5. The natives attacked the party as it attempted to withdraw
A small group of sailors went ashore, armed with the four cutlasses provided to them by the mutineers, to escort their Captain to the launch. The ominous sound of the clacking stones was made more fearsome by the screams of the natives. Bligh and the party withdrew to the launch, with the natives momentarily keeping their distance. As Bligh reached the boat one of his party, John Norton, ran back toward the shoreline, an attempt to recover the grapnel (a small anchor) to which the launch was moored. A stone thrown by a native struck him down, and a swarm of natives attacked his prone body, with one using a large rock to pound in his skull.
The sailors were stunned at the death of their companion. Bligh exhorted them to row for their lives, while others not at the oars attempted to shield their shipmates from the stones thrown at them. Bligh wrote in his journal, “I did not conceive that the power of a man’s arm could throw stones, from two to eight pounds weight, with such force and exactness as these people did”. The Captain ordered the men to throw bundles of clothing into the water, hoping it would distract the men in the much faster canoes to stop and take them as trophies. The ruse worked, and the men pulling at the oars hauled the launch past the breakers and out to sea.
