The USL service to Australia was a lengthy round trip voyage taking three or four months but attracted a motley crewman glad to be away from the home office. Southbound calls at Brisbane-Sydney-Melbourne -Adelaide with occasional stops at Tahiti - with northbound stops in reverse.
On one northbound voyage - with a grizzly old Brit as Master, several stowaways were discovered after leaving Brisbane. The old man did not want to take them all the way back to New York. A sister ship heading south was invited to rendezvous and was asked to accept the interlopers and deposit them back in Brisbane. Captain number two refused to get involved. So the Brit diverted his ship to Pitcairn Island (Fletcher Christian's land) - put the stowaways in a lifeboat with some water and put them ashore. Arriving back in New York, his crew criticized him for his action. He said "They were British subjects and I put them ashore on British soil - end of story."
tjs
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