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[William Bligh's account of the voyage to Tahiti, the mutiny and the boat journey to Batavia]
Batavia October 13th 1789
Dear Sir,
I am now so ill that it is with the utmost difficulty I can write to you, but as I hope to be in England before you can receive it, the necessary information which perhaps may be omitted in this letter, will be of no consequence.
I have however for your satisfaction enclosed to you a short account of my voyage - it is nearly a copy of what I have given to the Governor of Coupang and the Governor General here, because my weak habit of body at present will not allow me to do more.
You will now Sir with all your generous endeavour for the publick good see an unfortunate and to the undertaking, and I feel very sensibly how you will receive the news of the failure of an expedition that promised to much. The anxious and miserable hours I have past is beyond my description, but while I have health, the strange vissicitude of human affairs can never affect me. Unhappily I have lost it at present, for on my arrival here I was seized with a fever, which fixing in my head it made me almost distracted but I am now better and am to sail in the packet on Thurs. next which will save my life.
You will find that the ship was taken from me in a most extraordinary manner, and I presume to say it could not have been done in any other way. I