Master Mariner

THE LIFE AND VOYAGES OF

AMASA DELANO

Captain Amasa Delano, 1763-1823



BY
JAMES B. CONNOLLY

1943

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CHAPTER XV

The Sandwich Islanders

AMASA hunted the islands off the south coast of Chile until satisfied it would be wasting time to hang on there longer. Also, a dozen of his crew were low with scurvy; and so it was away 'way to the Canton market now, with a stop at the Galapagos and the Sandwich Islands for wood and water.

Arrived off the Galapagos, he stood in for James Bay to check up on his previous look-in.

"We anchored in seven fathoms, good bottom; and found it to be a safe harbour, sheltered from all prevailing winds. We likewise found fresh water here, as the American Captain Colnett had promised. It was good sweet water. We filled eighteen or twenty of the ship's butts with it. The crew caught plenty of fish; but they dumped all but the first galley trial of them back overboard. We cut a goodly supply of wood between the ponds and the sea, and found it to be the best to burn of any we ever saw."

Frequently in those days ship captains met with happenings that had nothing to do with the original object of a voyage. Such happenings were just exciting enough to be welcome, as varying the monotony of the voyage; sometimes they were exciting and not welcome, as now.

Two Spanish brigs were before him in James Harbor. They were riding each side of another brig that had been sunk. The keeper's watchmen in charge were Englishmen, and they told Amasa they were of the crew of the ship Henry, of London, Captain William Watson. They had been on a whaling cruise; but England and Spain being at war, and the chance offering him, Captain Watson had captured the Spanish brigs and convoyed them to James Island.

Captain Watson was not in the harbor when Amasa arrived, but his prize keepers were expecting him any day. The prospect of Captain Watson's early return stirred Amasa to pleasant recollections of his English shipmates in the McCluer expedition and the prospect of a pleasant meeting with the English Captain Watson.

Seeing signs of seals, Amasa sent boats after them;, and while his boats were away Captain Watson returned. And then?

"I was very much disappointed in my anticipations of Captain Watson. He was, in my opinion, the greatest drunkard, and the most low and mean spirited man, that ever was put in charge of property. Here was one instance of the abuse of power, that was given to a villain, who made use of it to rob and plunder on the high seas. He had it in contemplation to plunder me also, and I have no doubt he would have attempted it, had his officers and crew been willing to have assisted in such an outrage!"

So many of Amasa's men being away after seals left him only ten men aboard his ship, and several of them were still sick with the scurvy. And he had buried one ashore only a few days previous.

"In this weak and helpless condition Captain Watson threatened, with other insults, to take away my men as British subjects. He came on board once and demanded my chief officer. I found that I must either let him take the officer, or have recourse to some very hostile measures. On my telling him, however, that he should take no advantage of me with impunity, although I was in such a disabled state, he did not seem to be disposed to pursue his designs. His ship mounted fourteen 6-pounders, but he was one of the blustering and not of fighting cast. He put to sea the 30th of July, to our great satisfaction."

Captain Anderson of the Castor and Pollux, of London, and seven of his men were on a nearby island recruiting from the scurvy. His ship put to sea in charge of his first officer, who was to return in due season to his captain and his seven sick men. "The ship never returned to the island. A Spanish privateer ship, the Atlantic, fell in with her out to sea and captured her and another English ship that was in company with her."

When his ship failed to return, and his seven men and himself were somewhat recovered from the scurvy, Captain Anderson fitted and rigged one of Watson's Spanish prizes and left the Galapagos for London by way of Cape Horn. He was a different sort of Englishman from Watson. Amasa wished him fair wind, but whether he and his small and still half-sick crew made port he never heard. Whether he did or no, it was a gallant venture.

From Galapagos Amasa laid a straight course for the Sandwich (Hawaiian now) Islands. He arrived off Owyhee (Hawaii) on December 10th, 1801 .

"In running down for Owhyhee, the easternmost of the Sandwich Islands, it is best to keep in about 20 north latitude. By keeping this course the land on the north east side of the island will be first made, which is entirely free from danger until getting to the breakers on the shore. The land trends about north west far to the eastward on this side the island; but in sailing to the westward the land turns to the west-north-west and runs quite to the west end of the island, in that direction."

Because of the wood and fresh water always to be had in the Sandwiches, they were a great resort for American whalers; and Amasa by this time was lonesome for a good long gam with a few citizens of his own country.

The King of the Sandwich Islands, name of Kamehameha, was at Kara Ka Koos Bay. The Bay wasn't what Amasa would choose for a harbor, wood and water being scarce there; but during the McCluer expedition days he had learned that looking in on an island king or chief early was always good policy; and also, where the king lived was usually a safer place for foreigners.

It was in these islands that the English Captain Cook and some of his crew were massacred twenty-three years earlier; and the natives had the name of being still hostile to white people.

Amasa had a pleasant hour with King Kamehameha at Kara Ka Koos. "I saw no signs of hostility towards me during that hour which may have been owing to the King being with me--when Captain Cook was murdered the King was not present."

After his hour with the king Amasa wasn't afraid to trust him for longer, but he wasn't for trusting some of the chiefs he saw hovering around the palace. "With such chiefs in power, I do not think it would be safe for small vessels to stop there. There are many of the chiefs wicked enough to take any advantages and cut a vessel off whenever they could get an opportunity."

Amasa instructed his officers and men to keep to weather of any group of natives they met while ashore on any of the other small islands.

When Amasa was with the McCluer expedition it was a common thing for native boys to ask ship captains to take them along for a voyage. Amasa came across such a boy in the Sandwich Islands. He was the king's natural son. The king seemed to be indifferent to him, and Amasa inquired why it was the king took no notice of the lad?

He was told why. The king had other sons, and to favor this one might not be too healthy for the lad, the kingship of the Sandwich Islands being well worth some ambitious chief's taking over when Kamehameha died, or was otherwise removed. Should that happen, the son the king had been favoring would be put out of the way early.

The king's son who wished to go on a voyage with Amasa had taken the name Alexander Stewart, after a Scotsman he had met. He was twenty years of age, upstanding, and intelligent. Wherever Captain Delano was going was where he wished to go. Amasa put the lad's request up to the king. The king's response was that Captain Delano was welcome to take along any boy who wished to go with him.

Word of the king's answer to the American captain being passed, canoe loads of native boys came paddling to the side of Amasa's ship. They clamored to be taken along to China, which Amasa had said was his next country of call.

Sandwich Islanders were well known for good hands aboard a vessel, and. Amasa was for taking two or three along to Canton, but he was in no hurry to choose. Being at the king's house for a farewell visit, one of the king's wives asked Amasa if he had yet chosen any boys for the China voyage. When Amasa said no, she pointed to the boy standing behind her and keeping the flies off her with a fan of long, bright-colored feathers. Amasa looked the boy over. He was a well-grown lad, and he looked like a good lad. Amasa said he would take him. The boy's mother was present, and, the king's wife putting the question to her, she unhesitatingly agreed to allow the boy to go with Captain Delano. The boy then laid down his fan of feathers and took his station at the back of Amasa's chair, the sign that from then on he was the American captain's boy. When Amasa left to go aboard the ship the lad went with him. The king's son, the lad Stewart, also boarded the ship.

Amasa was getting his ship under way when a canoe came paddling alongside. The palace boy's mother was in the canoe, making loud lamentations for her son. The American captain was taking away her only child to where she would never behold him again. She leaned over the ship's rail, protesting that she would not leave the ship without her son.

By this time Amasa was chiding himself for the cruel thing he was doing. He backed his main-topsail to check the ship's way and told the boy he must go on shore with his mother, he could not carry him away and leave his mother so distressed. The lad refused to go to her, saying it would redound to his dishonor to have it said that he had relinquished a design of such importance for no other reason than that his mother cried about it, that she was only a woman and she would forget it by tomorrow.

"His mother's tears argued more powerfully than words, and operated upon my feelings to such a degree that I was perplexed to know what to do. Neither the lad, nor the woman, would leave the ship without my using compulsory measures. After detaining the canoe for more than an hour, we succeeded by entreaties and with presents, to prevail on the mother to go on shore."

When the ship was fifteen leagues clear of the land, three native stowaways came bouncing up on deck to announce that they too wished to make a voyage to China. They were strong-looking lads, and Amasa took them along, though not without concern for their health. While with Commodore McCluer he had known so many of the island natives to catch and die of smallpox after being taken aboard the Panther that he wasn't even now over the worry of it.

Before leaving home forehanded Amasa had stuffed his medicine chest with whatever specifics the Boston doctors recommended. He had added several specifics on his own account, one being for inoculation against smallpox. He had seen the ship's doctors of the McCluer expedition inoculate island natives against smallpox, and why couldn't he do the same now? Why not?

Canton was notoriously a smallpox-ridden port, and, arriving off there, Amasa got out his kinepox from the medicine chest, stood his five Kanakas (Sandwich Islanders) in a row, and inoculated them. He had faith in his technique, but there remained a doubt of the efficacy of the kinepox after lying up in the medicine chest since he had left home.

Fresh kinepox would make him feel better; and certainly it would do no harm to his Kanakas to inoculate them again. Sailing up the Canton River he made inquiries of ships he met along the way, and from an American captain whose ship he hailed he procured "a kine pox which would answer all the purpose of a preventive, and at the same time would be attended with no dangerous consequences to the patient."

Amasa inoculated his five Sandwich Islanders with the new kinepox and awaited results. They all lived, as did others of his crew whom he then treated with full confidence. After that he was all set to deliver lectures to other ship captains wherever met on the virtues of the new kinepox.

"All captains, who are employed on voyages, where they may take the natives of these islands on board their ships, should provide themselves with the kine pox matter, which may be easily procured, and preserved in such a manner as to be carried to any part of the world, and have them inoculated with it before carrying them to places where they would be exposed to take the small pox, which most generally proves fatal to them, and the distress and sufferings of the poor creatures have been beyond description; many scenes of which I have been an eye witness to, that would excite the compassion of any man possessed of the least particle of humanity."

Jenner's kinepox vaccine, 1796

Extracts from Dr Jenner's Casebook, published in "An enquiry into the causes and effects of Variola Vaccinae, known by the name of cowpox, 1798": "...Sarah Nelmes, a dairy maid near this place, was infected with cowpox from her master's cows in May 1796. A large sore and the usual symptoms were produced. I selected a healthy boy, about eight years old. The matter was taken from the [kinepox/cowpox] sore on the hand of Sarah Nelmes and it was inserted on 14 May 1796 into the boy [James Phipps, the 8-year old son of Jenner's gardner] by two cuts each about half an inch long. On the seventh day he complained of uneasiness, on the ninth he became a little chilly, lost his appetite and had a slight headache and spent the night with some degree of restlessness, but on the following day he was perfectly well..." In order to ascertain that the boy was secure from the contagion of the smallpox, he was inoculated with smallpox matter, but no disease followed. Several months later he was again inoculated with smallpox matter but again, no disease followed. And so began the practice of smallpox vaccination.

English as well as American ship captains were ready any time to ship the competent Sandwich Islanders; and while at Canton, Amasa allowed one of his stowaways to ship on an English East Indiaman. That particular stowaway kept returning to the Perseverance to visit his countrymen. He wanted one for company on the East Indiaman, and, being especially friendly with Stewart, he gave him a sales talk whenever he sat in with him. Oh, the great big shining ship with its so many guns! Stewart left the Perseverance for a visit to the Indiaman. The Indiaman's captain welcomed him, invited him to ship for a voyage to England. Stewart stayed aboard the Indiaman. When Amasa learned where Stewart had gone he hustled over and demanded of the English captain what he meant by luring his men away, and especially one who was a king's son.

The English captain argued the matter, saying that inasmuch as Captain Delano had several other Kanakas left he thought he would not mind having these two leaving him. If Captain Delano insisted that the king's son be returned, why, he would be returned; but, as the lad seemed to be happy where he now was and if Captain Delano would give his consent to let him remain there, he would guarantee that the lad would be treated as if he were his own son; and on his arrival in England he would take care that he would be honored as the son of the King of the Sandwich Islands should be.

It sounded well; but Amasa recalled that a son of the good King Abba Thulle of the Pelews had been taken to England, and he had taken the smallpox there and died of it. There was that memory, and Amasa felt fairly certain of visiting the Sandwiches again. In that case King Kamehameha would be wanting to know what he had done with his son. A troublesome thought; yet against that, here was a lad preferring to be with his old playmate, and there was the English captain holding out that bright prospect for him. And the lad was now twenty-one years of age. Amasa ended by allowing Stewart to remain aboard the Indiaman.

Amasa never saw the king's son again, but he got reports of his arrival in England. He had been made much of by important people there and eventually adopted "by a gentleman of consequence, who took him to his own house with an intention of giving him an education."

As to the boy whom Amasa had taken from the palace and whose mother did not want to part with him:

"I gave him the name of Bill, and brought him with me to Boston, where his merits were duly appreciated and he was generally known together with my treatment towards him. He performed on the Boston stage several times, in the tragedy of Captain Cook, and was much admired by the audience and the public in general. He afterwards returned to his native island with me; but not wishing to remain there, he went to Canton in my schooner, the Pilgrim, of which my brother Samuel was master, where he was paid off, and I have heard nothing of him since."

In those days old shipmates were always turning up in the far ports. While at the Sandwiches, Amasa ran across George McClay, who had been his carpenter in the leaky Eliza during that run from Canton to the Île de France. He had signed on again as Amasa's carpenter in the Hector. He left the Hector at Bombay, knocked around the South Seas, and by and by fetched up at the Sandwich Islands, where his pleasing manners and shipbuilding skill attracted the king's notice. McClay did a good job for all visiting white seafarers in showing the natives where it would be to their advantage to stay on friendly terms with the white people.

Amasa liked to boost modest men who were doing good work, as in the case of McClay, but getting no credit for it. Of another good man he wrote:

"Captain John Kendrick of Boston, the first American commander that ever visited the north west coast of America, and who opened that channel of commerce to this country died at Kara Kook. He was the first American that burst forth into the world and traversed those distant regions which were before but little known to the inhabitants of this part of the globe. He taught many of his countrymen the way to wealth, and the method of navigating distant seas with ease and safety. I was intimately acquainted with him in Canton bay in the year 1791 [Kendrick was accidentally killed aboard his ship in Honolulu Harbor in 1794], and I also knew his character afterwards as long as he lived. He was a man of extraordinary natural abilities, and was noted for his enterprising spirit, his good judgment, and superior courage. As a seaman and a navigator, he had but few equals. He was very benevolent, and possessed a heart filled with tender feelings as any man that I ever was acquainted with. He was esteemed and beloved by all who knew him in his last absence from the United States. I wish to impress it strongly on the minds of every American, not to let his rare merits be forgotten, nor to cast a veil over his faults, they being but few compared with his amiable qualities."

"The Bold Northwestman, June 16, 1791" Gordon Miller © 1993 The Kendrick House (ca. 1745) and Museum in Wareham, Mass.

During the first visit of the American trading vessel Lady Washington to the coastal waters off the Queen Charlotte Islands, in June 1789, it encountered the Kunghit Haida residents of Ninstints. Amicable trade resulted. When the ship returned under a different captain, John Kendrick, later in the year, pilfering of minor items from the ship led to an excessive response from Kendrick, who seized two village chiefs as hostages for return of the pilfered items. Captain Kendrick had humiliated Chief Coya and Coya was eager for revenge when Lady Washington anchored in 1791. The captain had been drinking and allowed Indians aboard without arming the crew. He escaped down a hatch and re-emerged with his armed officers and crew. In the ensuing battle forty to fifty died - all Natives. The painting depicts the moment that the Haida have isolated Kendrick on deck, with the crew below. A woman is exhorting the Haida still in the canoes to come aboard. The 90-ton Lady Washington was built in 1750 on the Essex River in Massachusetts- a replica is now moored at the Columbia River Maritime Museum. The Captain John Kendrick Maritime Museum is owned and operated by the Wareham Historical Society.