Mydiddee was said to be the servant of a Tahitian Chief who was brought to England by Captain Bligh. Mydiddee was meant to be a cultural ambassador but died within a month of arriving at Deptford. Bligh was on a mission involving bringing back breadfruit plants and it seems there was an attempt to vaccinate Mydiddee against smallpox which went wrong and caused his death. He had been hospitalised in Jamaica on the return journey due to his condition so by time Deptford was on the horizon it seems his fate was sealed.
The ships doctor, Edward Harwood, wrote his epitaph -
Stranger, with solemn step approach, and know
A fav’rite son of nature sleeps below.
From that fam’d Queen of Southern Isles he came,
Fair Otahytey; fir’d by British fame:
And Providence each deep safe wafted o’er,
Yet only gave to hail the promis’d shore;
For here could life alas! no more supply,
Than just to look around him, and to die.
Bligh paid for a funeral and tombstone but it wasn’t put in place until 1988 at a cost of £500 from a study group.
An excellent account can be found here
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