Master Mariner

THE LIFE AND VOYAGES OF

AMASA DELANO

Captain Amasa Delano, 1763-1823



BY
JAMES B. CONNOLLY

1943

[ Table of Contents ] [ Map ] [ Glossary ]

CHAPTER X

Away for Île de France

FOR HIS SERVICES as navigator of the McCluer expedition, the chief supercargo of the English East India Company in Canton paid Amasa off at the rate of two dollars a day, which was fair enough pay in those days for a naval lieutenant. But when the supercargo figured Amasa due for only two years' time he protested. He had been gone thirty-five months, and he gave the dates of departure and return in proof of his claim. He ended up by accepting the two years' reckoning. Custom made law, and perhaps some cumshaw should be allowed a chief supercargo. Cumshaw was Cantonese for recognized official graft.

Between his pay and his trading profits, Amasa found himself with fourteen thousand dollars. A goodly sum, and it would be a great help to the home folks--that is, when he arrived home, which wasn't to be too soon. This far eastern trading had its attractive side.

After being paid off Amasa left Canton for Macao, and he was walking the waterfront, waiting for what next, when he observed an American ship coming to anchor in the stream. She turned out to be the Eliza, a sealer from far southern waters, and she had been a long time coming, having met the north monsoon off the Cape of Good Hope. She had been battling her way for months; and only the south monsoon had set in; she would be still tacking her slow way off the South African coast.

Amasa didn't think a China-bound captain showed much judgment to get himself caught so far south when the northern monsoon was already in the making. He would have done better to stay on the sealing grounds for another half-year.

Amasa met the Eliza's captain when he came ashore. He was William Stewart, and he had owner's as well as captain's papers for the Eliza; but he wasn't her original captain. That captain had quit the ship in a far southern port. Just why he had quit her, Stewart did not say.

Amasa at this time was known in Macao as a man well versed in Pacific trade conditions, and Stewart went to him for advice. What should he do with his cargo of sealskins?

There was only one thing to do. The best market in the world for sealskins was Canton. The mandarins and the Hong merchants, the well-to-do merchants at large, the tea planters of the inland country, all liked to swathe their plump bodies, and the bodies of their wives and concubines, in warm sealskins for the winter months.

Stewart asked Amasa if he would go to Canton with him. Amasa agreed to go, expecting him to engage a Chinese pilot and take a passage in the Eliza to Canton. But not so. Stewart left the Eliza in Macao and engaged passage for them both in a Chinese junk that was sailing for Canton.

Now Stewart should have entered his ship at Macao and paid his customs taxes immediately if he intended to do business in China. Only a ship driven to a port by stress of weather or for wood and water was exempt from customs taxes.

Amasa told Stewart this, but Stewart couldn't see himself paying customs duties in Canton when his ship was one hundred miles down the coast in Macao. No sir. It's the law of the port, said Amasa. Stewart smiled and said no sir again.

Arrived in Canton, Amasa took Stewart to the factory--the combined living quarters, warehouse, and office--of a Dutch friend, a chief supercargo named Van Brann. Van Brann invited Stewart to join Captain Delano in staying with him while they were in Canton.

One morning a platoon of the hoppo's guards surrounded the Dutch factory and took the captain of the ship Eliza into custody. The hoppo was the customs collector; and he informed Stewart, when the efficient guards brought him in, that he owed the government so much for tonnage, so much for anchorage, so much for cargo duties. And of course there would be the little matter of cumshaw, the hoppo's own perquisite. Every foreign ship captain paid cumshaw without protest. It was an ancient Chinese custom.

Stewart took to squawking, which got him along about as fast as his ship had got along against that northerly monsoon in the South Pacific. The hoppo, a bland sort, answered the protest with talk of confiscating Stewart's ship. Amasa appealed to his Dutch friend Van Brann; and that friendly soul, who was in good standing with the hoppo because of having handed him many thousands of Spanish silver dollars for cumshaw during his time in Canton, got Stewart off with a fine of five hundred dollars. Very cheap.

The Canton market for sealskins had been falling. Stewart had to sell his 38,000 sealskins two for a Spanish dollar. After settling for his overhead he was left with small profit from his sealing voyage. But he still had his ship, and he got after Amasa to find a cargo for her. Amasa appealed to Van Brann, and that good friend told Stewart he would get him a freight to Ostend, in Holland, provided Captain Delano was put in command. When Stewart asked why Captain Delano should be put in command of his ship, Van Brann told him flatly that he wanted protection for his cargo, and Captain Delano was a sailing master and navigator of repute, neither of which Stewart was; also, Captain Delano had other qualities which appealed to him.

Stewart agreed to Van Brann's plan, and, Ostend being on his way home, Amasa agreed to take the Eliza there for much less than a ship captain's regular pay; and not only that--he stood ready to go partners with Van Brann and invest his fourteen thousand dollars in her cargo. That being settled, a cargo of sugar was taken aboard, and the Eliza sailed. Amasa took provisions on board for the Panther and Endeavour, both being then in Macao. For this service he received two hundred Spanish dollars.

The first day out of Canton showed the Eliza up for a dull sailer; and the first rough day in the China Sea showed her up as a leaky ship, a market basket of a ship, letting sea water seep into her between every two planks from fore to main rigging. Atop of those handicaps to a fast passage there was Stewart's dillydallying in the customs matter, which had used up so much time that it was late in the northeast monsoon when the Eliza left Canton. They were still in the China Sea when they met the southwest monsoon. After that, when it wasn't head winds, it was calms and fluttering weather. A lucky slant of a west breeze carried them almost to the equator.

The leaky and dull-sailing Eliza came near losing herself among the myriad shoals and coral islands of the Borneo and Java and Sumatra coasts. On more than one occasion Amasa judged the chances were all against the Eliza's coming safely through; but, conscientious navigator that he never forgot to be, he took time to observe the dangers for the benefit of ship captains coming after him. Thus, for some dangerous waters in the South China Sea:

"Shoals and reefs lie in great numbers on the western side of Salt Island. I should advise going to the eastward of Salt Island, between that and the next large island east of it, which is called Middle Island, where the passage is tolerable. Eastward of Middle Island, the sea is filled with shoals, until you get eastward of Billiton. I have passed between Middle Island and Billiton, and can say, that it is hardly possible for more dangers to be found anywhere. For the four passages between Borneo and Banca, I have found the one next to Banca the safest; and the one next to Borneo is the second in point of safety. The passage by the straits of Banca is most frequented, but in my opinion it is not as good as the passage eastward of it. Its navigation is intricate, and you are liable to be attacked by the Malay pirates, who haunt the straits. A small ship must not encounter the danger of pirates if it can be conveniently avoided."

The foregoing are obsolete advices for this age of motor power, but they told much to the sailing shipmasters of Amasa's day. His complete advices for navigating the Java and Sumatra waters would stretch through several printed pages. The foregoing included part is by way of illustrating the ever-ready desire of the man to be of service to fellow mariners.

Off the coast of Sumatra Amasa sighted a fleet of Malay proas. (He calls them prows.) They were obviously pirates. He had encountered South Sea pirates before and dismissed them as nothing to worry about. Any danger from pirates was a trade danger, like finding shoal water to leeward in a typhoon, but pirate activities were still a matter of interest; and so, while the Eliza was making her slow way south:

"A fleet of prows came out of a small bay on the northeast coast of the island [Sumatra}. They passed across my fore foot, at the distance of a mile and a half, sailing in a line one ahead of another, with the wind directly after them. As soon as they had passed our bow, they hauled under our lee, and formed nearly a semi-circle around us. This manoeuvre did not please me, and I ordered two 6-pound guns to be fired with round shot at the foremost prow. This was done, and repeated a few times, when the Malays altered their course, and left us free. I have no doubt that they had bad intentions toward us. Had we not fired at them in season, and, as I have reason to believe, hit some of them, we should no doubt have found ourselves in trouble from their treacherous attacks and manoeuvres."

At this stage Amasa diverges to offer advice to ship captains who were strange to South Sea pirates: "I have long been convinced that a ship, not strongly armed, should never let a Malay fleet of prows approach very near. Fire as soon as you can reach them, even if you are not near enough to do them any injury."

Beating against the southwest monsoon made terribly slow going for the Eliza. She was two months getting clear of the China Seas. She was leaking one thousand strokes an hour before they had crossed the equator. After a week in the Indian Ocean she was leaking fourteen hundred strokes.

Now fourteen hundred strokes was hard on the crew of a ship that had still ten thousand miles to go. The men would be worn out long before they made Holland. And their cargo of sugar all this time was getting a fine wetting down. It was dissolving in the seawater leaking into the ship's hold. Because of the leaking sugar, or for some other cause, the ship was surrounded with multitudes of fish. All kinds of fish, from huge whales down to tiny sprats.

From the Strait of Sunda all the way through the Indian Ocean the fish stuck by the Eliza. The crew hooked the little fellows and harpooned the big chaps. The cook served up several varieties of fish, and several daring ones of the crew took a chance on them. They were made violently sick: so sick that they were certain they were going to die. Which variety of fish was the cause the cook did not know for sure, but he rather thought it was the bonito, and he quit cooking bonitos.

There are occasions when a shipmaster will decide to forget owner's instructions and proceed on his own. In this case Amasa was a third owner with Van Brann and Stewart in the Eliza's venture, and so: midway of the Indian Ocean he was giving serious thought to the salvaging of his share. He told Stewart that there would be nothing left of their cargo by the time they would make Holland--if the wormy old lady would stay all oat long enough to make Holland. And so now, as master of the ship, he was for ordering her into the Île de France for an overhauling.

The Île de France (Mauritius now) lay to the eastward of Madagascar and was a great place of call for Western world ships in the eastern trade. Stewart was for Amasa's plan, and Amasa felt certain that his friend Van Brann would have also approved it, so the course to Holland was given up.

Arrived off the Île de France, Amasa took a pilot. He could have taken the ship in himself, but the law compelled a pilot. Four French frigates were lying just outside the harbor buoys. The pilot placed the Eliza under the guns of the frigates and then told Amasa that Louis XVI had been beheaded; that France had been made into a republic and declared war on England, Spain, and Holland. Also there was an embargo in the Île de France on all ships and goods of English, Dutch, and Spanish ownership. Also the people of the island had already fitted out fourteen privateers, and they were then at sea, some as large as forty-gun ships, and already bringing in good prizes.

There was something for Amasa to ponder: France at war with Holland, and in the hold of the Eliza was a cargo in the part name of the Dutch citizen, Van Brann, and the ship's papers would show her to be bound to the port of Ostend, in Holland.

A way out was to tack ship, put to sea, and keep the leaky Eliza going until she made Cape Town--if she would stay afloat that long. Before Amasa had time thoroughly to ponder that plan a boat from one of the frigates boarded him. The senior naval officer in the boat ordered the Eliza warped into the basin. There was no slipping out to sea now, so into the basin she was warped.

Amasa went on shore and there found half a dozen other American captains mourning their seized ships, which by the looks of things would be there for the duration of the war. They all agreed that it was an outrage, their nation being on terms of particular friendship with France since the War for Independence. It was perhaps the only worthwhile friendly power now left to France. Also when most of the supplies for the Île de France were from the United States, where was the justice in holding up American ships and cargoes in the Île de France? Amasa listened, and turned to giving further thought to his own problem.

Heretofore he had been giving most of his thought to matters pertaining to navigation, to the curious habits of savage tribes and the flora and fauna of South Sea Islands. This being a ship owner had him seeing maritime matters from a new angle. He put in a few days in sizing up the people who were in control of the island government.

"It was mortifying to see very low men, without talents or integrity, in possession of power and using it for the worst purposes under the name of liberty. I soon discovered that what they meant by the word liberty was to do as they pleased while others should be bound to conform or die. Their equality was to rise as high as anybody, but not to give up any possession or privilege to those beneath them."

During those early days in the Île de France it looked as if the Eliza and her cargo would be confiscated. Confiscation meant that his own earnings of four years would be swept overboard and lost. His good Dutch friend Van Brann in Canton would be also at a heavy loss.

Amasa had a real problem to solve. Van Brann would be expecting him to guard his interest even as he guarded his own. And Stewart had to be looked out for too. But Stewart was on the ground, whereas his friend Van Brann was several thousand miles away.

Amasa pondered; and his final decision was to make it appear that the cargo and ship belonged to himself and Captain Stewart in entirety. There was to be no mention of the Dutchman Van Brann's interest. Dissimulation here? But man, what was it when French customs officials were seizing the cargoes of American ships because Dutch or English agents had the handling of them? Dissimulation there? Surely. Also self-preservation. Amasa made use of circumlocutions in his statements to the customs officers. In case they discovered discrepancies, the interpreter was there to charge them to a misinterpretation of the French language. It was wartime, and besides his sugar cargo dissolving steadily there were the tropic worms eating through the Eliza's bottom planking.

The Eliza's papers--her ship's papers, that is--had been turned over to the customs officers when they boarded the Eliza on the day of her arrival; but Amasa had hung on to his bills of lading. He now demanded that his ship's papers be given back. There was no getting them back--at least not immediately--and he knew it. Meantime, while apparently concerned only about his ship's papers, Amasa was unloading her cargo of sugar. His explanation to the officials for the unloading was that he wanted to haul her up preparatory to putting her in dry-dock and repairing her bottom before the worms had it eaten through. In fact, it was really under stress of danger that he put in to the Île de France. Amasa's early religious training was beginning to take an awful beating; but it was war, and there was his friend Van Brann's interest to be guarded.

Amasa's explanations withstood the initial official scrutiny; and while the officials were still scrutinizing he was selling the sugar for whatever it would bring in the market.

While selling his cargo, Amasa inspected the ship's bottom. He found it so badly eaten by the worms that he did not think her worth the cost of repair. He sought a customer for her. He found one, and the sale of ships and cargo saved a good part of the investment of Stewart, himself, and Van Brann.

So far all had gone as well as he could have hoped for, but now what? He went in for further serious pondering. The privateers of the Île de France were doing right well for themselves in the Indian Ocean. Regularly they were arriving in port with fine looking prize ships. Amasa inspected several that were being put up at auction. He was for buying a big ship, loading her with prize cotton, carrying the cotton to the Bombay market, and there taking on a fresh cargo for Canton. Once in Canton, he could count on Van Brann to help them secure a cargo for home.

Amasa liked the looks of a captured ship of the Dutch East India Company; she was a ship of fourteen hundred tons, a great ship, and pierced for sixty guns. He told Stewart she would be a good buy. And when Stewart agreed that she would, Amasa took it on himself to invest Van Brann's share in the big ship. She was a new ship. No open seams in her planking. No sir. Amasa bid her in, thinking to have money left to fit her for sea; but they had to put 150 men at work on her to fit her for a cotton ship. The expense was heavy.

The government officials did not like it that so big a ship should be taken over by a foreign captain. Their notion was that he would take her to some English port and there sell her to English interests, who would fit her out as a privateer and send her out to prey on French shipping in the South Pacific. She might even, big ship that she was, be taken into the English Navy and sent to blockade the Île de France.

To stop their outcries Amasa took to waving the American flag, and he waved it so vigorously that the officials finally permitted the big ship to sail. By then Amasa and Stewart had so little cash left that they, had to give a lien on the ship and cargo for security against the money they had to borrow to pay the claims against her before she could be cleared from the Île de France.

There was much distress at this time among the English residents in the Île de France. Their property had been confiscated, and they were trying in every way to get away from the place. Amasa took thirty of them, men and women, as passengers. He exacted no passage money from them, but he did count on some payment from them after they found themselves among their friends in Bombay, his next intended port of call.