»There and back again

It's been a while since I had any seafaring adventures. I picked up a copy (signed first-edition) of Caroline Alexander's latest, The Bounty. The story of Capt Bligh and the Bounty has long fascinated me, and now I'm learning new details:

May 1 brought an extraordinary diversion: two sharks were caught and in the belly of one was found a prayer book, "[q]uite fresh," according to Lieutenant Clark, "not a leaf of it defaced." The book was inscribed "Francis Carthy, cast for death in the Year 1786 and Repreaved the Same day at four oClock in the afternoon." The book was subsequently confirmed as having belonged to a convict who had sailed to Botany Bay in 1788 with the first fleet of prisoners consigned to transportation.