Speaker 1: Pushkin. April seventeen eighty nine, early morning, a British ship
Speaker 1: and crew have been sailing home from Tahiti for three weeks.
Speaker 1: It's quiet on board, just wind and slapping light waves.
Speaker 1: But if someone had been listening closely, that have heard whispers, lightly,
Speaker 1: hurrying footsteps, and then, about an hour before dawn, an
Speaker 1: explosion of noise. This is HMS Bounty, and one of
Speaker 1: the most famous mutinies in history is underway. Lieutenant Fletcher
Speaker 1: Christian has organized most of the crew who detest their captain,
Speaker 1: thirty four year old William Blind. They drag Blithe from
Speaker 1: his cabin, tying his wrists behind his back on deck.
Speaker 1: He struggles to get free, and Fletcher Christian blocks him,
Speaker 1: pressing a bayonet to his chest. In England they've been friends.
Speaker 1: Now glaring at each other. That's over. Pistols are at hand,
Speaker 1: and the crew calls for Christian to blow Bli's brains out.
Speaker 1: Bly yells back at Christian, telling him he must stop that.
Speaker 1: In England, didn't he remember Christian had held Bli's own
Speaker 1: children on his knee after what's happened on this voyage, However,
Speaker 1: Christian doesn't care. He forces Bly into a tiny, overloaded
Speaker 1: launch out on the vast Pacific. This far from land,
Speaker 1: no one is likely to survive for long. I'm Tim
Speaker 1: Harford and you're listening to cautionary Tales. This episode is
Speaker 1: the third in a series exploring the famous idea that
Speaker 1: nice guys finish last, inspired by David Bandanas's book The
Speaker 1: Art of Fairness. And we'll hear a bit from David
Speaker 1: Bandanas himself later. But first, the mutiny on the Bounty.
Speaker 1: It's not only an astonishing story in its own right,
Speaker 1: it also sheds light on the question of whether nice
Speaker 1: guys finish last or first. Let's start with Captain William Bly.
Speaker 1: Several movies have been made about the mutiny, and Bly
Speaker 1: is often painted as a cruel, petty tyrant. Just how
Speaker 1: cruel and tea he really was is something we'll look
Speaker 1: at closely. Certainly, before he became Captain of the Bounty,
Speaker 1: William Bly was a generally quiet, thoughtful fellow. He came
Speaker 1: from a fairly humble family, just an inch above the
Speaker 1: working classes. Joining the Navy when he was still a
Speaker 1: teenager was a good way to rise. He developed his
Speaker 1: artistic abilities and was especially drawn to painting watercolor landscapes,
Speaker 1: and he discovered that he loved mathematics. That was big
Speaker 1: Bly was awed at the sophisticated men of Britain's royal society.
Speaker 1: They were heirs to Sir Isaac Newton and the other
Speaker 1: great rational minds that were transforming the world. His ambition
Speaker 1: and his mathematical skill came together when he was lucky
Speaker 1: enough barely passed twenty to get a position as sailing
Speaker 1: master and one of the voyages that Captain James Cook
Speaker 1: was undertaking. Cook was the greatest explorer of the age
Speaker 1: and exactly the sort of man BLI wanted to model
Speaker 1: himself on. Others Sea captains often treated their men with
Speaker 1: staggering cruelty. On one British ship, the captain ruled that
Speaker 1: the last man to make it down from the mast
Speaker 1: was to be whipped. However quickly the descent took place.
Speaker 1: Cook was the opposite. The ships he explored with weren't
Speaker 1: going to be festering slave holds. Men from the lowest
Speaker 1: ranks of society might tend to be impulsive, but could
Speaker 1: be redeemed. There would be good light below deck, healthy
Speaker 1: food and fresh air. Treat them well, treat them fairly,
Speaker 1: and they'd perform wanders. If you listen to our last
Speaker 1: episode about the Empire State Building, you'll recognize this idea.
Speaker 1: It's just what construction manager Paul Starrett believed. Over a
Speaker 1: century later. Here in the late eighteenth century, the twenty
Speaker 1: two year old Bli saw Captain Cook demonstrate the power
Speaker 1: of this fairness on a global voyage. Cook's mission really
Speaker 1: was to boldly go where no man, or at least
Speaker 1: only a few men, had gone before. Bly traveled with
Speaker 1: him deep into the Pacific and also up to the Arctic,
Speaker 1: rising to be the main navigator on board. Bly's young
Speaker 1: friend Fletcher Christian, also came to share Cook's vision for
Speaker 1: how to run a ship. He was ten years younger
Speaker 1: than bl tall and dark haired, and from a notably
Speaker 1: higher social class. His older brother was a fellow at Cambridge,
Speaker 1: but he too was interested in science, in rational approaches,
Speaker 1: and that brought an affinity Blie didn't have with most others.
Speaker 1: Years after the expedition with Cook, when Bly was briefly
Speaker 1: captaining in the merchant Service, Bly and Christian got on
Speaker 1: very well on a voyage to the West Indies. Then,
Speaker 1: in seventeen eighty seven, bl was in his early thirties
Speaker 1: Christian in his early twenties, Bly was given the command
Speaker 1: for a new sort of mission. Tahiti had a tree
Speaker 1: called the breadfruit tree, which produced nutritious, large fruit. If
Speaker 1: he could collect living samples and transport them to the Caribbean,
Speaker 1: that would help feed the landowners there, and also, this
Speaker 1: cruel side of empire, feed the captured Africans who were
Speaker 1: forced to labor for them. Like most Britons of his time,
Speaker 1: Bly was able to put that slavery out of his mind. Instead,
Speaker 1: he was focused on what he felt was a great opportunity.
Speaker 1: In this new mission, he would follow the model of
Speaker 1: the revered Captain Cook. He'd show that he too could
Speaker 1: run everything through logic and reason rather than primitive impulse.
Speaker 1: The men under his command would not be brutalized into submission. Instead,
Speaker 1: they'd be shaped by the use of rational incentives, rewarded
Speaker 1: when they did well and punished when they fell short.
Speaker 1: Blyh was given command of a fast, three masted sailing ship,
Speaker 1: HMS Bounty. He immediately set about putting his rational principles
Speaker 1: into practice. Fletcher Christian was happy to join him, and
Speaker 1: together they modified the ship, using the latest science to
Speaker 1: create good airflow and lighting. They also converted the captain's
Speaker 1: room into a huge nursery for the breadfruit seedlings they
Speaker 1: would be transporting to the Caribbean. There were skylights and
Speaker 1: a stove to keep the new plants warm, even a
Speaker 1: clever rec cycling system for the fresh water that drained out.
Speaker 1: In October seventeen eighty seven, they finally set sail. Before departure,
Speaker 1: Fletcher Christian spent time with Bli's family and played with
Speaker 1: his children. Quite likely they traveled to the ship together.
Speaker 1: The voyage started as well as both had imagined. Bly
Speaker 1: created an easier watch schedule, because, as he put it,
Speaker 1: I have ever considered extra sleep among seamen as conducive
Speaker 1: to health. It adds much to their content and cheerfulness.
Speaker 1: Horpouses swam alongside the boat. One afternoon, a vast cloud
Speaker 1: of butterflies blue passed to everyone's delight. There was dancing
Speaker 1: and music on the deck when the weather was good,
Speaker 1: for Bly had brought a fiddler along. Bly's ideas were
Speaker 1: put to a sterner test when the weather got worse
Speaker 1: and late at night in the South Atlantic, a catastrophic
Speaker 1: wave poured tons of seawater in bly Rose to the challenge.
Speaker 1: He selflessly vacated his cabin, turning it over to the
Speaker 1: use of those poor fellows who had wet berths. He
Speaker 1: arranged soaked wet clothes to be dried on the stove.
Speaker 1: Fletcher Christian remained at Bly's side, and control and kindness
Speaker 1: ensured everything ran smoothly, Almost everything that is well into
Speaker 1: their voyage. The sailing master informed Bli that one of
Speaker 1: the ordinary sailors, a twenty year old named Matthew Quintal,
Speaker 1: had been insolent. The Royal Navy had a clear command structure,
Speaker 1: so although Bli didn't see Quintal's insolence with his own eyes,
Speaker 1: he had to accept this report. He was di appointed
Speaker 1: until this afternoon. He wrote. I had hopes I could
Speaker 1: have performed the voyage without punishment to anyone, but insolence
Speaker 1: was a threat to the entire mission. He had to
Speaker 1: maintain order, and that meant a vicious flogging. Matthew Quintal's
Speaker 1: shirt was stripped off and his arms tied tight. The
Speaker 1: Cato nine Tails was brought out, a fearsome whip with
Speaker 1: nine knotted cords. It was designed to rip through the
Speaker 1: skin and carve long slices where it fell. This was
Speaker 1: an excruciating sentence, but when the flogging was done, that
Speaker 1: was it. Quintal was resentful, of course, but the rest
Speaker 1: of the long journey was easy. There were no more floggings.
Speaker 1: Bligh had been angry at Quintal for disrupting his perfectly
Speaker 1: organized system, but now his temper was gone.
Speaker 2: The ship was.
Speaker 1: Back to steady, running, hour after hour, cutting through the water,
Speaker 1: its big sails, catching powerful winds and pulling them along. Finally,
Speaker 1: after nearly twenty eight thousand miles, they arrived in Tahiti.
Speaker 1: It was October seventeen eighty eight. They'd been at sea
Speaker 1: for a full year. The bay they settled in was magnificent.
Speaker 1: Canoes raced to their ship, eager for trade, and by
Speaker 1: sunset there were hogs, fruits, and bright new textiles on board.
Speaker 1: Bli's men were delighted. In England, there'd been among the
Speaker 1: lowest of the low, most of them underweight, disfigured from
Speaker 1: fights or accidents. Here, though, they were as gods. The
Speaker 1: next few days a new rhythm started up. Ly went
Speaker 1: ashore with the ship's botanist and made arrangements to locate
Speaker 1: the breadfruit seedlings he needed. It would take several months
Speaker 1: for them to grow enough to be brought to the
Speaker 1: on board nursery, So the sailors dispersed into local villages,
Speaker 1: taking up with local families, where they were quickly accepted.
Speaker 1: They learned about surfing, flew kites, strolled along the perfect beaches.
Speaker 1: Bly had brought his water color materials and was delighted
Speaker 1: that he would have so much time to draw the
Speaker 1: plant life and other scenes. He also wanted to improve
Speaker 1: his own language skills and make what notes he could
Speaker 1: on the culture. Life is good. Blye is content, The
Speaker 1: crew is content. But what will Bly do as time
Speaker 1: goes on and that crew is no longer under his control?
Speaker 1: Cautionary tales will return in just a moment. So long
Speaker 1: as Bly and his crew were focused entirely on the island,
Speaker 1: the contrast with the life they'd left behind wasn't too
Speaker 1: much of a problem. But they couldn't leave their ship,
Speaker 1: HMS Bounty entirely uncared for. At one point, Bli brought
Speaker 1: everyone back on board so they could move it from
Speaker 1: their initial anchorage to another one nearby. But the lookout
Speaker 1: was clumsy now, and the sailor who lowered weighted chains
Speaker 1: to measure the depth was clumsy. The men in the
Speaker 1: scouting boat that traveled immediately ahead of them were clumsy too.
Speaker 1: Bly was supposed to be a master navigator. He was
Speaker 1: proud of that, Yet now a sickening scrape as the
Speaker 1: bounty's bough dragged along a reef. They were stuck, which
Speaker 1: was embarrassing enough, not least because several of Bly's Tahitian
Speaker 1: friends were on board. But then the weather began to change,
Speaker 1: with dark clouds building quickly. There was a dangerous swell,
Speaker 1: and that made everything worse. The storm was rocking the
Speaker 1: ship against the sharp reef. If they didn't get the
Speaker 1: ship off, it would be pushed harder and harder until
Speaker 1: it was holed through. Then it would take in water
Speaker 1: and sink. Blide did manage to float the ship free,
Speaker 1: but the episode was dismaying. How could his men have
Speaker 1: let this happen? By now, it was December seventeen eighty eight,
Speaker 1: and soon all order began to break down. The crew
Speaker 1: were in heaven. Here many seemed to have settled into
Speaker 1: steady relationships, playing with the new step children they had acquired.
Speaker 1: Most still slept on board and spent only the daytime
Speaker 1: with these new families, but some would spend longer go
Speaker 1: back to England, and all that would disappear. A few
Speaker 1: weeks after the shift to a new anchorage, three of
Speaker 1: the crew decided to make sure they weren't going to
Speaker 1: be pulled away whatever happened. Late one night, they took
Speaker 1: supplies and an entire arms chest and quietly left the ship.
Speaker 1: They were soon tracked down, but the officer of the
Speaker 1: watch had slept right through it. Bli lashed the three
Speaker 1: deserters when they were brought back. He was just as
Speaker 1: angry at the officer, putting him in irons for over
Speaker 1: a week. Then Bli found out that no one had
Speaker 1: been bringing the spare sales out for regular airing. That
Speaker 1: was a greater degree of danger entirely. Every one of
Speaker 1: his officers, every one of the ordinary sailors too, for
Speaker 1: that matter, knew how crucial taking care of the sales was.
Speaker 1: They'd need them for the near year of sailing to
Speaker 1: get back home, but they'd been left to mill you
Speaker 1: and some were even beginning to rot. Bli wrote, scarce
Speaker 1: any neglect of duty can equal the criminality of this.
Speaker 1: He realized they had to get off this blasted island
Speaker 1: before matters got worse. But the breadfruit saplings still weren't ready,
Speaker 1: so they had several more months to wait. Bly grew
Speaker 1: ever more exasperated. So Isaac Newton's vision of a clean,
Speaker 1: logical universe was so clear, so obvious. Bli had made
Speaker 1: it come true on the voyage out, why were his
Speaker 1: men letting it collapse here? In the months before they left?
Speaker 1: He gave one of the sailor's twelve hard lashes with
Speaker 1: a cat and nine tails for insolence. Another got twelve
Speaker 1: lashes for letting natives steal a young cook's assistant, the
Speaker 1: most innocuous of crewmen, was tied down and lashed for
Speaker 1: neglecting his duty. Then the ship's butcher was just as
Speaker 1: viciously flogged for suffering his cleaver to be stolen. Where
Speaker 1: had the considerate Bly gone? For a perspective on that
Speaker 1: question that there is no better person to ask than
Speaker 1: David Bardanis, who wrote about the mutiny in his book
Speaker 1: The Art of Fairness. David he began as a sensitive
Speaker 1: watercolor painter. He turned into a brute. Where did Bli,
Speaker 1: as the defender of enlightened captainship.
Speaker 2: Go, Maybe that enlightened captain had never been there. Bli
Speaker 2: cared about two things. He cared about his mission, and
Speaker 2: he did indeed want to show that he could be
Speaker 2: rational and scientific. But that was the sailors how he
Speaker 2: dealt with them. The sailors were a means to that end.
Speaker 1: This reminds me of the old saying that someone who
Speaker 1: believes that honesty is the best policy isn't actually an
Speaker 1: honest person. An honest person is honest, whether or not
Speaker 1: he believes that honesty is the best policy.
Speaker 2: That's exactly it. And Bli is someone who believes that
Speaker 2: fairness is the best policy. He's not wholeheartedly committed to it.
Speaker 2: He just thinks it will work, it'll be efficient, and
Speaker 2: when the going gets tough, he abandons his previous ideas.
Speaker 1: But this abandonment, it seems as sudden.
Speaker 2: What's happening is a flip from one equilibrium to another.
Speaker 2: When things were going well, Bli extended fairness and generosity.
Speaker 2: The sailors responded with good cheer and hard work. But
Speaker 2: when they got to Tahiti and they started resenting any discipline,
Speaker 2: it began a downward spiral. The sailors were sullen that
Speaker 2: made Bly harsh, that made the sailors more so, and
Speaker 2: that made Bly even harsher. So it's a feedback loop,
Speaker 2: exactly a feedback loop. In the last episode, we talked
Speaker 2: about the ancient Rabbi Hillales great question of who are we,
Speaker 2: and the idea was that it's not enough to only
Speaker 2: be for yourself, but it's not enough either to exist
Speaker 2: only for others. All of us struggle with the balance,
Speaker 2: with getting it right. And the great insight I think is,
Speaker 2: if there are no fixed answers.
Speaker 1: Why are the non fixed answers?
Speaker 2: I think it's because being fair or equitable it's not
Speaker 2: a static disposition. It's not a part of our personality
Speaker 2: or a set of rules that we can automatically follow.
Speaker 2: It's a process, and it's a process that depends on
Speaker 2: our circumstances. We all try to hold steady, to be constant,
Speaker 2: but it's hard.
Speaker 1: Well. So if Bly had never gone to Tahiti, maybe
Speaker 1: the problem would never have arisen.
Speaker 2: That would have been perfect, but that's not how life works.
Speaker 2: We rarely have complete control over whi we end up.
Speaker 2: And when Bli saw his sailors slip away from the
Speaker 2: proper behavior that he had in mind. He became so
Speaker 2: furious that he overshot.
Speaker 1: Thank you, David, please stick around. I am going to
Speaker 1: want your advice again, I am sure. Finally the breadfruit
Speaker 1: saplings had grown enough, Bli's men loaded them on board,
Speaker 1: and they weighed anchor the fourth of April seventeen eighty nine.
Speaker 1: Blind knew he had to get the ship operating as
Speaker 1: well as it had before. They'd be crossing half the
Speaker 1: planet to get to the Caribbean with just one stop
Speaker 1: at Cape Town along the way. He had the men
Speaker 1: practice hard raising and shortening the sails on the masts.
Speaker 1: He also switched them to shipboard rations, knowing the fresh
Speaker 1: stock they'd brought from Tahiti would be needed later. Morale
Speaker 1: was going to be important. I need to nurse my
Speaker 1: people with care and attention, he wrote. Luckily, he still
Speaker 1: had the fiddler, so there'd be music in the long
Speaker 1: free hours on board. He explained, there would be the
Speaker 1: same generous schedule, with more sleeping time than other ships,
Speaker 1: and just as before, he had vacate his own bunk
Speaker 1: for anyone who'd been caught up in storms on deck
Speaker 1: and needed a dry place to rest. All of that
Speaker 1: was just what he had done on the Atlantic run.
Speaker 1: But the time in Tahiti had changed the men far
Speaker 1: more than he could grasp. After six months in paradise,
Speaker 1: who cared about a fiddler? And since the men had
Speaker 1: been changed, that would change Bli too. Within a week
Speaker 1: at sea, Fly had ordered another flogging of a seaman,
Speaker 1: whom he charged with neglect of duty. Normally he could
Speaker 1: have expected his officers to support him without hesitation in that,
Speaker 1: but something was different, notably with his old friend Fletcher Christian.
Speaker 1: He was not the same man as had been on
Speaker 1: the voyage out the reason. Christian had spent almost every
Speaker 1: night on shore and was leaving behind a woman he
Speaker 1: had been close with and who was now pregnant with
Speaker 1: their child. Bligh was frustrated, and that poured out he
Speaker 1: cursed his men. Perhaps his pain was all the more
Speaker 1: sharp for the loss of his friendship with Fletcher Christian.
Speaker 1: One of the crew remembered. Whatever fault was found, mister
Speaker 1: Christian was sure to bear the brunt of the captain's anger.
Speaker 1: Christian hated it, begging Bli to stop, but bly was
Speaker 1: past listening. In his log he wrote, such neglectful and
Speaker 1: worthless petty officers I believe never were in a ship
Speaker 1: as are in this harsher punishment would be needed. He
Speaker 1: swore where when Bli cursed, he really cursed. Later, when
Speaker 1: the Admiralty learned more of how Bli spoke when angry,
Speaker 1: he was officially reprimanded for his immoderate use of language.
Speaker 1: This is staggering given what was considered acceptable for sea
Speaker 1: captains in the seventeen hundreds. The conflict boiled over when
Speaker 1: they were nineteen days out. Coconuts were an important source
Speaker 1: of fresh water, and Bli had a huge pile stacked
Speaker 1: between the guns on the top deck. The officers were
Speaker 1: responsible for guarding them. But then on the morning of
Speaker 1: April twenty third, Bli noticed that the pile had shrunk.
Speaker 1: Who had been stealing one after another? The officers said
Speaker 1: they had no idea. Clearly, however, one or more of
Speaker 1: them knew something. This was infuriating. They were defending each
Speaker 1: other over remaining loyal to their captain. Bli started swearing
Speaker 1: once again, God damn you, I'll sweat you for it.
Speaker 1: You can all go to hell. This was very far
Speaker 1: from the calm Captain Cook he had once admired. Nothing
Speaker 1: made sense to him. Sensible procedures had worked perfectly on
Speaker 1: the voyage out. Why couldn't they continue that way? Fletcher
Speaker 1: Christian tried to intervene, but that just made Bly angrier.
Speaker 1: He stormed to his cabin. According to the carpenter, A
Speaker 1: William Purcell, Christian was in tears. What's the matter, mister Christian,
Speaker 1: He asked, Can you ask me and hear the treatment
Speaker 1: I receive? Christian answered. Purcell tried to console him, saying
Speaker 1: that he too had suffered Bly's tongue lashings, but that
Speaker 1: missed a difference between the two men. Since Purcell was
Speaker 1: a carpenter, he was protected by an Admiralty warrant that
Speaker 1: kept him from being flogged, but Christian was only an
Speaker 1: acting lieutenant. His actual rank of master's mate meant that
Speaker 1: he could be whipped. Christian couldn't bear to imagine this humiliation.
Speaker 1: His brother was at Cambridge Down for goodness sake. If
Speaker 1: I should speak to Bly as you do, Christian told Purcell,
Speaker 1: he would probably break me and perhaps flog me. It
Speaker 1: would be the death of us both. Blih was wild
Speaker 1: with rage, Christian was sick with fear. The journey ahead
Speaker 1: was due to last twelve more months. Cautionary tales will
Speaker 1: return after the break. Most of the crew of the
Speaker 1: bounty was on Fletcher Christian side. They couldn't bear to
Speaker 1: leave Tahiti behind, nor did they want a year stuck
Speaker 1: on board with the increasingly violent Captain Blind. But to
Speaker 1: mutiny against the captain was immensely risky. Every sailor in
Speaker 1: Britain knew that the nation depended on foreign trade that
Speaker 1: depended on the navy, and the navy depended on orders
Speaker 1: being followed. Break that and everything would crumble As a result.
Speaker 1: The Royal Navy would chase any mutineers to the ends
Speaker 1: of the earth, however long it took. However, many ships
Speaker 1: needed to be sent, and mutineers, when found, would be
Speaker 1: brought back in chains and condemned, and then hanged, their
Speaker 1: bodies left to rot, dangling warning to anyone else. Despite
Speaker 1: the incredible danger, most of the crew decided they had
Speaker 1: to get rid of Captain Blind. Whence the mutiny we
Speaker 1: began with Very early in the morning on Tuesday, April
Speaker 1: twenty eighth, seventeen eighty nine, Fletcher Christian and several other
Speaker 1: conspirators got hold of the ship's muskets and distributed them
Speaker 1: to their fellow mutineers. Then they went to Bly's cabin.
Speaker 1: Before long pandemonium had broken out, the entire ship awake,
Speaker 1: and the captain held at gunpoint. That's when Bli called
Speaker 1: out to Christian, for God's sake, drop it. You've danced
Speaker 1: my children on your knee. But it was no use.
Speaker 1: Christian ensured that Bly and the other crew men the
Speaker 1: mutineers weren't convinced about, were pushed into the small open launch.
Speaker 1: Bobbing alongside. One of those with Bly called up, pleading
Speaker 1: for Fletcher Christian to stop, you know. Christian calmly replied
Speaker 1: that Captain Bly has treated me like a dog I've
Speaker 1: been in hell. Christian must have felt some guilt that
Speaker 1: he let Bly and the eighteen men with him take
Speaker 1: a compass, water writing equipment, some cutlasses, and a few
Speaker 1: other items. One of the men in the small launch
Speaker 1: tried to keep a rifle. Matthew Quintal, the young man
Speaker 1: Bly had flogged first on the voyage out from Britain,
Speaker 1: now had his chance. He was one hundred percent on
Speaker 1: Christian's side and grabbed the gun back. The bounty sailed off.
Speaker 1: Christian was going to look for an isolated island someplace
Speaker 1: the Royal navy would never find them. Bly and his
Speaker 1: men could only watch it recede, its sales raised to
Speaker 1: catch the breeze, its deck high and majestic above the water.
Speaker 1: Their own launch was completely different. It was small, crowded,
Speaker 1: and rows only inches above the waterline. They couldn't head
Speaker 1: back to Tahiti, for it was likely Christian might head
Speaker 1: there first, leaving some armed men as a precaution. Everyone's
Speaker 1: assumption was that leaving blyh and these loyalists in the
Speaker 1: boat was simply a delayed death sentence. The nearest European
Speaker 1: settlement was Dutch Temor, over three thousand miles away. No
Speaker 1: open boat like this small launch had ever crossed such
Speaker 1: a distance, not least without any proper map. Yet, facing
Speaker 1: such hardship, Captain William Bly was in his element. He
Speaker 1: had a mission, a hard one, admittedly, but he also
Speaker 1: had some tools, oars, and a company for materials to
Speaker 1: keep up a mast, and eighteen men. Yelling and cursing
Speaker 1: would do nothing here but calm, analysis and rational, consistent action.
Speaker 1: He began a journal. As soon as I had time
Speaker 1: to reflect, Bly wrote, I found my mind most wonderfully supported,
Speaker 1: and began to conceive hopes t Moor was three thousand
Speaker 1: miles away London twelve thousand. Get there, explain what happened
Speaker 1: to the admiralty. He could start again Almost instantly, the
Speaker 1: old structure of command reappeared. That's because everyone in the
Speaker 1: boat knew that only Bligh had even the faintest chance
Speaker 1: of navigating their way back to safety. His personality flipped back.
Speaker 1: In this setting, there was nothing to thwart his desire
Speaker 1: to show benevolent and rationality could work. Bly worked out
Speaker 1: an ingenious way of stretching taut cloths above the launch's edge,
Speaker 1: raising the sides by several inches to help keep the waves.
Speaker 1: At day, he encouraged his men to tell stories about
Speaker 1: their past, joining in to tell his own. At night,
Speaker 1: he led boat wide singing. Bly also ensured their food
Speaker 1: supplies were safely locked in the carpenter's chest, and created
Speaker 1: scales from coconut shells to weigh it out. Best of all,
Speaker 1: he helped the men sew a raggedy Union Jack flag
Speaker 1: out of scraps of signal flags found at the bottom
Speaker 1: of the launch. It was a reminder of home, and
Speaker 1: in another way of boosting their confidence they would need it.
Speaker 1: He said to properly identify themselves. When they reached port,
Speaker 1: it worked well. After weeks of storms and constantly low rations,
Speaker 1: the men heard a strange roaring sound. Bli realized this
Speaker 1: meant they were almost upon the Great Barrier reef. They
Speaker 1: needed to find an opening, and by now his men
Speaker 1: were unified to do exactly what he ordered. He had
Speaker 1: them row parallel to the reef as fast as possible,
Speaker 1: till suddenly, when he identified what looked like an opening,
Speaker 1: he had them turn hard to cut through it. Soon
Speaker 1: they were in calmer water and came to an island. There,
Speaker 1: safe discipline quickly broke down, and the helpful encouraging William
Speaker 1: bly became once again a furious man. Admittedly he was provoked.
Speaker 1: The prime rule he set out when they landed was
Speaker 1: that they must keep any fires small in case potentially
Speaker 1: dangerous locals saw their camp. Almost immediately, Sailor started a
Speaker 1: fire that blew out of control, sparking a grass blaze
Speaker 1: that was visible for miles. Another party had been sent
Speaker 1: out for turtles, but as the fire raged, they ran
Speaker 1: back to help put it out, and so they brought
Speaker 1: back no food. At another island, after Bli explained they
Speaker 1: needed to share any food they found. One man tried
Speaker 1: secretly to go hunting just on his own. BLI beat
Speaker 1: him when he found out. Then the carpenter, William Purcell,
Speaker 1: also went out foraging, and when he came back, he
Speaker 1: insisted even more that he wasn't going to share food
Speaker 1: he'd found. Bly yelled at him. Pacell yelled back. Bly
Speaker 1: had had enough. I determined to strike a final blow,
Speaker 1: and either to preserve my command or die in the attempt.
Speaker 1: Seizing a cutlass, I ordered him to take hold of
Speaker 1: another and defend himself. That's Bly's version, but in a
Speaker 1: crew member's account, Bly was almost crazed, and when the
Speaker 1: men tried to call him off, he threatened them with
Speaker 1: death if they tried to intervene. Luckily, Purcell the carpenter
Speaker 1: gave in before anyone was killed. And then when they
Speaker 1: all returned to the launch, everything flipped back again. No
Speaker 1: one could start unapproved fires on their tiny boat, no
Speaker 1: one was going to secretly search for their own food,
Speaker 1: and everyone depended on Bly to get them back. Although
Speaker 1: there were a few complaints at how low their rations were,
Speaker 1: no problems more serious than that arose. The entire launch
Speaker 1: went back to singing and storytelling, with Bly encouraging his
Speaker 1: men and tenderly taking care of those who fell ill.
Speaker 1: Until that is they finally arrived in the safely populated
Speaker 1: island of Timor, with its large European settlement. Lye had
Speaker 1: accomplished one of the greatest feats of open boat navigation
Speaker 1: ever recorded, But once on the way back to England,
Speaker 1: he and his men began arguing again, so much that
Speaker 1: Bly ended up having the carpenter Percell and another sailor
Speaker 1: arrested at bayonet point and held in irons for almost
Speaker 1: a month. When they finally reached Britain, the Royal Navy
Speaker 1: sent out teams to hunt the mutineers. A few were
Speaker 1: caught and ended up being hanged in London. Fletcher, Christian
Speaker 1: and several of the others got away safe at the
Speaker 1: isolated Pitcairn Island, where some of their descendants survived to
Speaker 1: this day. Blie himself undertook a second trip to Tahiti,
Speaker 1: this time with a substantial armed marine guard to complete
Speaker 1: his mission of collecting breadfruits links, since there was no
Speaker 1: threat to his authority. Those voyages went well, and he
Speaker 1: was back to being as reasonable and helpful as he
Speaker 1: had been at his best, So what are the lessons? Well,
Speaker 1: this and the last two episodes of Cautionary Tales Investigating
Speaker 1: Fairness drew on my friend David bandanas book The Art
Speaker 1: of Fairness, and David is back with me now. David,
Speaker 1: after everything you've read and written about Captain BLI, what
Speaker 1: would you make of him as a person?
Speaker 2: You know, at first I thought the way Bligh changed
Speaker 2: was pretty bizarre, but then I realized we all change
Speaker 2: at least a little bit. It really does depend on circumstances.
Speaker 2: The big question is how much? And that's where I saw.
Speaker 2: That's something we've both thought about. Comes up.
Speaker 1: What's that?
Speaker 2: Well? In both the writings we do we card to
Speaker 2: tease out rational rules. It's the Enlightenment ideal that Captain
Speaker 2: Cook had. It's what William Blyi had too when he
Speaker 2: wasn't acting up for them. It was about ventilation and
Speaker 2: sleeping schedules.
Speaker 1: And they're like, oh, for us, it's about behavior economics.
Speaker 2: Exactly, And I wonder we try to find these insights,
Speaker 2: these principles that can help people. It's in our books,
Speaker 2: it's in all the Questionary Tales. But what makes the
Speaker 2: final step happen? What makes people actually engage with those insights,
Speaker 2: and especially when they're under stress.
Speaker 1: Yeah, stress, I think is a key idea. It sounds
Speaker 1: so simple, but sometimes you just need to mentally prepare
Speaker 1: yourself for this. You need to mentally rehearse loyal as
Speaker 1: subscribers who who subscribed to pushkin plus will have heard
Speaker 1: the story of the Tenerief air crash. There was a
Speaker 1: plane on fire on the runway and some people got
Speaker 1: out and some people just froze. One of the explanations
Speaker 1: for why some people got out was because they'd thought about, well,
Speaker 1: what happens if there is a problem, where are they
Speaker 1: emergency exits? What would I do? If you thought about it?
Speaker 1: Your mind under pressure may grab one of these useful scripts.
Speaker 1: If you haven't given it any thought and you're under
Speaker 1: intense pressure, then your mind comes up with nothing and
Speaker 1: it's just like you're spinning and you're in neutral. So
Speaker 1: thinking through I'm going to have this conversation with a
Speaker 1: doctor about this diagnosis that I'm worried about. How do
Speaker 1: I want that conversation to go? Or somebody might phone
Speaker 1: me and try to con me, or somebody might send
Speaker 1: me an email and try to con me What am
Speaker 1: I going to do if that happens. If you recognize
Speaker 1: the patterns, it can really help. I guess Bli didn't
Speaker 1: really think it through. That was one of his problems.
Speaker 1: He didn't think through, or didn't seem to think through,
Speaker 1: what is going to happen, if this is really going
Speaker 1: to fall apart? What is going to happen if my
Speaker 1: men don't respond to my rules?
Speaker 2: You know what it was? Bli had a single principle,
Speaker 2: be rational and sensible. It would work for him, clearly,
Speaker 2: it would work for everybody. All he thought about was
Speaker 2: that rule. It's like standing on a mountain and far
Speaker 2: far away in the disc since there's plateaus stretching on,
Speaker 2: but you can't see him. For Blig, those plateaus were
Speaker 2: the consequences. He wasn't thinking about the consequences he had
Speaker 2: this rule. However, the way that other people felt when
Speaker 2: he enacted the rule, that was not his problem. But
Speaker 2: of course it came back to leave them Bob being
Speaker 2: up and down in a little boat in the sea.
Speaker 1: Where we have now had three episodes of cautionary tales.
Speaker 1: We've investigated fairness in all three of them. We're going
Speaker 1: to have one more. The final of this series looking
Speaker 1: at one further story from David Bandanas's writings, and in
Speaker 1: that story, we're going to see how one woman wielded
Speaker 1: the techniques of fairness to shift the course of the
Speaker 1: largest empire the world has ever seen. Thank you, David
Speaker 1: berdanis join us next time on Cautionary Tales. Cautionary Tales
Speaker 1: is written by me Tim Harford with Andrew Wright. This
Speaker 1: mini series is based on David Bandanas's book Art of Fairness,
Speaker 1: The Power of Decency in a World Turned Mean, and
Speaker 1: it was written with David Bandanas himself. For a full
Speaker 1: list of our sources, see the show notes at Timharford
Speaker 1: dot com. The show is produced by Alice Fines, with
Speaker 1: Marilyn Rust. The sound design and original music for the
Speaker 1: work of Pascal Wise. Sarah Nix edited the script. Cautionary
Speaker 1: Tales features the voice talents of Ben Crowe, Melanie Guttridge,
Speaker 1: Stella Harford, Jemma Saunders, and Rufus Wright. The show wouldn't
Speaker 1: have been possible without the work of Jacob Weisberg, Ryan Dilly,
Speaker 1: Greta Cohen, Eric Sandler, Carrie Brody, Christina Sullivan, Kira Posey
Speaker 1: and Owen Miller. Cautionary Tales is a production of Pushkin Industries.
Speaker 1: It's recorded at ward Or Studios in London by Tom Garret.
Speaker 1: If you like the show, please remember to share, rate
Speaker 1: and review. It doesn't really make a difference to us
Speaker 1: and if you want to hear the SHO show ad free,
Speaker 1: sign up to Pushkin Plus on the show page on
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts or at pushkin dot Fm, slash plus