TL;DR -
Amateur historian connects the dots between some Australians (who escaped from Tasmania as pirates) and a bunch of Japanese records of what appeared to be a British ship, by realizing the Japanese records indicated the ship was probably a pirate vessel, and (literally) googling "mutiny 1829" (since most pirate vessels were from mutinies).<p>What's really neat is how detailed the Japanese records were, and that they were made by Samurai, and incorporated watercolor illustrations. I didn't realize (or, it never sunk in) the variety of work they were responsible and trained for.