Pandora, under the command of Captain Edward Edwards, was dispatched by the Admiralty in 1790 to apprehend mutineers following the mutiny on the Bounty at Tonga, 28th April, 1789. At Tahiti fourteen mutineers were captured and kept in Pandora's Box, a round house on deck in which the prisoners were kept in chains. After searching for the remainder, Pandora ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef, 28th August, 1791. Thirty-one crew and four mutineers were drowned.