A Trip to Australia and New Zealand
Sydney
- The Rocks
Vice Admiral William Bligh was a captain when in charge of the HMS Bounty and got mixed up in an ugly mutiny in 1789 which resulted in his being set adrift in a very small boat in the middle of a very large ocean. He made it first to Timor and eventually back to England where he was acquitted of having done anything wrong in handling the Bounty insurrection and the loss of his ship. Bligh had an interesting career that included a lot of controversy and some rather spectacular commendations. Bligh commanded a 56 gun ship of the line under Nelson during the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801 and was praised profusely by Nelson for his part in the action. In 1805, Bligh was appointed Governor of New South Wales and he took up his duties in the following year. During his tenure as governor, the Rum Rebellion took place (1808) and Bligh was deposed as governor by a group of rebels led by Major George Johnson. In 1811, Johnson was cashiered from the Royal Marines and allowed to return to take up civilian life in Australia. After the Johnson trial, Bligh was promoted first to Rear Admiral and then, in 1814, to Vice Admiral of the Blue. Bligh died in London in 1817.
The Fortune of War claims to date from 1828 which means that Captain Bligh never drank beer there, but the place still reeks of those who came along just after him. It is a small place with a big bar and on a busy night guests sometimes get squeezed out into the street which is of great concern to the city constabulary. We often saw the police and one evening the rumor on the street had it that someone had been killed just down the block, but we were never able to confirm it. All the while that we were in town, the street was hoping after dusk settled in, but we never actually saw any trouble of any kind.
