Bounty land

“ The most objectionable practice was that of giving bounties to agents for bringing in recruits. The effect of this at the beginning of the war was that great numbers of men deserted from the British navy, and the Admiral at Halifax reported that at one time there were a hundred deserters from one ship alone, the St. Vincent, but as the contest progressed the bounty system was responsible for innumerable cases of kidnapping in which British subjects were the sufferers. ”

“ It is astonishing what a different course of reasoning men often pursue on subjects exactly similar without being able to perceive their own inconsistency. On running over in one's mind some of the acts of the British legislature, how many cases does one find where it has acted on a principle directly the reverse of that on which it established the bounty law; cases which areas vehemently applauded by the common tribe of politicians, as the bounty law itself! ”

“ Accustomed though they no doubt had been to war and bloodshed on their native island, they must have been shocked beyond measure by the scenes of brutality and murder through which they had passed. The most of them being now without husbands, and the men who remained being not on very amicable terms among themselves, these poor creatures seem to have been driven to a state of desperation, for they began to pine for their old home, and actually made up their minds to quit the island in one of the Bounty’s old boats, and leave the white men and even the children behind them. ”

“ The history of development in the west gives overwhelming evidence of their weakness. Even when the bounty is offered for reduction of vermin, it is often misapplied. Numerous cases are on record where the bounty became a stimulant to enterprise in raising the very animals to be destroyed. Even rewards for the arrest of criminals seem sometimes to create a body of men who thrive by fostering a criminal class, with a hope of sometime getting a profit from arrests. As a means of stimulating general industry they are too unstable to be satisfactory. ”

“ If bounties resulted in the extermination of the wolves or in an important reduction in their number, the bounty system should be encouraged, but if it merely begets fraud and yields a perpetual harvest for the support of a floating class of citizens, other means should be adopted. ”

“ Facing the north is a peak, or immense rock, scarcely less high, called the Goat House. A cave in the side of this rock, partly hidden by lofty trees, is said to have been the intended retreat of Christian and his companions, in the event of their being sought after and their lone island discovered. The peak overlooking Bounty Bay, called Ship-landing Point, because it stands directly over the place where the Bounty was driven near the rocks and destroyed, has been described as “possessing considerable beauty.” ”

“ Though a Hudson’s Bay servant could not take as much as one beaver skin for himself, every man afield had as keen an interest in the total returns as the shareholders in London. This was owing to the bounty system. To encourage the servants and prevent temptations to dishonesty, the Company paid bounty on every score (20) of made beaver to captains, factors, traders, and trappers, in amounts ranging from three shillings to sixpence a score. ”

“ Armed sloops and gunboats sailed down the rivers to [483] prevent the enemy advancing in boats; levies were raised all over the country, one man in every two being obliged to serve. Hope and courage rose high in a nation lately reduced to despair.
The Stadtholder set his soldiers to the work of demolishing the dykes. The sea rushed over his country palaces, burying in their hot-houses his beautiful collection of exotics and ruining his parks and gardens. All the meadow-land became marsh; the army of the States was obliged to camp where they could find ground higher than the sea ”

“ He followed up his vigorous attempt to punish the Paxtang perpetrators of the massacres of the Conestoga Indians at Christmas time, 1763, by promulgating the infamous scalp bounty of July, 1764, which bounty, to again quote Professor Moyer, paid 26“$134 for an Indian’s scalp, and $150 for a live Indian, and $50 for an Indian female or child’s scalp.”
There are not enough Indians to make hunting for bounties in Pennsylvania a paying occupation today, so instead there is a bounty on Wildcats and foxes, wiping out desirable wild life to satisfy the politicians’ filthy greed. ”

“ The landing place shown in one of the pictures [see page 27] [266] on another page is at Bounty Bay, where the original settlers of the island destroyed their vessel more than a hundred years ago, and where, as the illustration shows, many of the inhabitants gathered to bid Captain Davis good-by. Up from this spot runs a path to the settlement itself, which is three or four hundred feet above the level of the sea. The main street is bordered with palm trees, and the thatched cottages on either side give evidence of thrift and prosperity. ”

“ The ceremony over [239] the Cormorant left, but before the return voyage was half accomplished, Captain Nicolls, at Rio Janeiro, took the yellow fever and died. He was buried at sea.
A new decade was now entered upon, and in the opening month of 1890 the people celebrated, on the twenty-third day, the century of years since the Bounty arrived at the island. The same period of time which among the nations of the earth had witnessed the amazing onward march in progress and advanced civilization, saw but little change in this little world situated by itself in the midst of the vast ocean. ”

“ No time was lost in acquainting the English Government with the disastrous failure of the Bounty’s mission, and, although there were some among the crew who, at the time of the mutiny, pleaded that no blame should be attached to them, the result showed that Bligh did not spare those whose hearts and hands were alike innocent of any wrong against him. Very soon the Pandora, commanded by Captain Edwards, a man devoid of the humane feelings of kindness and pity, was sent in search of the men who had so willfully forgotten their duty. ”

“ Adjudication is contemplated in all cases.
By § 4635 (U.S.C.omp. Stat. 1901, p. 3134) , a bounty is given for each person on board a vessel of the enemy which is 'sunk or otherwise destroyed' in an engagement, of $100 if the hostile fleet is of inferior, and of $200 if of equal or superior, force; and $50 for every person on board at the time of such capture, where the vessels taken are immediately destroyed in the public interest, but not in consequence of injuries received in action. ”

“ If the hostile force was equal or superior, then the bounty was to be double what it would be if the enemy's force was inferior, because the hazards to be run were so much the greater. But the bounty was limited in total amount by the number of persons on board the vessels of the enemy, which appears to have been considered to be a practicable restriction. ”

“ The melancholy effects which tyrannical conduct, harsh and opprobrious language, ungovernable passion, and a worrying and harassing temper, on the part of naval commanders, seldom fail to produce on the minds of those who are subject to their capricious and arbitrary command, are strongly exemplified in the cause and consequences of the mutiny in the Bounty, as described in the course of this history. ”

“ John Bundy, our special events newscaster, has joined the forces scouring the Lake Superior region for Charles Farradyne. Inasmuch as an early arrest is expected, and possibly a running gun battle, John Bundy will take the air with an on-the-spot account. Come in, John Bundy!"
"Hello, this is John Bundy! Our convoy of trucks, men, guns, radar and radio control resembles a war convoy. We have everything from trench knives to one-fifty-five rifles aboard as we scour the northwoods for the criminal who has been so successful up to this time. ”

“ Recruiting went slower than cold molasses, and Washington himself is authority for the statement that men were “holding back to see what advantages could be gained, and whether or not they could extort a bounty.” Every school boy will naturally spurn the suggestion that patriots of the Revolution would put up their services at public auction. But nobody has ever written for the school boy a popular history of the bounty system. ”

“ Companies don’t pay £8 bounty for nothing. Not agents were sent to the parishes, but “sly old wolves of the North”—as one parish priest calls these demoralizers of his flock—went from village to village, gay, reckless, dare-devil veterans, old in service, young in years, clothed in all the picturesque glory of beaded buckskin, plumed hats, silk sashes, to tickle the vanity of the poor country bucks, who had never been beyond their own hamlet. ”

“ Finally, September 21, 1789, Fletcher Christian, with the Bounty and eight of her crew, six Tahitian men, and twelve women, sailed away still further east to unknown shores, and, so it was believed, disappeared for good and all. Long afterwards it was known that they had landed on Pitcairn Island, broken up the Bounty, and founded a permanent settlement. ”

“ In the Wind River valley, which lies east of the mountains, they were encountered by a powerful war party of that tribe, and completely put to rout. Forty of them were killed, many of their women and children captured, and the scattered fugitives hunted like wild beasts until they were completely chased out of the Crow country.
On the 22d of August Captain Bonneville broke up his camp, and set out on his route for Salmon River. His baggage was arranged in packs, three to a mule, or pack-horse; one being disposed on each side of the animal and one on the top ”

“ The time must come when they will emigrate on their own accord. When the hive is full, they will send out their swarms. Captain Beechey tells us that the reading of some books of voyages and travels, belonging to Bligh and left in the Bounty, had created a desire in some of them to leave it ”

“ It might be a desperately foolish thing to do, but Lafe could not hold himself from doing it—and for that matter didn't try.
Lafe and the Bounty-Jumper.
"Why, they hang men caught robbing the dead on battle-fields, don't they—specially when they're bounty-jumpers to begin with?" ”

“ By this time the cloud of dust had swept on as if hurried along by a blast, and a band of wild horsemen came dashing at full leap into the camp, yelling and whooping like so many maniacs. Their dresses, their accoutrements, their mode of riding, and their uncouth clamor, made them seem a party of savages arrayed for war; but they proved to be principally half-breeds, and white men grown savage in the wilderness, who were employed as trappers and hunters in the service of the Hudson’s Bay Company. ”

“ Edward Young, a favorite with the women, had been concealed by them, and so escaped the dangers to which the others had been exposed. Thus were the lives of four among the nine mutineers spared. But peace was not yet to be. How was it possible, when the men and women that remained practiced freely every vice that could degrade manhood and womanhood. Treachery and bloodshed still raged among them, and no one felt his life secure. [27]
THE LANDING PLACE, BOUNTY BAY.
A story is told of how the death of one of the native men was accomplished. ”

“ As money was not a plentiful article in that era of colonial progress, the offer of a reward for catching Blacks was so agreeable to the acquisitive faculty, that not a few were ready to dare danger for bright gold. A scheme was actually set on foot, though detected in time, to proceed to the Straits, capture the half-civilized women there, and claim the bounty. The Launceston Advertiser of March, 1830, sounded an alarm: "We understand a party of volunteers are busily employed man-catching in the neighbourhood ”

“ This is the true state of the bounty upon corn: it certainly and necessarily increases our crops, and can never lessen them but by our own permission.
That, notwithstanding the bounty, there have been, from time to time, years of scarcity, cannot be denied. But who can regulate the seasons? In the dearest years we owe to the bounty that they have not been dearer. We must always suppose part of our ground sown for our own consumption, and part in hope of a foreign sale. ”

“ At the same time two natives attacked me, and before any of us could resist, we found ourselves close prisoners, with our hands bound behind us and our legs linked together, with a vine-like rope of native manufacture which was as tough as iron.
In vain we tried to explain the situation. No one would listen to us, and in a few minutes after being captured we were thrust into a hut, and a tall native, with a drawn war club, was placed on guard to see that we did not escape. In the meantime the spread on the log was re-arranged, and the fire dance went on as before. ”

“ The Wind River Mountains are notorious in hunters' and trappers' stories: their rugged defiles, and the rough tracts about their neighborhood, having been lurking places for the predatory hordes of the mountains, and scenes of rough encounter with Crows and Blackfeet. It was to the west of these mountains, in the valley of the Seeds-ke-dee Agie, or Green River, that Captain Bonneville intended to make a halt for the purpose of giving repose to his people and his horses after their weary journeying ”