HMS Pandora (1779)
From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.
HMS Pandora was a 24-gun frigate of the Royal Navy, built by Adams and Barnard at Deptford, and launched on 17 May 1779.
After the news of the mutiny on the Bounty reached England on 1790-03-15 the Admiralty dispatched Pandora to capture the mutineers and bring them to justice. Captain Edward Edwards took command on 6 August 1790 and sailed from England on 7 November 1790.
Pandora reached Tahiti on 1791-03-23. Four of the men from Bounty came on board Pandora soon after her arrival, and ten more were arrested in a few weeks. These fourteen, mutineers and loyal crew alike, were imprisoned in a makeshift cage on Pandora's deck, which they derisively called "Pandora's Box". On 1791-05-08, Pandora left Tahiti, and spent about three months visiting islands to the west of Tahiti in search of Bounty and the remaining mutineers, without finding anything except flotsam — some spars and a yard.
Heading west through the Torres Strait, Pandora ran aground on a reef (part of the Great Barrier Reef) on 1791-08-29. She sank the next day, and 31 of the crew and four of the prisoners were lost. The remaining 89 of the ship's company and ten prisoners, released from their cage at the last minute, assembled in four small boats and sailed for Timor, arriving there on 1791-09-16.
The wreck was discovered in 1977 and was immediately declared a protected site under the Australian Historic Shipwrecks Act 1976. The Queensland Museum has been excavating the wreck and is piecing together the Pandora puzzle. There is a comprehensive overview of the story of the Pandora's last voyage and of the Museum's research and work on the wreck at the Museum of Tropical Queensland's website (http://pandora.mtq.qld.gov.au)
See HMS Pandora for other ships of this name.
