Maskelyne Vault

A recent visit to Wiltshire gave me the opportunity to visit Purton where, since the sixteenth century, the Maskelyne family had been significant landowners and where Nevil’s father Edmund lived.  Though Nevil himself was born in London in 1732 and died at Greenwich in 1811, the family connection led to him being buried on the South side of the Parish Church of St Mary’s.

St Mary's Church, Purton, June 2011

Designated a Grade 1 listed building, St Mary’s is one of only three churches in England to have both a western tower and a central spire.

St Mary's Purton, Western Tower, June 2011

The central tower was built in c.1325 and the transepts were also added in the 14th century. The chapel on the southern side of the chancel is mid 14th century and the decorated piscina indicates that it was a chantry chapel.  In the 15th century the north and south aisles were rebuilt and the nave walls raised by about three feet. The west tower was built in the latter part of the 15th century and the building of this caused alterations to be made to the chancel.  In 1872 restoration was carried out and included rebuilding three walls of the chancel. During the work the walled up skeleton of a woman was found in a room or chapel in the north transept.  The reason she was there remains an unsolved mystery. In 1977 wall paintings were uncovered and the best of these being the Death of the Virgin on the south wall of the Lady Chapel.

Inside the Church is a memorial plaque to Maskelyne.

The inscription reads: In this cemetery of this Church are laid the remains of Nevil Maskelyne STPRSS and also Astronomer Royal, a man, whether you should look at simplicity of manners, kindness of heart or the usefulness of a most learned life, (was) outstanding and illustrious, deserving public lament, who in describing the laws of nature worshipped above all the great Creator: sincerely pious, he displayed his piety in doing his duty; finally trusting not in himself but in Christ he gave up his well lived life into the lap of the everlasting Father in sure hope of reward to come. On the 9th Feb. the year of the Lord 1811.

STP Sacrae Theologiae Professor - Doctor of Theology
RSS Regalis Societatis Sodalis - Fellow of the Royal Society

Maskelyne Vault, June 2011

Inscription to Sophie, Widow of Nevil Maskelyne

Inscription to Margaret, Daughter of Nevil and Sophie Maskelyne

In Madras in 1753 Maskelyne’s seventeen year old sister, Margaret, married Robert Clive who had been sent out to India ten years previously as a “writer” in the service of The East India Company.  Later better known as Clive of India he is credited with securing India, and the wealth that followed, for the British crown and together with Warren Hastings he was one of the key figures in the creation of British India.

Maskelyne, Mason and Dixon, 1761

2011 is the 250^th Anniversary of Nevil Maskylene’s visit to St. Helena to observe the June 1761 Transit of Venus and is also the bicentenary of his death.  Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon visited St Helena in October the same year returning from observing the Transit in South Africa.

When I first started reading about Maskelyne the most widely available picture of him was the one below.

Nevil Maskelyne by John Downman, BHC 2854. National Maritime Museum

The Board of Longitude blog, http://www.nmm.ac.uk/blogs/longitude/2011/04/a-mystery-astronomer.html recently posted that the National Maritime Museum now describe this picture as "Formerly called Nevil Maskelyne" as there is some doubt that it is of Maskelyne for the sensible reason that it does not look all that much like the other known portraits.  The late Derek Howse, formerly Head of Astronomy at NMM and biographer of Maskelyne firmly believed that this portrait is misidentified on the basis of its great dissimilarity to Louis van der Puyl's undoubted Maskelyne portrait of 1785 owned by the Royal Society and that this otherwise fine portrait is therefore probably another astronomer, so far unidentified.

Van der Puyl shows him in clerical dress appropriate to his formal status as a clerk in Holy Orders against the background of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich.



In 1716 Edmond Halley, who had visited St Helena in 1677 and 1700, noted that an accurate timing of the transit of Venus would aid the calculation of the distance between the Earth and the Sun.  Although Halley knew he would not live to see the next anticipated Venus transit in 1761, his detailed plans and papers ensured that expeditions were sent out to the furthest reaches of the globe to make observations.  The 1761 transit  observations constituted the largest international scientific undertaking up to that time and despite the fact that it took place during the latter half of the Seven Years' War (1756-1763), a worldwide conflict involving the major powers of the time and their colonies, it was to be observed by many astronomers at over one hundred locations involving 170 observers scattered from Peking to Newfoundland though, as we shall see, not always from the location planned.

Janisch records that The Directors of the East India Company in London wrote to The Governor of St Helena (Letters from England, Dec. 31, 1760)

His Majesty having been graciously pleased to encourage the making observations on the transit of the planet Venus over the Sun's disk on the 6th June next and proper persons being engaged by the Royal Society for the purpose two of them, Mr. Charles Mason and Mr. Jeremiah Dixon proceed to Fort Marlborough* on H. M. Ship Seahorse and the other two Revd. Mr. Nevil Maskelyne and Mr. Robert Waddington take passage on the Prince Henry to St. Helena.  As this is done to make some improvements in Astronomy which will be of general utility the two last named gentlemen are upon their arrival and during their stay to be accommodated by you in a suitable manner with diet and apartments at the Company's expense and you are to give them all the assistance as to materials, workmen, and whatsoever else the service they are employed upon may require.

*Fort Marlborough was the EIC base at Bencoolen, a pepper trading centre on the southern part of the west coast of Sumatra.  A garrison had been established there in 1685 and the Fort was built in 1714.  St Helena and Bencoolen were linked both through trade and personnel.

The Governor replied (Letter to England, May 26, 1761)

Rev. Nevil Maskelyne and Mr. Robt. Waddington shall be accommodated in a suitable manner with diet and apartments at the Company's expense. We have already erected an observatory for them in the country and shall furnish whatever else the service may require.

Transit Diagram

A graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge, Maskelyne (1732 - 1811) became assistant to the then Astronomer Royal, Bradley, in 1757.  He left England for St. Helena in January 1761 to observe the June 6th transit, with the aim of using this information to calculate the distance of the Earth from the Sun.  Having set up his observatory on the high ridge behind Alarm House low cloud prevented any useful observations being made, though several people reportedly saw it in Jamestown.  He returned to England in May 1762. 

He evidently had a taste for good living. Chambers Edinburgh Journal for 1848 records the following in regard to his trip. “In a curious estimate which he drew up of his expenses for the voyage and sojourn on the island for one year we find 13 guineas set down for washing, for board 109 guineas, for liquors 141 guineas. 5 shillings per day was reckoned as the charge for drink while on the island and £50 for the same item for the voyage out and home.  Maskelyne was a clergyman but his habits would have ill accorded with our present notions of temperance.”

Mason and Dixon are remembered today primarily for their work between 1763 and 1767 in the resolution of a border dispute between British colonies of Maryland and Pennsylvania/Delaware in Colonial America. The disputants, the Calverts of Maryland and the Penns of Pennsylvania, engaged the astronomer Mason and surveyor Dixon, to survey what became known as the Mason–Dixon Line, and paid £3,512 to have the 327 miles surveyed.  In popular usage, especially since the Missouri Compromise of 1820, the Mason Dixon Line symbolises a cultural boundary between the Northeastern United States and the Southern United States (Dixie).

Having been chosen, in 1760, by the Royal Society to go to Bencoolen to observe the 1761 transit Mason suggested that Dixon should go as his assistant.  On January 10th 1761 their ship, the HMS Seahorse, was attacked by L’Grande a 34 gun French frigate and they had to return to Portsmouth with 11 killed and 37 wounded. Wanting to call the expedition off they were threatened with dire personal consequences “they may assure themselves of being treated by the Council with the most inflexible resentment, and prosecuted with the utmost Severity of Law” and were prodded back to sea by the Royal Society. Their second voyage wouldn't have got them to Sumatra in time (and Bencoolen had been captured by the French in August 1760), so they stopped at Cape Town, South Africa, as guests of the local governor and set up their equipment. They obtained several accurate measurements of Venus's position on the solar disc, providing some of the most useful data from the 1761 event, as it was the only successful observation made from the Southern Hemisphere.  On the passage home, they stopped at St Helena in October and, after discussion with Maskelyne, who had failed to observe the transit there, Dixon returned temporarily to the Cape with Maskelyne's clock to carry out gravity experiments.  Returning via St Helena he and Mason reached England in February 1762, each £230 richer. 

Despite being watched by so many observers the results were disappointing.  Bad weather, navigational errors, and difficulty timing Venus's image against the sun, all contributed to the failure and with no method for accurately calculating the longitude of most observation sites, no useful results were obtained.  Venus was expected to transit the Sun again on 3 June 1769, but if this opportunity was also lost, it would be another 105 years before the transit next occurred and another attempt at recording it could be made.

With this in mind, in 1768 the Royal Society sent a petition to King George III requesting assistance to send a scientific expedition to the South Seas to observe the forethcoming transit.  The petition, supported by the Greenwich Observatory, sought the sum of £4,000 to defray the costs of a Pacific expedition which would, it was stressed, enhance Britain’s imperial ambitions and scientific reputation, and improve navigation and trade.  The petition was soon approved.  Maskelyne, by this time Astronomer Royal and fellow of the Royal Society, had calculated that the best possible vantage point south of the equator was between the Marquesas Islands and Tonga.  The Royal Society informed the Admiralty that Tahiti, located almost at the centre of the area calculated by Maskelyne was its desired site for the observation of the Transit and also requested that naturalist Joseph Banks and his party be permitted to join the expedition.  In August 1768 HMS Endeavour left Plymouth on Cook’s first voyage of discovery. Cook had much better weather than Maskelyne had on St. Helena, writing: The Measurements gathered by Cook and others in 1769 were pretty rough but could be used to estimate the distance of the Earth from the Sun and, by extension, the size of the solar system and the universe.

June 3rd 1769. "not a clowd seen the whole day, and air perfectly clear, so we had every advantage we could desire in observing the whole passage of the planet Venus over the suns disk".

Returning to England, Cook and Banks spent from 1st to 4th May 1771 on St Helena.

Maskelyne, later known as "The Seaman's Astronomer" used his journey to St Helena to develop a method of calculating longitude called the lunar distance method and he used this method to establish for the first time the precise longitude of St Helena.  A vested interest in an astronomical solution to the longitude problem could have been seen as a conflict of interest, but this did not stop the Board of Longitude sending Maskelyne to Barbados in 1763 to test Harrison's No. 4 timekeeper.  His advocacy of this method meant that he has gone down in history as the villain of the longitude saga, the man who despised and cheated the self-educated genius John Harrison out of the prize he earned for his brilliant timepieces, which helped fix the exact time at sea and so determine longitude and the position of sailing ships on the ocean.

He was appointed the fifth Astronomer Royal in 1765 and died at the Greenwich observatory, still in office after 46 years, in February 1811.  He is buried in the churchyard of St Mary the Virgin, the parish church of the village of Purton Wiltshire where the Maskelynes had lived from the 16th century.

After completing the boundary survey in America, Mason worked under Maskelyne at Greenwich where he contributed to the Nautical Almanac.  In September 1786 he wrote to Benjamin Franklin that he had returned to America with his wife, seven sons, and one daughter.  He provided no explanation for his return and he died on October 26, 1786, in Philadelphia.

On returning to England from America Dixon sailed to Norway in 1769 to observe another transit of Venus after which Dixon resumed his work as a surveyor in Durham.  He died unmarried in January 1779.

Edmund Halley Blog post

http://jcgrimshaw.blogspot.com/2011/04/edmond-halley-1677-and-1700.html

The National Maritime Museum and the Department of history and Philosophy of Science, University of Cambridge, are currently working on a five-year research project on the British Board of Longitude, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

http://www.nmm.ac.uk/blogs/longitude/

Bencoolen Link.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30593522@N05/4941507589/in/set-72157624078044217

Cook on St. Helena

http://jcgrimshaw.blogspot.com/2011_06_01_archive.html

Charles Darwin, 1836

Charles Darwin 1809-1882

 Albumen Print by Julia Margaret Cameron taken on the Isle of Wight, 1868

When Darwin replaced Charles Dickens on the reverse of the Bank of  England £10 note in November 2000, the design was based on this photograph.  The note also has a picture of  the Beagle and a hummingbird, though there are no such birds on the Galapagos and no mention of them in On the Origin of Species.

The Voyage of the Beagle is a title commonly given to the book written by Charles Darwin and published in 1839 as his Journal and Remarks.  The title refers to the second survey expedition of the ship HMS Beagle, which sailed from Plymouth Sound on 27 December 1831 under the command of Captain Robert Fitzroy, R.N.  While the expedition was originally planned to last two years, it lasted almost five, the Beagle not returning until 2 October 1836.  During the voyage Darwin spent most of his time exploring on land, three years and three months on land; and only 18 months at sea.  On the homeward leg Darwin visited St. Helena from the 8th to 14th July 1836. His journal entry for May 9th reads:

”We sailed from Port Louis, and, calling at the Cape of Good Hope, on the 8th of July we arrived off St. Helena.  This island, the forbidding aspect of which has been so often described, rises abruptly like a huge black castle from the ocean.  Near the town, as if to complete nature's defence, small forts and guns fill up every gap in the rugged rocks.  The town runs up a flat and narrow valley; the houses look respectable, and are interspersed with a very few green trees.  When approaching the anchorage there was one striking view: an irregular castle perched on the summit of a lofty bill, and surrounded by a few scattered fir-trees, boldly projected against the sky”.

He continues:”The next day I obtained lodgings within a stone's throw of Napoleon's tomb: it was a capital central situation, whence I could make excursions in every direction.  During the four days I stayed here, I wandered over the island from morning to night, and examined its geological history.  My lodgings were situated at a height of about 2000 feet; here the weather was cold and boisterous, with constant showers of rain; and every now and then the whole scene was veiled in thick clouds”.

Though lodging so close to the tomb and in 1836 the body was still there, not being repatriated to France until 1840, he didn’t visit it, though several of the Beagle crew signed the visitor’s book.

He commented in a footnote “After the volumes of eloquence which have poured forth on this subject, it is dangerous even to mention the tomb.  A modern traveller, in twelve lines, burdens the poor little island with the following titles, — it is a grave, tomb, pyramid, cemetery, sepulchre, catacomb, sarcophagus, minaret, and mausoleum”

There is also no record of him having seen the Wirebird and in fact he believed “all the birds have been introduced within late years.”

He describes the landscape and flora: “At this season, the land moistened by constant showers, produces a singularly bright green pasture, which lower and lower down, gradually fades away and at last disappears.  In latitude 16°, and at the trifling elevation of 1500 feet, it is surprising to behold a vegetation possessing a character decidedly British.  When we consider that the number of plants now found on the island is 746, and that out of these fifty-two alone are indigenous species, the rest having been imported, and most of them from England, we see the reason of the British character of the vegetation.  Many of these English plants appear to flourish better than in their native country; some also from the opposite quarter of Australia succeed remarkably well.  The many imported species must have destroyed some of the native kinds; and it is only on the highest and steepest ridges, that the indigenous Flora is now predominant”.

“The English, or rather Welsh character of the scenery, is kept up by the numerous cottages and small white houses; some buried at the bottom of the deepest valleys, and others mounted on the crests of the lofty hills.  On viewing the island from an eminence, the first circumstance which strikes one, is the number of the roads and forts: the labour bestowed on the public works, if one forgets its character as a prison, seems out of all proportion to its extent or value. There is so little level or useful land, that it seems surprising how so many people, about 5000, can subsist here”.

Darwin visited just after the transition from The East India Company to the British Crown, which took effect from 22nd April 1834, and the economic effects of which on the island were momentous.

“The lower orders, or the emancipated slaves, are I believe extremely poor: they complain of the want of work.  From the reduction in the number of public servants owing to the island having been given up by the East Indian Company, and the consequent emigration of many of the richer people, the poverty probably will increase.  The chief food of the working class is rice with a little salt meat; as neither of these articles are the products of the island, but must be purchased with money, the low wages tell heavily on the poor people.  Now that the people are blessed with freedom, a right which I believe they value fully, it seems probable that their numbers will quickly increase: if so, what is to become of the little state of St. Helena?”

This suggests that the dependence of the islanders on imported foods, which is so noticeable today, had its origins at least a century and a half ago.  A conclusion suggested in Ashmole and Ashmole St Helena and Ascension Island: a natural history Nelson 2000 0 094614 61 1.

Darwin’s guide was an elderly man, who had been a goatherd when a boy, and knew every step amongst the rocks.  “He was of a race many times crossed, and although with a dusky skin, he had not the disagreeable expression of a mulatto.  He was a very civil, quiet old man, and such appears the character of the greater number of the lower classes.  It was strange to my ears to hear a man, nearly white and respectably dressed, talking with indifference of the times when he was a slave.  With my companion, who carried our dinners and a horn of water, which is quite necessary, as all the water in the lower valleys is saline, I every day took long walks”.

“On the higher parts of the island, considerable numbers of a shell, long thought a marine species, occur embedded in the soil.  It proves to be a land-shell of a very peculiar form; with it I found six other kinds; and in another spot an eighth species.  It is remarkable that none of them are now found living.  Their extinction has probably been caused by the entire destruction of the woods, and the consequent loss of food and shelter, which occurred during the early part of the last century.  The history of the changes, which the elevated plains of Longwood and Deadwood have undergone, as given in General Beatson's account of the island, is extremely curious.  Both plains, it is said, in former times were covered with wood, and were therefore called the Great Wood.  So late as the year 1716 there were many trees, but in 1724 the old trees had mostly fallen; and as goats and hogs had been suffered to range about, all the young trees had been killed.  It appears also from the official records, that the trees were unexpectedly, some years afterwards, succeeded by a wire grass, which spread over the whole surface.  General Beatson adds that now this plain "is covered with fine sward, and is become the finest piece of pasture on the island."  The extent of surface, probably covered by wood at a former period, is estimated at no less than two thousand acres; at the present day scarcely a single tree can be found there.  It is also said that in 1709 there were quantities of dead trees in Sandy Bay; this place is now so utterly desert, that nothing but so well attested an account could have made me believe that they could ever have grown there.  The fact, that the goats and hogs destroyed all the young trees as they sprang up, and that in the course of time the old ones, which were safe from their attacks, perished from age, seems clearly made out.  Goats were introduced in the year 1502; eighty-six years afterwards, in the time of Cavendish, it is known that they were exceedingly numerous.  More than a century afterwards, in 1731, when the evil was complete and irretrievable, an order was issued that all stray animals should be destroyed.  It is very interesting thus to find, that the arrival of animals at St. Helena in 1501, did not change the whole aspect of the island, until a period of two hundred and twenty years had elapsed: for the goats were introduced in 1502, and in 1724 it is said "the old trees had mostly fallen."  There can be little doubt that this great change in the vegetation affected not only the land-shells, causing eight species to become extinct, but likewise a multitude of insects.

He concludes the report of his visit thus: I so much enjoyed my rambles among the rocks and mountains of St. Helena that I felt almost sorry on the morning of the 14th to descend to the town. Before noon I was on board, and the Beagle made sail.

The complete works of Charles Darwin can be read online at: darwin-online.org.uk

Edmond Halley, 1677 and 1700

Portrait of Edmund Halley painted around 1687 by Thomas Murray.

While still a student at Oxford University, Halley began to observe the heavens with the Astronomer Royal at Greenwich John Flamsteed, only 10 years his senior, and published papers on sunspots and the solar system.  Influenced by Flamsteed’s project to compile a catalogue of northern stars, Halley proposed to do the same for the stars of the Southern Hemisphere which had not at that time been observed.  St. Helena was chosen being, then, the southern-most territory under British rule.  Charles II sent a letter to The East India Company desiring that Halley be granted free passage to St. Helena and, without bothering to take his degree and aged 20, in November 1676, he sailed for Jamestown on the Indiaman “Unity”.  Halley took with him a great sextant specially constructed of 51/2 foot radius fitted with telescopes in place of sights, his own 2 foot quadrant and several telescopes of different focal lengths up to 24 feet.  The weather in St. Helena proved less good for astronomical observations than Halley had hoped but despite this, by the time he returned home in 1678, he had recorded the celestial positions of 341 stars which he published in his star catalogue on his return to England along with a chart of the southern heavens.  On November 7th 1677 he also became the first astronomer to ever observe the complete transit of Mercury across the solar disc but this came to naught when bad weather in England deprived him of the other half of the observations.

Halley's Mount, Observatory Site, May 2010

Even though he had left Oxford without a degree he quickly found himself considered among the top astronomers of the day.  King Charles II decreed that The University of Oxford confer a degree on Halley without him having to take the exams.  Later in 1678 he was also elected a member of the Royal Society and at the age of 22 one of its youngest members.  All these honours given to Halley did not sit well with John Flamsteed.  Despite his earlier liking of the young college student, soon, he considered him to be an enemy.  When, in 1720, Halley succeeded Flamsteed as Astronomer Royal, Flamsteed’s widow was so angry that she had all of her late husband’s instruments sold so Halley could not use any of them.  He remained as Astronomer Royal until his death in 1742 at the age of 85, not surviving to see the predicted return of the comet, on December 25th 1758, which would later bear his name.

Halley’s Mount, Plaque, May 2010

Halley returned briefly to St. Helena in 1700.  Wanting more accurate magnetic charts of the Atlantic Ocean, their Lordships of the British Admiralty lent Halley a small sailing ship, the six-gun, three-masted, 52-foot "Paramore" (or "Paramour"), and instructed him to carry out a magnetic survey of the Atlantic Ocean and its bordering lands.  Perhaps considering this task an insufficient justification of the expedition, they also gave him a second one: "to stand soe farr into the South, till you discover the Coast of the Terra Incognita, supposed to lye between Magelan's Streights and the Cape of Good Hope".

The "Paramore" the first vessel built for the Royal Navy specifically for research set out in October 1698 on what is regarded as the first sea voyage undertaken for a purely scientific endeavour, but was troubled by both leaks and by a personal conflict between Halley and the navy officer in charge of the ship.  Halley had the man arrested and turned the ship back to England, where a court of inquiry upheld him and gave him sole command of the ship.  The "Paramore" set out again in September 1699 and by February 1st 1700 the ship had penetrated the Antarctic Convergence to reach below 52 degrees latitude, only 90n miles north of South Georgia.   After this the ship continued to Tristan da Cunha, St. Helena, Brazil, Barbados, Bermuda, Newfoundland and finally, at the end of August, back to England.

Bligh, Banks and Breadfruit, 1792

William Bligh.  Engraving by John Conde from a 1792 picture by John Russell.

Broken up following the American Revolution of 1775-83 was the profitable and long standing trade in which, among other things, Philadelphia, New York, and other North American ports sent grain and flour to feed the slaves in Jamaica, Barbados, and other sugar islands, getting in exchange sugar and rum.  The British, at the close of the war, put an end to that arrangement, to the distress of the Americans and even more so to the sugar islands, where slave holders found it difficult to feed their slaves.  Joseph Banks had been on Captain Cook’s 1768 to 1771 Endeavour Voyage to the Pacific and had seen the value of breadfruit as a highly productive food source.  As Colonial administrators and plantation owners called for the introduction of this plant to the Caribbean Banks, who also had business interests in the West Indies, and in 1778 had become the President of the Royal Society, provided a cash bounty and gold medal for success in taking a thousand or so young breadfruit plants to provide a cheaper high energy alternative to grain to feed the West Indian slaves and lobbied his friends in government and the Admiralty to sponsor a British Naval expedition to Tahiti.  He considered Bligh as the best person to head such a project since Bligh had experience in the Pacific, as Sailing Master on Cook’s third voyage on the Resolution, and following Cooks’ death in Hawaii in February 1779 had navigated HMS Resolution back to England.  Being highly influential in Court circles and having access to the king, Banks had no difficulties in getting his desires realised.

On 23rd December 1787 His Majesty’s Armed Vessel Bounty proceeded to the South Pacific to fulfil this task.  After trying unsuccessfully for a month to round Cape Horn, the Bounty was finally defeated by the notoriously stormy weather and forced to take the long way around the Cape of Good Hope. That delay resulted in Bligh arriving in Tahiti only in October 1788 and having to wait five months for the breadfruit plants to mature enough to be transported. Departing with over 1000 plants collected, potted, and transferred to the ship, in April 1789, within a month of leaving, many of the crew mutinied.  Cast adrift in a lifeboat with 18 members of his crew, and with food sufficient only for a week, Bligh navigated through high seas and storms over a period of 48 days drawing on his memory of the few charts he had seen of the mostly uncharted waters.  His completion of the 3,618-mile voyage to safety in Timor in June 1789 is still regarded as perhaps the most outstanding feat of seamanship and navigation ever conducted in a small boat.  For comparison Shackleton’s epic journey from Elephant Island to South Georgia in April 1916 was 800 miles and took 15 days.  The Bounty with the remaining nine mutineers led by Fletcher Christian, arrived at Pitcairn Island in January 1790.  Bligh, on the Dutch East Indiaman Vlijt, returned via the Cape of Good Hope and Holland then on to England arriving in March 1790.  In October he was court-martialed but exonerated.

In March 1791 Bligh was appointed to command a second expedition to take breadfruit from Tahiti to the West Indies.  This time, the experiences of the first voyage, led to his ship HMS Providence, being better equipped and manned, it included a party of Marines and Providence was accompanied by HMS Assistant.  The ships left Spithead on 3 August 1791 and arrived at Tahiti on 9 April 1792.  They remained until July and left with over 2,600 breadfruit plants. They arrived at St Helena in December and deposited some of the plants, before continuing on to the West Indies.

A branch of the bread-fruit tree with fruit.  Engraving by John Frederick Miller for inclusion within John Hawkesworth's account of the "Voyages in the Southern Hemisphere" London, 1773.  National Library of Australia.

Bligh’s 10 day visit is described in “Captain Bligh’s Second Voyage to the South Sea”, Ida Lee, 1920

St. Helena was seen from the masthead at daylight on December 17th, 9 leagues distant.  Early in the morning while the ships were on their way to the anchorage the second lieutenant was sent off in the launch to wait on the Governor.  At 9.30 the vessels came abreast of the 4th Battery, where they were saluted with an equal number.  An hour later after having spent ten weeks at sea, they anchored half a mile from the shore, St. James Church Tower and the Flag Staff both South by West.

“At noon after I anchored an officer was sent from the Governor, Lt. -Colonel Broke (sic) to welcome us.  I landed at 1 o'clock when I was saluted with 13 guns, and the Governor received me.  In my interview with him I informed him of my orders to give into his care 10 breadfruit plants, and one of every kind (of which I had five), as would secure to the island a lasting supply of this valuable fruit which our most gracious King had ordered to be planted there.  Colonel Broke (sic) expressed great gratitude, and the principal plants were taken to a valley near his residence called Plantation House, and the rest to James's Valley.  On the 23rd I saw the whole landed and planted; one plant was given to Major Robson, Lt. -Governor, and one to Mr. Rangham, the first in Council.  I also left a quantity of mountain rice seed here.  The Peeah (Sago) was the only plant that required a particular description.  I therefore took our Otaheitan friends to the Governor's House where they made a pudding of the prepared part of its root, some of which I had brought from Otaheite."  Writing of St. Helena, Captain Bligh says: “Few places look more unhealthy when sailing along its burnt-up cliffs huge masses of rock fit only to resist the sea, yet few places are more healthy.  The inhabitants are not like other Europeans who live in the Torrid Zone, but have good constitutions the women being fair and pretty.

James Town, the capital, lies in a deep and narrow valley, and it is little more than one long street of houses; these are built after our English fashion, most of them having thatched roofs.  Lodgings are scarce, so I was fortunate in finding rooms with Captain Statham in a well-regulated house at the common rate of twelve shillings a day.  The Otaheitans were delighted with what they saw here, as Colonel Brooke showed them kind attention, had them to stay at his house, and gave them each a suit of red clothes."  A letter from the Governor and Council of St. Helena was sent to Captain Bligh before he left conveying thanks for the gifts which the recipients declared "had impressed their minds with the warmest gratitude towards His Majesty for his goodness and attention for the welfare of his subjects"; while the sight of the ships " had raised in them an inexpressible degree of wonder and delight to contemplate a floating garden transported in luxuriance from one extremity of the world to the other "  All needful refreshment was taken on board, and the ships left St. Helena on December 27th, receiving the salute from the battery on Ladder Hill as they sailed out of the harbour.

Janisch’s Extracts From the St Helena Records gives different dates.

1792 Dec. 24.—Captain Bligh at St. Helena in H.M.S. Providence with Bread fruit trees, Mango and various other plants enumerated.

1792 Dec. 29.—Capt. Bligh sent on shore to us a variety of Trees and Plants the productions of the South Seas and the Island of Timor.

Arriving at St Vincent on 23rd January 1793 they continued to Jamaica where they remained until June.  After a short delay caused by the outbreak of war with France, they returned to Britain on 7th August and were able to send a cargo of plants to Kew Gardens.  However, Bligh returned home to a tarnished reputation since, during his absence, the trial of the Bounty mutineers had taken place and examples of his hot temper had been circulated.  He was placed on half pay and remained unemployed for eighteen months.  Banks remained a faithful patron of Bligh’s throughout the Captain’s career and was instrumental in arranging for Bligh’s appointment as Governor of New South Wales in 1805.

Alas, bread-fruit, which many believed would be an inexpensive miracle food to feed slaves in the Caribbean, turned out to be a total disaster in that regard.  Nobody would eat it because they didn't like its taste and even the plants left on St Helena died from lack of attention.  Although Bligh won the Royal Society medal for his efforts, his two trips to the South Pacific had proven economic failures. 

As reported in The Penny Magazine of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge 1832 article “The Bread Fruit”  “After all the peril, hardship, and expense thus incurred, the bread-fruit tree has not, hitherto at least, answered the expectations that were entertained.  The banana is more easily and cheaply cultivated, comes into bearing much sooner after being planted, bears more abundantly, and is better relished by the negroes.  The mode of propagating the bread-fruit is not, indeed, difficult; for the planter has only to lay bare one of the roots, and mound it with a spade, and in a short space a shoot comes up, which is soon fit for removal.  Europeans are much fonder of the bread-fruit than negroes.  They consider it as a sort of dainty, and use it either as bread or in puddings.  When roasted in the oven, the taste of it resembles that of a potato, but it is not so mealy as a good one.”

Bligh died in London in December 1817 and is buried in St Mary's Churchyard Lambeth where his tomb is topped by a breadfruit. Born on 9th September 1754 Bligh was 63 when he died and not 64 as inscribed on his tomb.

SACRED

TO THE MEMORY OF

WILLIAM BLIGH ESQUIRE F.R.S.

VICE ADMIRAL OF THE BLUE

THE CELEBRATED NAVIGATOR

WHO FIRST TRANSPLANTED THE BREAD FUIT TREE

FROM OTAHEITE TO THE WEST INDIES

BRAVELY FOUGHT THE BATTLES OF HIS COUNTRY

AND DIED BELOVED, RESPECTED AND LAMENTED

ON THE 7^TH DAY OF DECEMBER 1817,

AGED 64

Joseph Banks, 1771

Joseph Banks painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds 1772-72, National Portrait Gallery London.

Banks sailed on The Endeavour with James Cook on his first voyage leaving England in August 1768 and returning in July 1771. His brief stay on St Helena is described in his log as follows:

1771 May 1.
In the Morn at daybreak saw the Island of St Helena about six Leagues ahead; consequently before noon arrivd in the Road where we found his Majesties ship Portland Capt Elliot, sent out to convoy home the India men on account of the likeleyhood of a breach with Spain, also his Majesties sloop Swallow which had the day before brought word of the Pacifick measures adopted by that court, also 12 Sail of Indiamen.
1771 May 2.
As the fleet was to sail immediately and our ship to accompany it, it became necessary to make as much of a short time as possible, so this whole day was employd in riding about the Island, in the course of which we made very nearly the Compleat Circuit of it visiting all the most remarkable places that we had been told of.
1771 May 3.
Spent this day in Botanizing on the Ridge where the Cabbage trees grow, visiting Cuckolds point and Diana’s peak, the Highest land in the Island as settled by the Observations of Mr Maskelyne, who was sent out to this Island by the Royal Society for the Purpose of Observing the transit of Venus in the Year [1761]
1771 May 4. Depart St Helens (sic) for England
Saild after dinner in company with 12 Indiamen and his Majesties ship Portland, resolvd to steer homewards with all expedition in Order (if possible) to bring home the first news of our voyage, as we found that many Particulars of it has transpird and particularly that a copy of the Latitudes and Longitudes of most or all the principal places we had been at had been taken by the Captns Clerk from the Captns own Journals and Given or Sold to one of the India Captns. War we had no longer the least suspicion of: the India men being orderd to sail immediately without waiting for the few who were not yet arrivd was a sufficient proof that our freinds at home were not at all apprehensive of it.

His less than flattering account of St. Helena, which describes his visit can be found at http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Endeavour_Journal_of_Sir_Joseph_Banks/Some_account_of_St._Helena