This unexpected present, and the sudden change in their situation, affected them not less with joy than they had before been with apprehension.

They were unbounded in their acknowledgements; and I have little doubt but that we parted better friends than if the affair had never happened.' From this island the ship stood to the northward all night, with light winds; and on the next day, the 27th, at noon, they were between the islands Tofoa and Kotoo.
'Thus far,' says Bligh, 'the voyage had advanced in a course of uninterrupted prosperity, and had been attended with many circumstances equally pleasing and satisfactory.

A very different scene was now to be experienced.

A conspiracy had been formed, which was to render all our past labour productive only of extreme misery and distress.

The means had been concerted and prepared with so much secrecy and circumspection, that no one circumstance appeared to occasion the smallest suspicion of the impending calamity, the result of an act of piracy the most consummate and atrocious that was probably ever committed.' How far Bligh was justified in ascribing the calamity to a conspiracy will be seen hereafter.