While the vessel was going down, instead of the prisoners being released, by the express order of Captain Edwards eleven of them were actually kept ironed, and if it had not been for the humanity of boatswain's mate James moulter, who burst open the prison, they would have all been drowned like rats in a cage.
"The Naval Pioneers of Australia"
Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery
All of a pummy, all of a moulter, because it was so very brow, describing the condition of a tree, which shattered as it fell because it was brow, i.
"John Keble's Parishes"
Charlotte M Yonge
Fortunately the master-at-arms, either by accident or design, when slipping from the roof of "Pandora's Box" into the sea, let the keys of the irons fall through the scuttle or entrance, which he had just before opened, and thus enabled them to commence their own liberation, in which they were generously assisted, at the imminent risk of his own life, by William moulter, a boatswain's mate, who clung to the coamings, and pulled the long bars through the shackles, saying he would set them free, or go to the bottom with them.
"The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences"
Sir John Barrow