'Well-timed for commemorations of the 250th anniversary of Captain Cook’s departure on his first voyage to the Pacific in 1768, Diana Preston’s generously illustrated book tells the story of Britain’s early contact with Pacific Islanders. The title does not do her book justice: she does more than link the Bounty mutiny to the founding of Australia. She uses three gruelling open-boat voyages, well reported in their time, to open up Pacific history: William Bligh’s voyage to Timor after the Bounty mutiny in 1789, when he navigated loyal crew members some 3,600 nautical miles to safety; the open-boat voyage of survivors of the Pandora, sent to capture the Bounty mutineers on Tahiti but wrecked in 1791; and the little-known voyage from Port Jackson to Timor, that same year, of nine prisoners escaping Australia’s first penal colony. The convicts included Mary Bryant, originally from a Cornish fishing village, who took…' (Introduction)
