Edward Edwards (Royal Navy Officer) - Legacy

Legacy

Notwithstanding his niece's fond memories, Edwards' conduct on the Pandora has been regarded in some circles as every bit as cruel as popular opinion claims that William Bligh was on the Bounty. Edwards, as ordered, kept his captives under close confinement, as if they had already been convicted, in spite of the fact that four of them had been identified by Bligh as being innocent and were subsequently acquitted after the court martial in Portsmouth.

Four captives and thirty-one crew members perished when the Pandora wrecked on the Great Barrier Reef. Edwards was accused of being excessively callous when it came to the captives' well-being - for instance by refusing to let them use an old sail to prevent them from being sunburned on a sand cay, and also by collectively referring to, and treating them all as mutineers and pirates. Indeed one of his officers, Lieutenant John Larkan (1746–1830), is alleged to have been "brutal" to the prisoners, which Edwards allegedly condoned.

One of Edwards’ main detractors was Commodore Sir Thomas Pasley, convicted mutineer Peter Heywood’s uncle, whose measured tone in one of his letters to Heywood leaves no doubt about his disapproval of ‘that fellow’ Edwards; he was especially critical of the prisoners’ confinement in ‘Pandora’s Box’. Pasley omits to add how he would have handled the situation had command been his. Presumably he might have occasionally let the prisoners out of their captivity; thus, midshipmen Stewart and Heywood might have been allowed to spend some time walking the quarterdeck, as Peter Heywood was permitted to do after his transhipment to HMS Gorgon in Cape Town during the last stage of his voyage home. Much was made of this by Heywood’s friends and defenders during his court martial, as if to underscore their plea that Edwards’ conduct towards the prisoners had in fact been excessively harsh and that Heywood had already suffered disproportionately and therefore had, in fact, already been punished.

On the other hand there is substantial documentary evidence that contradicts the critical view of Edwards’ actions, suggesting instead that Edwards was fair and even-handed when it came to dealing with his prisoners and exercising the responsibilities of his command. In this respect it is noteworthy to cite the positive opinion the Pandora's midshipman James Atkins had of his commanding officer’s conduct; this was reported in May 1792 from Harwich, where Atkins had returned, having been one of the 16 Pandoras who accompanied Lt. John Larkan in the VOC ship Zwaan. Larkan’s group had been the first group of Pandora survivors to leave Batavia and to reach England via The Netherlands.

Although six of the captives were found guilty of mutiny, only three of them -Millward, Burkitt and Ellison- were eventually executed; William Muspratt was acquitted on a legal technicality and the remaining two, Peter Heywood and James Morrison were subsequently pardoned by the King.

Although Edwards search for the mutiny ringleaders ultimately proved fruitless, his voyages might have provided clues to the fate of one of the 18th century's greatest mysteries, the fate of the Lapérouse expedition. When passing Vanikoro, Santa Cruz Islands in the Pacific Ocean on 13 August 1791, smoke signals were observed rising from the island. However Edwards, who was only interested in prisoners, reasoned that mutineers fearful of discovery would not be advertising their whereabouts so he ignored the smoke and sailed on. Sven Wahlroos, in his 1989 book, "Mutiny and Romance in the South Seas", suggests that the smoke signals were almost certainly a distress message sent by survivors of the Lapérouse expedition, which later evidence indicated were still alive on Vanikoro at that time; three years after the Boussole and Astrolabe had foundered in 1788.

Edwards is said to have retired to Cornwall, this story linking him to the 'Pandora Inn' along Restronguet Creek near Mylor, which he is alleged to have owned and renamed after retiring from the Navy. However, there is no documentary evidence to support this claim. Rather, together with a story about a figurehead adorning the Inn's stairwell, said to be based on an 18th-century original from the Pandora, this claim can confidently be refuted and relegated to the realm of creative copy-writing to advertise the inn, which according to cadastral records was called 'The Passage House' until 1851, following the death of Alexander Luben, tenant and Restronguet Passage boatman from 1823 until his death in 1848.