No, but he did have an amazing proclivity to incite, or at least get in the way of, mutinies.
He was later in life governor of New South Wales, and the local militia mutinied against him.
or at least get in the way of, mutinies.
That’s true. He was later the victim of yet another mutiny on a ship that he captained. But, perhaps, this may have been precipitated by knowledge of his earlier history and the further “liberalization” of British naval practices.
The further watering of the Grog ration, perhaps...
William Bligh has a record that has never been repeated, let alone 'bettered'. He has the distinction of having been the target of no less than three separate mutinies, in three separate places.
He was cleared of having done anything to encourage the mutinies on each incident, and the 'cruel Captain' depicted by Charles Laughton and Trevor Howard is total Hollywood fantasy, with no basis in reality. No, William Bligh's problems in holding command stemmed not from sadism, but from being inconsistent.
During times of extreme stress on his crew, he demonstrated a command style that could border on masterful, as evidenced by the boat crossing on thousands of miles of empty Pacific Ocean after the Bounty mutiny. It was absent extreme stress where his command skills faltered, and the better things were, the more they would falter.
He was a complex man, and a good case study in command skills under various circumstances that professional leaders should study in both what to do, and what to avoid like the plague...
the infowarrior