Bounty's mission was to collect breadfruit plants from Tahiti for transportation to the West Indies as a new source of food for the slave plantations.
Bligh, a skilled navigator, had travelled to Tahiti in 1776, as Captain James Cook's sailing master during the explorer's final voyage.
Bounty was a small vessel, 91 feet (28 m) in overall length, with a complement of 46 men crammed into limited accommodation.
Heywood was one of several "young gentlemen" aboard ship who were mustered as able seamen but ate and slept with their social equals in the cockpit.
His distant kinsman Fletcher Christian served as master's mate on the  voyage.
Bligh's orders were to enter the Pacific by rounding Cape Horn.
After collecting sufficient breadfruit plants from the Tahitian islands he was to sail westward, through the Endeavour Strait and across the Indian Ocean.
Entering the Atlantic he would continue on to the West Indies, incidentally completing a circumnavigation.

Bounty left London on 15 October 1787, and after being held at Spithead awaiting final sailing orders was further delayed by  bad weather; it was 23 December before the ship was finally away.
This long hiatus caused Bounty to arrive at Cape Horn much later in the season than planned and to encounter very severe weather.
Unable to make progress against westerly gales and enormous seas, Bligh finally turned the ship and headed east.
He would now have to take the alternative, much longer route to the Pacific, sailing first to Cape Town and then south of Australia and New Zealand, before working northwards to Tahiti.

Following its new route, Bounty reached Cape Town on 24 May 1788.
Here, Heywood wrote a long letter to his family describing the voyage to date, with vivid descriptions of life at sea.
Initially, Heywood relates, sailing had been "in the most pleasurable weather imaginable".
In describing the attempts to round Cape Horn he writes: "I suppose there never were seas, in any part of the known world, to compare with those we met ... for height, and length of swell; the oldest seamen on board never saw anything to equal that ..." Bligh's decision to turn east was, Heywood records, "to the great joy of everyone on board".
Historian Greg Dening records a story, unmentioned in Heywood's letter, that at the height of the Cape Horn storms Bligh had punished Heywood for some minor wrongdoing by ordering him to climb the mast and to "stay there beyond the point of all endurance"; this, Dening concedes, was possibly a later fabrication to discredit Bligh.
Bounty's mission was to collect breadfruit plants from Tahiti for transportation to the West Indies as a new source of food for the slave plantations. Bligh, a skilled navigator, had travelled to Tahiti in 1776, as Captain James Cook's sailing master during the explorer's final voyage. Bounty was a small vessel, 91 feet (28 m) in overall length, with a complement of 46 men crammed into limited accommodation. Heywood was one of several "young gentlemen" aboard ship who were mustered as able seamen but ate and slept with their social equals in the cockpit. His distant kinsman Fletcher Christian served as master's mate on the  voyage. Bligh's orders were to enter the Pacific by rounding Cape Horn. After collecting sufficient breadfruit plants from the Tahitian islands he was to sail westward, through the Endeavour Strait and across the Indian Ocean. Entering the Atlantic he would continue on to the West Indies, incidentally completing a circumnavigation.
Bounty left London on 15 October 1787, and after being held at Spithead awaiting final sailing orders was further delayed by  bad weather; it was 23 December before the ship was finally away. This long hiatus caused Bounty to arrive at Cape Horn much later in the season than planned and to encounter very severe weather. Unable to make progress against westerly gales and enormous seas, Bligh finally turned the ship and headed east. He would now have to take the alternative, much longer route to the Pacific, sailing first to Cape Town and then south of Australia and New Zealand, before working northwards to Tahiti.
Following its new route, Bounty reached Cape Town on 24 May 1788. Here, Heywood wrote a long letter to his family describing the voyage to date, with vivid descriptions of life at sea. Initially, Heywood relates, sailing had been "in the most pleasurable weather imaginable". In describing the attempts to round Cape Horn he writes: "I suppose there never were seas, in any part of the known world, to compare with those we met ... for height, and length of swell; the oldest seamen on board never saw anything to equal that ..." Bligh's decision to turn east was, Heywood records, "to the great joy of everyone on board". Historian Greg Dening records a story, unmentioned in Heywood's letter, that at the height of the Cape Horn storms Bligh had punished Heywood for some minor wrongdoing by ordering him to climb the mast and to "stay there beyond the point of all endurance"; this, Dening concedes, was possibly a later fabrication to discredit Bligh.
Peter Heywood