This voyage was in the sequel almost as disastrous as that of the _Bounty_, but from a different cause. The waste of human life was much greater, occasioned by the wreck of the ship, and the distress experienced by the crew not much less, owing to the famine and thirst they had to suffer in a navigation of eleven hundred miles in open boats; but the Captain succeeded in fulfilling a part of his instructions, by taking fourteen of the mutineers, of whom ten were brought safe to England, the other four being drowned when the ship was wrecked.
The only published account of this voyage is contained in a small volume by Mr. George Hamilton, the surgeon, who appears to have been a coarse, vulgar, and illiterate man, more disposed to relate licentious scenes and adventures, in which he and his companions were engaged, than to give any information of proceedings and occurrences connected with the main object of the voyage. From this book, therefore, much information is not to be looked for. In a more modern publication, many abusive epithets have been bestowed on Captain Edwards, and observations made on the conduct of this officer highly injurious to his reputation, in regard to his inhuman treatment of, and disgraceful acts of cruelty towards, his prisoners, which it is to be feared have but too much foundation in fact.
The account of his proceedings, rendered by himself to the Admiralty, is vague and unsatisfactory; and had it not been for the journal of Morrison, and a circumstantial letter of young Heywood to his mother, no record would have remained of the unfeeling conduct of this officer towards his unfortunate prisoners, who were treated with a rigour which could not be justified on any ground of necessity or prudence.
The _Pandora_ anchored in Matavai Bay on the 23rd March 1791. Captain Edwards, in his narrative, states that Joseph Coleman, the armourer of the _Bounty_, attempted to come on board before the _Pandora_ had anchored; that on reaching the ship, he began to make inquiries of him after the _Bounty_ and her people, and that he seemed to be ready to give him any information that was required; that the next who came on board, just after the ship had anchored, were Mr. Peter Heywood and Mr. Stewart, before any boat had been sent on shore; that they were brought down to his cabin, when, after some conversation, Heywood asked if Mr. Hayward (midshipman of the _Bounty_, but now lieutenant of the _Pandora_) was on board, as he had heard that he was; that Lieutenant Hayward, whom he sent for, treated Heywood. with a sort of contemptuous look, and began to enter into conversation with him respecting the _Bounty_; but Edwards ordered him to desist, and called in the sentinel to take the prisoners into safe custody, and to put them in irons; that four other mutineers soon made their appearance; and that, from them and some of the natives, he learned that the rest of the _Bounty's_ people had built a schooner, with which they had sailed the day before from Matavai Bay to the north-west part of the island.