There is a brilliant book on Bly, "Mr. Bly's Bad Language" (I've read about everything on the event, must admit...) It comes, I think closest to a truth (as there must be many these many years after an event with so many points of view of the actors). Well, on The Bounty, there was a break down of the theatre of hierachry, needed to keep order in thouse days, the ship was so small, Bly did not have the distance to keep his position of being phisically as well as athoritatively above his men. Folks shared many of the duties aboard in rough times, and as a result, the crew came to see themselves as equal partners. Bly, was unpredicatably good natured, and as a result, found himself too familier with the men, and then had to reasert athourity among men who no longer saw him as unquestionable. Add to that, his pention of saying dreadful things when angery, things that gentlemen of his day would not say, his men saw him as one of them, and a friend who turned on them when he said unforgivable things.
Interesting book, very well researched. The author built a modle of the bounty, down to the internal set up of the cabins while writing it, to feel close to the subject. As to Bly as a seaman and general human, he was a complex and wonderful man. A true outsider and idealist. He was done real liable by too many.
Cheers,
Larry