Who was the Captain of the HMS Bounty when the crew mutinied?

Vice Admiral of the Blue William Bligh FRS RN (9 September 1754 – 7 December 1817) was an officer of the British Royal Navy and a colonial administrator. He is best remembered for the historic mutiny which occurred during his command of HMS Bounty in 1789; Bligh and his loyal men made a remarkable voyage to Timor, 3,618 nautical miles (6,701 km; 4,164 mi), after being set adrift in Bounty's launch by the mutineers.

Fifteen years after the Bounty mutiny, he was appointed Governor of New South Wales in Australia, with orders to clean up the corrupt rum trade of the New South Wales Corps. His actions directed against the trade resulted in the so-called Rum Rebellion, during which Bligh was (again) placed under arrest and deposed from his command.

Popular fiction often confuses Bligh with Edward Edwards of HMS Pandora, who was sent on the Royal Navy's expedition to the South Pacific to find the mutineers and bring them to trial. The 14 men from Bounty who were captured by Edwards' men were confined in a cramped 18′ × 11′ × 5′8″ wooden cell on Pandora's quarterdeck. Yet, when Pandora ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef, three prisoners were immediately let out of the prison cell to help at the pumps. And finally Captain Edwards did also give orders to release the other 11 prisoners, to which end Joseph Hodges the armorer's mate went into the cell to knock off the prisoners' irons. But before he could finish the job, the ship sank very quickly.