He was later captured in Tahiti , tried and condemned to death as a mutineer, but subsequently pardoned. He resumed his naval career and eventually retired with the rank of post-captain , after 29 years of honourable service. The son of a prominent Isle of Man family with strong naval connections, Heywood joined Bounty under Lieutenant William Bligh at the age of Although unranked, he was granted the privileges of a junior officer. Bounty left England in on a mission to collect and transport breadfruit from the Pacific, and arrived in Tahiti late in Relations between Bligh and certain of his officers, notably Fletcher Christian , became strained, and worsened during the five months that Bounty remained in Tahiti.
Shortly after the ship began its homeward voyage, Christian and his discontented followers seized Bligh and took control of the vessel. Bligh and 18 loyalists were set adrift in an open boat; Heywood was among those who remained with Bounty. Later, he and 15 others left the ship and settled in Tahiti, while Bounty sailed on, ending its voyage at Pitcairn Island.
Bligh, after an epic open-boat journey, eventually reached England, where he implicated Heywood as one of the mutiny's prime instigators. Heywood and one other sailor welcomed the Pandora in canoes, relieved to be rescued. However, they were arrested; the captain, Edward Edwards , had them and 12 others fettered and handcuffed in an foot 3. During their subsequent journey, Pandora was wrecked on the Great Barrier Reef , and four of Heywood's fellow prisoners drowned.
In September , Heywood was court-martialed and with five others was sentenced to hang. In a rapid change of fortune, he found himself favoured by senior officers, and after the resumption of his career, received a series of promotions that gave him his first command at the age of 27 and made him a post-captain at He remained in the navy until , building a respectable career as a hydrographer , and then enjoyed a long and peaceful retirement.
The extent of Heywood's true guilt in the mutiny has been clouded by contradictory statements and possible false testimony. During his trial powerful family connections worked on his behalf, and he later benefited from the Christian family's generally fruitful efforts to demean Bligh's character and present the mutiny as an understandable reaction to an unbearable tyranny.
