfruit plants Bounty was tasked to take from Tahiti to the West Indies. Of the 44 aboard at the time of the mutiny, 19 were set adrift in the ship's launch, while 25, a mixture of mutineers and detainees, remained on board under Fletcher Christian. Bligh led his loyalists 3,500 nautical miles to safety in the open boat, and ultimately back to England. The mutineers divided—most settled on Tahiti, where they were captured by HMS Pandora in 1791 and returned to England for trial, while Christian and eight others evaded discovery on Pitcairn Island.
Media related to HMS Assistant (ship, 1791) at Wikimedia Commons