The Swallow, a small sloop commanded by Philip Carteret, made its second Pacific crossing in 1767 after being unceremoniously separated from Wallis's Dolphin at the Strait of Magellan — the two ships meant to sail in company. It was Carteret who rediscovered and recorded Pitcairn Island that same year, noting it as uninhabited and mischarting its longitude by nearly two degrees. That error proved consequential: when Fletcher Christian consulted Carteret's published account while searching for a refuge after the Bounty mutiny, the island was harder for Royal Navy pursuers to locate precisely because of it.
The Swallow, a small sloop commanded by Philip Carteret, made its second Pacific crossing in 1767 after being unceremoniously separated from Wallis's Dolphin at the Strait of Magellan — the two ships meant to sail in company. It was Carteret who rediscovered and recorded Pitcairn Island that same year, noting it as uninhabited and mischarting its longitude by nearly two degrees. That error proved consequential: when Fletcher Christian consulted Carteret's published account while searching for a refuge after the Bounty mutiny, the island was harder for Royal Navy pursuers to locate precisely because of it.