Misery, Mutiny and Menace E-Book

Graham Faiella

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: Thrilling Tales of the Sea
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 336

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

Life at sea in the nineteenth century was demanding and perilous. Seamen had to be able to rely on those around them. This was easier said than done. The sea could be, and still is, a place of constant and unpredictable danger, whether by storm, shipboard disease or threat from the crew. Stories of unimaginable cruelties inflicted upon crews by savage officers and treacheries committed by mutinous crews were the soap operas of the day. People followed the trials in the newspapers, hanging hungrily on to each new piece of detail. Tales of suffering, hardship and treachery were thrilling to those on land but also replete with piteous infamy.

Leseprobe

First published 2019

The History Press

97 St George’s Place, Cheltenham,

Gloucestershire, GL50 3QB

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

© Graham Faiella, 2019

The right of Graham Faiella to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 0 7509 9348 7

Typesetting and origination by The History Press

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd.

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

CONTENTS

Preface

1   Desperate Voyages

A South Seas Cruise of Piracy, Treachery and Murder

The Frank N. Thayer – Mutiny, Murders and Incendiarism

The Disastrous Voyage of the Roanoke

The Craigmullen’s Deathly ‘Voyage’

2   Wrecked!

The Reliance: A Survivor’s Story

Wreck of the Hilda off St Malo

The San Rafael Survivors – ‘Escape from a Watery Grave’

The Ocean Queen: Shocking Sufferings at Sea

Loss of the China

3   Fever and Scurvy

The Scurvy-Stricken Bremen

The Guiding Star – A Fever-Poisoned Ship

The Johanna’s Dismal Voyage

4   Hunger

The Seaman’s ‘Whack’

Famine in the Peggy

The Hornet Survivors: A Wrecked Crew’s Hunger

The Frances Mary: Shipwreck and Sufferings of Ann Saunders

5   ‘Hell Ships’: Cruel Captains, Malevolent Mates

‘The Red Record’

Arthur Sewall’s Ships: ‘Red Record’ Regulars

The Willie Rosenfeld – A ‘Hard Ship’

Brutality on the George Stetson

Murder on the P.J. Williams

The ‘Hellship’ Voyage of the T.F. Oakes

‘The Bloody Gatherer’: Barbarity at Sea

The Cyrus Wakefield – Cruelty on the High Seas

The Arran Stowaways: ‘Shocking Cruelty at Sea’

6   Overboard

Eleven Men Swept Overboard from Barque Charles Ward

The Claverdon: Five Men Washed from her Deck into the Sea

Président Félix Faure Loses Fifteen Men in Indian Ocean Cyclone

A Miraculous Resurrection

PREFACE

‘… and the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago.’ (from ‘The Chase – Third Day’, Ch. 135, Moby Dick, or The Whale, by Herman Melville [1819–91])

The possibilities of danger, menace and death have always been closer to the lives of salt-water seafarers than to the rest of us clay-footed commoners. And even greater in the times of the deep-sea wind-ships that in their thousands and by their tens and hundreds of thousands of seafarers sailed Melville’s – Ishmael’s – ‘watery part of the world’.

From the shallowest edges along continental and island coasts, to the abyssal depths of the great oceans and seas, peril has always stalked the shadows of sailors who have voyaged thereabouts. Nature has sunk ships and drowned their occupants, ripped the rigging out of ships, battered ships into wrecks, knocked ships’ seafaring crews senseless and cast them away upon foreign and savage shores. Calm, windless weeks and months, and the gradual diminution of food and water, have, on wind-ships at least, brought such desperate hunger that men have looked even upon their shipmates as a last shake of the dice resource for survival.

The natural perils of the sea were known and, though feared, largely accepted as hazards of their trade by those who made their lives in ships. Seamen, and passengers, could be sickened by fevers from tropical ports, assaulted by storms, maimed or killed by accident, even ripped away from the security of their vessels by mishap or storm or a fog-shrouded coast or by collision with another ship. But there was also the unnatural danger of other men: ‘savages’ who attacked them in foreign lands, and brutal shipmates, especially ships’ officers, who inflicted lawless misery upon their bodies and minds and souls.

Discipline in a ship was one thing (and absolutely necessary for the safety of the ship and her crew). And violence and brutality amongst hard-bitten crews did oftentimes bloody noses and stain the decks of their water-borne homes. But the unmeasured malevolence and crushing cruelty that some ships’ captains and bucko mates sometimes inflicted on ordinary sailors was of a different magnitude altogether: it was bestial, what we might today even call psychopathic. Few perpetrators were ever held to account for what was usually perceived by the landlubberly judiciary to be a necessary regime of seagoing discipline whose boundaries were ill-defined – if at all.

The sea itself held the terrors of drowning of men, most of whom deliberately never learnt to swim so that they might sink quickly, mercifully, into the black embrace of the depths. Sometimes a ship might be able to haul a man back to safety, but many more did not; in the teeth of a howling gale or tumultuous seas, they simply could not. A man – or men, sometimes half the crew – swept overboard had less chance of returning alive to a ship than of escaping the hard-knuckle assault of a brutal mate with violence spliced into the very sinews of his vicious being.

1

DESPERATE VOYAGES

As many seamen who crewed sailing ships before the twentieth century did so out of desperation to escape lives of poverty, criminality and unremunerated idleness, as they did for the adventure of seafaring and ambition of going to sea as a career. A shore life presented to many of them the prospects of a foreshortened existence from not much in the way of any prospects at all. What they did not, could not, know at least at first, was that a seafaring life often led to the bare-knuckled fists of fate knocking them around mercilessly, trampling over them by the violence of storms or treachery or just bad luck. It blighted many, and sent as many others to Davy Jones’ locker.

The strongest, or luckiest, or most resilient of sailors lived to fight another day; to struggle against the raw nature and indomitable forces of the sea and the wind and the elements, and also, not least, snarly shipmates they encountered along that way; cursed and scathed and scarred, but not, finally, undone by the indifference and sometimes pure terror of their plight. Life, somehow, won the skirmish against death, not once but a thousand times, though it left in its wake derelicts of desperation that, by the buoyancy of fortitude and courage, refused to founder.

A South Seas Cruise of Piracy, Treachery and Murder

In June 1831 the barque America was wrecked on a reef off the ‘Loo Islands’ on the Queensland coast of Australia while on passage from Hobart, Tasmania, to Batavia (Jakarta). Her castaway crew sailed in two boats 250 miles down the coast to Moreton Bay, off Brisbane, where there was at the time a penal settlement for hard-core criminals (the Moreton Bay Convict Settlement, which closed in 1835). They arrived there on 27 July 1831. The schooner Caledonia, under the command of Capt. George Browning, was sent from Sydney up to Moreton Bay to retrieve the America’s two boats. She left Sydney on 16 December 1831 and arrived at Moreton Bay on 24 December.

Prisoners from the convict settlement were used to tow the two America boats 40 miles from Brisbane to where the Caledonia lay at the mouth of the bay. The prisoners then hatched a plan to steal arms and ammunition from the pilot’s house and seize the Caledonia. In the middle of the night eleven men rowed out to the Caledonia and took over the vessel. They put the Caledonia’s crew (except Capt. Browning) in the boat they had come in, and ‘let them do the best they could with only the steer oar’ to get ashore. Capt. Browning was forced into the charge of navigating the vessel to the island of Rotuma, on the outer edge of the Fiji Islands.

The leader of the pirates was John Evans (‘one of the greatest villains under the sun’, Capt. Browning later wrote), nominated chief mate. A man named Hastings (called ‘John Imgan’ in Capt. Browning’s memoirs) was second mate. On the eighth day out from Moreton Bay two of the pirates were killed and a third, under threat of also being shot, jumped overboard. The life of a fourth man was spared, on Capt. Browning’s urging that no more killings take place.

Wanderings

The Caledonia first put into a place on the coast of New Caledonia, where Hastings was left, his first option, to be shot, being rather less desirable to him. They then sailed to Rotuma (annexed in 1881 to Fiji, but at the time a solitary island to the north of the main cluster of Fiji islands) where one of the convicts absconded, leaving six pirates and Capt. Browning on the Caledonia. Next stop was intended to be Wallis Island, but they bypassed it and ‘steered for the Navigator’s Group (Samoa Islands)’, where they landed upon the island of Savaii (probably – the name was uncertain), one of the two big islands of the Samoan archipelago. Three pirates who had become allies of Capt. Browning then left the vessel which was scuttled offshore.

The three remaining pirates and Capt. Browning went ashore at Savaii where an island chief, Tongalore, took Capt. Browning to live with him and his family. A few weeks later an English whaling ship, the Oldham, arrived off the island. When Capt. Browning went on board to trade on Tongalore’s behalf, he discovered his piratical nemesis Evans on the ship. The captain narrated the events of the ‘piratical seizure of the schooner at Moreton Bay’ to the Oldham’s master, Capt. Johnstone, who consequently clapped Evans in irons.

The Oldham, with Capt. Browning on board (and Evans ‘in irons’), sailed for Wallis Island. There they came across an American vessel, the Milo, looking for crew for their passage to Sydney. Capt. Browning persuaded the Milo’s Capt. West to take him and Evans on board to go to Sydney. Evans jumped ship, Capt. Browning went alone, and four weeks later, in July 1832, the Milo arrived at Sydney.

Thus ended the six-months’-long ‘cruise’ and adventures of the ill-fated Caledonia and her brave commander Capt. George Browning – who later learned of his narrow escape from an even more awful fate of the Oldham at Wallis Island shortly after he left in the Milo:

A Tale of Adventure in the South Seas – Mutinies and Massacres

A few weeks ago we published a paragraph reporting the death in Sydney of Captain George Browning, brother of Mr. Samuel Browning, of Auckland, and brother-in-law of John Ericson, the renowned civil engineer, the inventor of the Monitor [the USS Monitor, ‘a revolutionary armored ship with the world’s first rotating gun turret,’ launched 30 January 1862].

Amongst the papers of the deceased gentleman is a journal of a voyage to the South Sea Islands in the schooner Caledonia, belonging to Sydney. This is of very considerable interest, as showing the events and actors in those early days:

Capt. Browning’s Journal of the Voyage of the Caledonia

‘Sixteenth December, 1831, sailed from Sydney in the schooner Caledonia for the inside passage of Torres Straits, “Loo Islands,” to pick up the wreck of the America, and proceeded to the northward, with variable winds, intending to go to Moreton Bay [off Brisbane] (at that time a penal settlement) for two boats left there by the ship’s company. On the 24th December, arrived at Moreton Bay, and communicated with the authorities. Captain Fyans, the commandant, ordered the two boats to be sent down from Brisbane to the Heads, where the vessel was lying. It took some time to bring down the boats; the boats, being so dry, they would not float.

‘At that time the pilot was a free man, and his boat’s crew were prisoners, generally termed convicts. There were also three soldiers stationed at the pilot’s house. It took three large Government boats to tow the boats down from Brisbane, a distance of forty miles. On the third day the boats arrived, with the commandant of the settlement, about six o’clock, p.m., and it was made up amongst the convicts to try and take the vessel.

‘It was known to the convicts that the pilot had arms in his house; and about 2 a.m. the men made a hole outside the house, and, tunnelling under it, came into the middle of the room without noise, and got five muskets and some sabres, besides some ammunition. When this was effected, they without delay secured the pilot boat, and, after taking all the spare oars from the other boats, they started for the vessel. It was unusually foggy that morning, and eleven men rushed on board, and told me to get the vessel underweigh as fast as I could.

‘Some of the pirates that belonged to a pilot boat at Newcastle knew me there when I used to trade, and pointed me out to the others. There was a light wind blowing from the westward, and it took some time to get over the bar. During this time my crew were below, and a sort of council sat to decide what to do with them, when it was decided to put them in the pilot boat that the pirates came off in, and let them do the best they could with only the steer oar, the other oars being taken out of the boat.’

Captain Browning Given Charge

‘When all my crew were in the boat, I made a spring over the stern to get into her, but the pirates got hold of me, and drew me back, telling me they had not done with me. The vessel then stood off the land. When about thirty miles away, I was asked to take charge, and select two officers from amongst the pirates. I told them I knew little about navigation for so long a voyage as they intended, which was to Rotumah, an island frequented by English sperm whalers and also American ships. The answer I received from them was they would soon teach me. After a while I told them I would do the best I could, if, in the event of being successful, they would behave well to me. They made all the promises imaginable, and said they would.

‘We steered to the eastward, and in our track an island appeared to be laid down, called Sir Charles Middleton’s Island. I told them if it was there we should see it, but in the old charts many reefs and islands were laid down that did not exist; and we, of course, did not see it.’

Murder

‘On the eighth day after leaving Moreton Bay, the three men living in the cabin with myself called me about three o’clock in the morning, and told me something was up, and we were to get the arms ready. The arms had been taken into the cabin for safety some time before. I told them not to be rash, and do nothing rashly. One of the pirates told me not to say a word, or I should be the first to fall. He asked me whether I would stick to them, and I answered, “Yes,” but begged them to do nothing rashly. He then ordered me to load my gun, which I did with a heavy charge – enough to kill two men. When I had completed that, I was told to take the helm, and the man that was there before went down below.

‘It was now four o’clock, and the parties they wanted to kill were in the forecastle. From what I could make out, some of the pirates had felt dissatisfied at not sighting the island, and proposed to heave me overboard, and run the schooner on a certain course, and chance what they would fall in with. This, with some old grudges, was no doubt the origination of the mischief.

‘The names of the men living in the cabin with myself were: John Evans, chief mate; John Imgan [sic – Hastings], second mate; and an old man as steward, called George. Evans then went forward, and called up a man, by name McDonald, and said to him, “Are you as good a man as you were last night?” McDonald answered, “Yes,” and he then put a pistol to his head and shot him through the forehead, and he laid half on deck and half below.

‘Another man (William Vaughan) was called up, and the second mate [Hastings] undertook to quiet him, and fired at him between the luff of the foresail and the mast. He shot two of his fingers off as he held up his hands to his head, and he fell on deck. They then got hold of him, and threw him overboard. On passing astern, he caught the reef pendant hanging in the water, which was immediately cut by the steward.’

O’Connor Overboard

‘The next man they called up was John O’Connor. When he saw what was going on, he told them not to fire, as he would jump overboard, and began to strip himself. When naked, he said, “God have mercy on you all,” jumped overboard, and swam in an opposite direction the vessel was steering, and never, to my knowledge, looked round. A fourth man was called up [John Smith], but, as by this time I was nearly mad, I called out that we had had enough of it, and got the first and second mates in a line with my gun, and, after some little talking, they let him off with a caution. From that hour he was one of my fast friends, and did what I could to lighten the misery I was in.

‘After this business, they washed the deck, and called the other four on deck, and eventually retired into the cabin, where they drank a quantity of grog, and then knocked out the bung of the rum cask, saying it was the cause of all the mischief; so there was a chance of getting along better than before.’

At New Caledonia

‘We now steered for New Caledonia, and on the sixteenth day after leaving Moreton Bay we made the land about sundown, and hove-to till the morning alongside the reef. At daylight we were looking for the entrance to Port St. Vincent, and about noon we discovered an opening in lat. 22.5 south, which we entered, and beat up. We brought up at 6 p.m. at the head in three and a-half fathoms of water. As we wanted water, we sent the boats away the next morning to look for it. During the time the boat was away, some natives came off in canoes. We would not allow them to come on board, so, after some bother with them, we thought it best, as we could not see our own boat, to fire over their heads, which drove them away.

‘Not seeing our own boat coming, as it was getting late, we thought it best for the safety of the vessel to get underweigh, and stand out to sea for the night, which we did. We stood out to sea, and beat to windward all night, and next day we found ourselves much farther to windward than we expected, there being a strong current setting to the northward. Bore up for the harbour again. At 4 p.m. saw our boat pulling towards us. They had been outside looking for us. At 6 p.m. brought up at the old spot.’

Confrontation With Natives

‘The following day one of the natives came on board, and, not being allowed to get into his canoe, became rather furious. I begged them to land him, which we did. We then manned the boat to get water, but found so large a number of natives that it was agreed to let them see the power we possessed. We were in the mouth of a creek, and found the natives all armed with bows and arrows. Being in a whaleboat, we sterned out into deep water, followed by the natives, and were very nearly cut off.

‘We then considered what was to be done. After a consultation, it was agreed to fire at them, as we wanted water, and dare not go ashore for it. About 1,000 men had congregated to annoy us. After a few discharges, the natives all ran into the bush, and we went on board again. One old chief stood his ground behind a canoe, and after some time we beckoned him to come to us, no other natives being in sight. We exchanged a tomahawk for his club, which gave him great satisfaction. We tried to make him understand that we wanted water by dipping a pannikin into saltwater and throwing it out again, after tasting it.

‘On the following day we went into the boat, and pulled to the creek again, where we met the old chief with two men. We also saw some more natives not far off, and we told the old chief to send them away, which he did. We then formed a line to the watering-place, all armed, and with the three natives, we got four casks of water. We paid the old chief for his assistance, and went on board.

‘That night the second mate [Hastings], who had been away in the boat the night we went outside, told the rest of the boat’s crew he would destroy any of us if he saw us again; and when this was told to Evans, the first mate, he decided to let him have the option of being shot or landed on the island. He preferred the latter, and the next morning was landed with a bag of bread and a pistol without a cock to it.’

At Rotumah

‘The next day we started, and made sail for Rotumah, four men out of the eleven that took us being accounted for, eight being left with myself. We had a long passage to Rotumah, having no chart. We had to take the latitude and longitude out of the Epitome [navigation manual], and make a sort of outline chart. The weather being rainy and thick, my position was fearful. However, I told them one evening that it was likely we should see the land in the morning, which most fortunately we did, as my observations told me that I would not be safe much longer.

‘All hands were so overjoyed at the sight of land that I thought they would have eaten me, the chief mate (Evans) saying I ought to be an admiral. He was one of the greatest villains under the sun.

‘About 10 a.m. we anchored in the usual place, and a man called Emerey (a Yankee) that was living there, came on board (I was put out of sight when any stranger came on board), and had a conversation with the pirates, and some of the men went on shore, leaving two armed men to look after me. At 4 p.m. a ship was seen in the offing, steering for the island, when the men on shore came on board in a great hurry to get underweigh and go to sea. They had seen an old convict on shore that told them not to trust me, and that dead men told no tales. Consequently I found what I had to trust to. The name of this vagabond was John Ready.

‘During the run at night I had taken the bearings of the ship, and run right for her. About 8 p.m. one of the men shouted out that the vessel was close to us. I was at the helm, and thought it likely the ship would run over us, and I might escape by jumping into the water; but the man forward gave the alarm too soon, and we passed on. The name of the ship I afterwards found was the Warrens, Captain Bliss.’

Samoa

‘The next place I was told to go to was Wallis Island, and I started for it; but, noticing a difference in the behaviour of the men in the cabin, I thought I would miss this place. About 18 or 20 hours out of the 24 I was at the helm, as none of the pirates could steer at all, or very little, so I had a large share of the helm.

‘About five days after leaving Rotumah, where one of the men [“a man called Harry”] had run away from the boat, making five altogether, and six and myself left, it came on to blow very hard from the northward. We ran as long as we were able, but the sea rose so terribly that we were obliged to heave the vessel to. We lay very uneasily for some hours, shipping much water, when the pirates got frightened, and asked me if nothing could be done. I told them we should all go to the devil together, but, after much persuasion, I altered the sails so that she was very easy; so much so that when the weather became finer they told me I did it purposely, and threatened me accordingly.

‘I passed Wallis Island at night, and said the current was running very strongly. I steered for the Navigator’s Group [Samoan Islands], and six days after passing Wallis Island we saw very high land. Shortly after two more islands were sighted. [The island landfall they made and eventually landed upon was probably Savaii, the largest of the Samoan Islands.]

‘I felt very bad on seeing the land, knowing that the pirates could steer for the shore as well as I could. I omitted to state that Evans had insisted on my learning him how to keep the vessel’s way. The only thought that struck me was to say that all the natives were cannibals, which did for a time. Shortly we had a visit from some white men that lived on the islands, who told us the natives were friendly, and that several English whalers came there during the year.’

Allies

‘As the provisions began to run short, and no chance of getting a fresh stock, it was decided by the pirates to scuttle the vessel, and go on shore. It appears that I had some three friends among the pirates. Their names were William Hogg, Thomas Watson, and John Smith. These men took the first opportunity to leave the vessel, and left me with the three in the cabin. (On the 20th of Feb. she [the Caledonia] made Davi [Savaii], where John Smith was landed, together with the three Rotumah women [picked up at that island]. Watson and Hogg also, acting under the dread of personal violence from Evans and the rest, got into a canoe, went on shore, and remained behind.)

‘When I understood they intended scuttling the vessel, I begged hard of them to leave me the vessel, and for them to go on shore; but they said I should be miserable by myself, and it would be better for me to go on shore.’

Scuttling The Vessel

‘A great deal of secrecy was practised now among them, and one of them, in leaving for the shore, told me to try and save my life, and not beg for the vessel, as they intended to go ashore without me. I expected something of the kind would happen from their altered conduct, and the night previous to sinking the vessel was one of great anxiety to me. They had taken everything off the deck that I could defend myself with, even to the cook’s axe, and left nothing for me but the tiller, which I took out to see if I could handle it. I watched very anxiously the men that were down in the cabin, making up my mind to be on the alert with the tiller as soon as I heard or saw any firearms brought out, but nothing transpired during the night.

‘At daylight it was resolved to commence to sink the vessel. The boat was launched, and one of the men went down with a crowbar to make a hole; and after some time working he asked me to come down to assist him. I went willingly to see what sort of a hole it was, so that I might plug it up if left by them by myself. During the morning the wind was right, and three men would have been ample to have pulled on shore; but just as the vessel was half-full of water the breeze became very strong, and they called me out of the hold to make four in the boat, and we pulled for the shore.’

It wasn’t clear at this point whether the boat with Capt. Browning, the head pirate Evans and his brethren went ashore at Savaii, or made the rather long pull in the boat almost 400 miles to the south to put ashore at the Tongan island of Tofua: ‘… and about 12 o’clock on the following day the vessel was scuttled, and the whole party got into the boat, and stood in for Toofoa [Tofua], where Mr. Browning and a man named Thomas Massey were taken by one chief, and Evans and Smith by another’, as one report observed.

Later remarks (‘We sailed for Wallis Island, and made it three days after leaving Samoa’) suggested that the Caledonia was more likely scuttled off Savaii or a nearby Samoan island, and the men befriended by Samoans (‘I must say that the treatment I got from the chief, his wife, and people was of the kindest, and Tongalore might well be called the Samoan gentleman’), rather than much further south in the Tongan group:

‘About noon, when we had lost sight of the vessel, a large canoe came alongside, and the chief jumped out of the canoe, and got hold of the boat. Evans presented a musket at him, and I said if he was hurt every man of us would be killed directly on landing. He asked me what I would do to send him away, and I took a cutlass, and struck him across the fingers with it. He looked savagely at me, and went into his canoe again, and pulled for the shore.

‘The canoe went much faster than our boat. We pulled for the shore, and, after a long pull of about 18 miles, landed in the mouth of a small creek. Immediately the boat got on shore, we were lifted on the shoulders of the natives, and carried up to the town with the crew in her. When they put down the boat, I saw the same chief I had struck sitting on a large stone by himself. When we got out of the boat, he beckoned me to come to him. I thought my time had come at last, as the first thing he showed me was his injured finger.

‘After looking at me for a long time, he rubbed his nose against mine. I had my gun in my hand, intending to shoot some of them if anything was intended to be done to me in the shape of harm; but, after the rubbing of noses, I dropped the gun, and felt quite satisfied.

‘In a short time I felt perfectly at home, being taken away from the rest of the pirates, and I lived with the chief, whose name was Tongalore, and his wife, Vatalla, who treated me on all occasions with the greatest kindness. They had only one daughter, a little girl of about 12 years old. In fact, the chief was one of the greatest warriors of the group, being married to the chief of Monono’s daughter, the head chief of the Navigator’s Islands. I was housed with the chief, and spent the time happily enough until one of the chiefs at Sautipitare came over and stole the boat we landed in. Tongalore got quite furious when made acquainted with the fact, and was obliged to be held down until his passion cooled.’

A Tense Exchange

‘The chief of Sautipitare was the man whom the men that were my friends, who landed the day before the vessel was sunk, came ashore to, and thought that they had a right to the boat as well as ourselves. The white man then came up to me, and said that now I should be revenged on the men that remained in the cabin with me at sea; and all I had to do was to hold up my hand, and every one of the others would have been shot, as the three men had taken the guns from their chief for the purpose.

‘I had great difficulty in making them reasonable, saying to them, “If the natives saw us murder one another, they would kill the survivors, finding us such bloodthirsty fellows.” They at last seemed to understand me, and desisted, saying to the other pirates it would only be for a short time that I was amongst them, and then they would carry out their revenge. With this they went away with their chief home.

‘About a week afterwards I was employed making ball cartridges and cleaning up and repairing some old guns that had been bought from the whalers for pigs. This was for the purpose of going to war with the same natives that stole the boat. The whole of the natives in the town went into a fortified camp, and the day was fixed to fight it out, which is the usual way of giving notice there.

‘We had been in camp for a few days when I got a note from one of the opposite party, asking me not to fire on them in action, as they knew I was a good shot. I returned for answer that I had been very well treated by Tongalore, and I felt it my duty to fight for him, although much against my will, as those parties had shown such good feeling towards me. Shortly afterwards some news of peace arrived, and they returned the boat with many pigs to adjust the matter. I gained a good deal of popularity by this affair, although not firing a shot. I afterwards heard from the whites that peace had been made in consequence of the three men telling the chief that I should kill them all before any of them could get a shot at me, and they declined fighting.’

An English Whaler

‘A few weeks afterwards the Oldham, an English whaler, came off the island, and Tongalore asked me to go on board to trade for him. I did so, and found Evans, the chief mate, on board as well. He, it appears, had got some liquor, and was very talkative. A white man, by name “Monono Tom,” was on board also as trading master.

‘Tom, being an escaped convict, was soon aware of Evans. He came to me when Evans was below bargaining with the captain for a pair of pocket pistols, and said, “I think matters were not right in the schooner you commanded.” I said he was right, and told him all the particulars. He wanted to kill Evans with a cooper’s hammer. I afterwards related to Captain Johnstone the piratical seizure of the schooner at Moreton Bay. In consequence Evans was put in irons on board the Oldham.

‘After this I did not go on shore, and Tongalore came off to the whaler, when “Monono Tom” explained to him the circumstances of the taking and destruction of the schooner. He then brought two large canoes off loaded with native provisions to take me to Sydney, saying it would be hard if the parties in Sydney did not give me enough to return to Samoa, which I promised to do.

‘I must say that the treatment I got from the chief, his wife, and people was of the kindest, and Tongalore might well be called the Samoan gentleman.’

Wallis Island

‘I intended to go on board the first Sydney whaler we fell in with. We sailed for Wallis Island, and made it three days after leaving Samoa. When we got there we found several English whalers and American ships lying in the harbour. There had been a great revolution at Wallis Island. A half-caste named George Minini had come there with a body of Sandwich Islanders [Hawaiians], and put up a king of his own. This lasted for a few months, when one of the old King’s men shot George Minini, and the old Government was reinstated, and matters went on as before. This had taken place a short time before we arrived in the barque Oldham.

‘While there I was much annoyed at the behaviour of the Oldham’s crew and officers. In fact, there was too much grog used by every person on board. An American barque (the Milo, Captain West), was bound for Sydney to get a crew, as she was shorthanded, some of her crew being landed at Wallis Island for mutiny. I spoke to Captain West about a passage to Sydney for myself and Evans, and he agreed to take us. He was getting wood and water in at the time.’

Sydney Bound

‘After three days I went on board the Milo, and found, on looking for Evans on board the Oldham, that he was nowhere to be found, so we sailed without him. I found that the Oldham would be the last vessel left in the harbour, and I strongly advised Captain Johnstone to get his arms in order, as some Samoan men had told me that the natives would take the ship when left by herself in consequence of her ill-treatment of the natives on shore. The greater part of the crew laughed at my caution, and I left them.

‘The passage to Sydney in the Milo occupied four weeks, with the usual westerly winter gales. On the passage I got very ill with fever, and I am much indebted to Captain West for his kindness and attention to me, which enabled me to get well again. On arrival in Sydney Governor Bourke allowed Captain West to sell [whale] oil from his ship to pay expenses without charging him the duty of £36 10s per tun, which was the duty in the colony at the time.’

Massacre at Wallis Island

‘It was fortunate that the Milo was bound to Sydney, as I found that the natives of Wallis Island, the day after we left, boarded the Oldham, and killed the whole of her crew of 36 men, and also 36 white men living on shore, as the natives said it would not do to let any of them live to tell the tale. Only one poor boy, by name Craven Nicholson, was saved. He was cut down, and fell down the cabin companion into a flour cask that partially stopped the blood from a deep gash in his head, and some two days afterwards he was taken by a girl, the daughter of King William, a chief of consequence, who claimed him as her own.’ (The New Zealand Herald, 3 September 1887)

The Oldham Massacre

The British sixteen-gun sloop-of-war HMS Zebra was at Keppel Island (Niuatoputapu), in the Tonga islands, in May 1832, when her commander, Capt. Macmurdo, heard about the Oldham’s problems at Wallis Island to the north-west. On 14 May Zebra ‘departed without delay’, arriving at Wallis six days later. A boarding party from Zebra went on to the Oldham. A group of thirteen natives came off from shore, boarded the Oldham, and revealed that the islanders had massacred all the crew of the Oldham apart from the boy mentioned, Craven Nicholson. One of Zebra’s crew, Thomas Williams, was tomahawked and killed by the islanders who came on board the Oldham ‘when there was an exchange of hostilities’.

With the help of a mate from a British vessel sunk there, Zebra was piloted through the reef into the lagoon of Wallis Island where they found the Oldham on fire ‘which it was not possible to extinguish’. On 26 May, ‘a communication was opened with Lavalore, the principal chief of the island’. The following day Lavalore and a party of attendants ‘went on board Zebra with the only Oldham survivor Craven Nicholson’. They all sat down together to a feast. ‘The king [Lavalore], as much out of curiosity probably as good humour, tried to eat with a knife and fork, to the great danger of his eyes, nose, and face, with which they were continually coming in contact.’

Capt. Macmurdo and some of his officers returned the visit to the island king the following day, and to find water and fresh provisions for the Zebra. After partaking of a ceremonial kava, Capt. Macmurdo demanded that Lavalore return all the articles the natives had stolen from the Oldham. He eventually recovered two chronometers, three whale-boats, arms and ammunition, and ‘everything which had belonged to the Oldham worth carrying away’.

Attack of Retribution