Notes on Captain Bligh's visits to Tasmania in 1788 and 1792

Among the annals of Tasmanian discovery the record of William Bligh has scarcely had the attention paid to it which his work merits. The fact is often lost sight of that the famous Bounty anchored for a period in Adventure Bay before proceeding to Tahiti, where the charms of the Eves of the Friendly Islands proved too great a temptation to the crew. The resultant mutiny, and Bligh's famous voyage of 3,600 miles in an open boat to Timor, afford material for those pages of history that are known, in the language of Macaulay, "to every schoolboy." Bligh's visits to Tasmania are not recorded in the lists of the early navigators given by J. B. Walker (1890 and 1902) or J. Moore Robinson (1921, p. 159), yet Bligh made discoveries and added to the early knowledge of Tasmania, and if it had not been for the rough weather experienced during his second visit, he would almost certainly have forestalled many of the discoveries of D'Entrecasteaux