Bounty began her career as the collier Bethia, built in 1784 at the Blaydes shipyard near Hull. Later she was purchased by the Royal Navy for £2,600 on 26 May 1787 refited, and renamed Bounty.

The ship had been purchased by the Royal Navy for a single mission in support of an experiment: she was to travel to Tahiti, pick up breadfruit plants, and transport them to the West Indies in hopes that they would grow well there and become a cheap source of food for slaves.

On 23 December 1787, Bounty sailed from Spithead for Tahiti.Some 1,300 miles (2,100 km) west of Tahiti, near Tonga, mutiny broke out on 28 April 1789,The mutineers sailed for the island of Tubuai, where they tried to settle. After three months of being terrorized by the cannibalistic natives, however, they returned to Tahiti.after setting sixteen crewmen ashore in Tahiti in September 1789, Fletcher Christian, eight other crewmen, six Tahitian men, and 11 women, one with a baby, set sail in Bounty hoping to elude the Royal Navy.Continuing their quest for a safe haven, on 15 January 1790 they rediscovered Pitcairn Island, which had been misplaced on the Royal Navy's charts. After the decision was made to settle on Pitcairn, livestock and other provisions were removed from the Bounty. To prevent the ship's detection, and anyone's possible escape, the ship was burned on 23 January 1790 in what is now called Bounty Bay.