Morning of Fire

by Scott Ridley

  VANCOUVER WAS TO RENDEZVOUS at the islands with the supply ship Daedalus, sent out a few months after his departure. When he left Falmouth on April 1, 1791, disputes were still raging over interpretation of the Nootka agreement with Spain. The instructions he carried were general and somewhat vague; more detailed orders on Spanish concessions were to be delivered by the Daedalus. During his elevenmonth voyage he had sailed eastward around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope, stopping at Australia, New Zealand, and Tahiti. As they approached Hawaii, Vancouver hoped the storeship would be waiting.

  The Discovery and Chatham stayed close along the shore, eager for natives to come off with fresh fruit and vegetables. The ships cut a sharp image amid the rolling swells in the morning sun. Both ships were newly designed and built in 1788, specifically for Pacific exploration and survey work. Discovery was a 340-ton, ninety-nine-foot sloop-of-war carrying one hundred men and seventeen marines and armed with ten four-pound cannons and ten swivel guns. The Chatham was an eighty-foot, 135-ton brig carrying forty-five men and ten marines and armed with four three-pound cannons and six swivel guns.

  Their approach stirred excitement onshore, and at noon on March 3, five miles from Kealakekua Bay, natives came paddling out in canoes laden with hogs and fruit. Among the officers aboard the Chatham was James Johnstone, who had served three years earlier on John Meares’s ships. He recognized the tall, handsome chief Kaiana in one of the canoes, the strapping native whose name had become common currency in London through the Nootka Crisis.

  Kaiana surprised Vancouver by speaking no English. After gifts were exchanged on board, he related through a translator what had transpired after Cook’s ships had left. To Vancouver, it must havesounded like a classic Elizabethan drama, a dynastic melee in which family members were embroiled in turmoil over power and conflicting predictions of destiny. Kaiana told him that after the death of the old chief, Kalaniopuu, there had been a series of battles. The chief’s nephew, Kamehameha, now ruled the three northern districts: Hilo, Puna, and Ka’u. The headstrong Kaiana said he ruled the three southern districts of Hawaii: Kona, Hamakua, and Kohala, falsely implying that he was a chief equal in power to Kamehameha.

  As the ships stood outside Kealakekua, the natives pointed to the spot where James Cook had been killed while trying to abduct Kalaniopuu. The sight may have unsettled Vancouver. There was no news of the Daedalus, although Kaiana said that four American brigs had passed through in the autumn. The Lady Washington had been the last, in October. Vancouver asked about chiefs he recalled, and was dismayed to learn that most of them except Kamehameha had been killed in battle. Although wars for control of the islands had occurred before Cook’s arrival, Vancouver blamed the current slaughter on the “unwarrantable desires” raised by European and American traders who sold firearms. He was alarmed at the number of cannon, pistols, and muskets he saw in native hands and noted that warriors “have become very familiar [with muskets], and use these weapons with an adroitness that would not disgrace the generality of European soldiers.”

  Archibald Menzies, the expedition’s surgeon and naturalist, observed that there had been a recent invasion from Maui (the “Battle of the Red-Mouthed Gun”), and the attentions of Kaiana and his followers “were wholly directed to warlike preparations, for nothing was now held in greater estimation or more eagerly sought after than fire arms and powder.” Kaiana wanted to trade food for weapons, but Vancouver declined. Although he attributed his decision to humanitarian considerations, such trading would have violated naval policy, as well as his instructions. He also feared being overwhelmed. Vancouver knew that when Portlock and Dixon were at Kealakekua in 1786, they hadto fire their cannons and muskets to clear natives off the rigging and from around their ships in order to depart. Now those same natives had muskets and small cannons of their own.

  In light of the danger he perceived, Vancouver decided to leave the harbor before nightfall and to go to Oahu for news of the Daedalus. Kaiana warned him that Kahekili and his brother Kaeo, “with most of the chiefs of Kauai and Niihau, were at this time on a warlike expedition at Maui.”

  Four days later, the intrigue deepened. Vancouver bypassed Maui, and at Oahu learned that Kahekili had most of his men and firearms amassed at Maui because they expected a retaliatory invasion from Kamehameha and Kaiana. The absence of warriors on Oahu briefly restored Vancouver’s sense of superiority and comfort. He anchored near the village of Waikiki and noted a welcome subservience in his reception. “The apparent docility of these people, who have been represented by former visitors as the most daring and unmanageable of any who belong to the Sandwich islands, might, probably, be attributed in a great measure to the absence of their fighting men [at Maui], and to our manifest superiority in numbers, regularity in point of order, and military government; which seemed to make a wonderful impression on all who were permitted to come on board, and who, to a man, appeared very much afraid of fire-arms.”

  He soon learned that there were Englishmen living at Kauai and sailed for that island looking for news of his storeship. On March 9, he arrived in the harbor where James Cook had first landed and encountered priests and commoners falling at his feet. There was no storeship waiting, and the fearful welcome Vancouver expected did not materialize. Instead he was struck by the spectacle of widespread sexual advances. Apparently, he forgot the rampant activity during Cook’s stay at Hawaii. He found himself repulsed by the lewd offers and was thoroughly disgusted by the “avidity with which the men here assisted in the prostitution of the women; and the readiness of the whole sex, without any exception, to surrender their persons without the least importunity … no indecency that ever came under my observation,could be compared with the excessive wantonness presented.” He believed this behavior “a perfectly new acquirement, taught, perhaps, by the different civilized voluptuaries, who, for some years past, have been their constant visitors.” The main protagonists he believed were men serving under the American flag.

  The day after their arrival, a tanned and partially clothed seaman about seventeen years old appeared in a double-hulled canoe. He came on board and greeted Vancouver, giving his name as John Rowbottom. He said “he was of Derbyshire, that he had sailed from England about five years since in an Indiaman to China, which ship he had quitted in order to engage with some of the vessels in the fur trade between North-West America and China; and that he had, ever since, been thus employed in the American service.” Rowbottom said he had been left with two other men by John Kendrick of the brig Lady Washington to collect sandalwood and pearls. Kendrick, he said, was bound to New England, with a cargo of furs to dispose of first at Macao. The American captain was to return from his voyage to Boston and, having spent next winter on the Northwest Coast, would arrive in the islands in the autumn of 1793 to pick up the men and the cargo of sandalwood and pearls.

  Embarrassed by the young man’s nakedness and native-like appearance, Vancouver ordered clothes for him from the slop chest. Rowbottom had brought with him two chiefs he said could be helpful to Vancouver at Kauai and nearby Niihau. He also told Vancouver that in two days, the regent Inamoo and the young prince of the island, Kaumaulii, would arrive. Vancouver offered to take Rowbottom off the island. The sailor declined, saying that although they had been very ill treated by the natives for some time after they landed and almost starved, they now lived with Kaumaulii in a pleasant situation.

  Vancouver knew John Meares had charged that Kendrick was the architect of the Spanish seizure of Colnett’s ships. Now he was even more concerned after finding out that the Boston commander was a leading foreign trader who was gaining influence among the chiefs.

  Rowbottom told Vancouver of the massacre of the Fair Americanscrew, which had now become part of the lore of the islands’ danger and treachery. He assured him that his well-armed ships should have no trouble. However, the next morning (Sunday, March 11) one of the chiefs, Nomateehetee, presented Vancouver with a paper containing recommendations from various captains. The first
was from James Colnett, dated April 1791, which praised Nomateehetee to future visitors. Other notes from Joseph Ingraham of the Hope, and one from John Kendrick dated October 27, 1791, urged great caution in dealing with this islander, a warning the chief was unaware of. Vancouver craftily told him that “the paper spoke much in his praise and favor” and told him to show it to every ship that arrived.

  Another one of the men left by Kendrick appeared later that morning. Vancouver was completely shocked at the sight of James Coleman, who was dressed in only a native malo, “which he wore with much less decency than the generality of the inhabitants.” Except for the malo, Vancover noted, “he was perfectly naked, and the color of his skin was little whiter than the fairest of these people.” Most aggravating to Vancouver, Coleman was “tattooed with a broad badge over his left shoulder meeting low down on his left side.” This was similar to the marking of Kahekili’s warriors. Coleman saw himself as the emissary of the young prince, and showed no deference to the British commander. Speaking with a light brogue, he delivered a message from Kaumaulii saying that the prince was on his way and would arrive the following day.

  Vancouver took an immediate dislike to the young sailor and his cockiness. Rowbottom had said that Coleman was from Ireland, but when questioned by Vancouver, he insisted he was an American born in New York. “I asked him what he had done with his former clothes; to which he answered with a sneer, that they were ‘hanging up in a house for the admiration of the natives'; and seemed greatly to exult in having degenerated into a savage way of life.”

  Coleman said the young prince wanted to know how long Vancouver intended to stay and whether his intentions were peaceable. Vancouver sent a piece of scarlet cloth as a present for the prince and saidto tell him they were just taking on water and would depart as soon as that task was completed, but he would like to meet the prince and Inamoo.

  Going ashore in the afternoon, Vancouver took a walk into the countryside and noted that the grassy hills to the east were on fire from a considerable height. Suspecting that the fire might be a signal to collect distant inhabitants for an attack, he ordered twenty armed men camped onshore to stay ready. According to Archibald Menzies, Vancouver made menacing threats to the natives, who promptly fled the expedition’s camp. Then, as he was returning to the ship in a native canoe, Vancouver almost drowned when it overturned in the surf. Weighed down with sodden clothing, he had to swim for his life to the ship. After recovering in his cabin, he sent two armed launches to wait offshore as he worried through the night, but no attack came.

  The next morning, March 12, the fire was still burning in places among broad blackened swaths on the hills. At noon, another of the Lady Washington‘s men, John Williams, a Welshman who had been Kendrick’s first mate, arrived to say that the prince was delayed and would not make an appearance until the following day. When the party finally did arrive, Inamoo came out to the ship first. He recognized Menzies, who had been there aboard the Prince of Wales under James Colnett a few years earlier. Relations relaxed somewhat with an exchange of presents and hogs and vegetables. Inamoo wanted to trade for muskets and pistols and powder, but Vancouver told him there was a taboo on the sale of any arms from the ship. After some consternation, the old man acquiesced.

  It was a fragile atmosphere and there was obvious mistrust on both sides. Following Vancouver’s delivery of two of his officers as hostages onshore, the young prince, who appeared to be eleven or twelve years old, came out in a boat, attended by thirty armed warriors, who carried swordlike iron pahooas and muskets wrapped in three bundles. Kaumaulii conversed politely with Vancouver through Rowbottom and Williams. The British captain was highly impressed with the youngprince. Vancouver bestowed the name “George” on him in honor of the king, and imagined that he might greatly assist British merchants in the future. Wanting to thoroughly impress Kaumaulii, that night Vancouver set off a display of rockets and fireworks. Two miles offshore they could hear exclamations of “infinite surprise and admiration” from hundreds of people lining the beach.

  Because he did not find the amount of supplies he had hoped for at Kauai, Vancouver sailed for Niihau at 3 a.m. on March 14. He left a letter behind for the Daedalus and in his journal lamented the impact that incessant war was having on the islands. The decimation of the population seemed appalling. At the time of Cook’s arrival, there were thought to be three hundred thousand people in the islands. He guessed the number might now be fifty thousand. In addition to the many chiefs from Hawaii who had been killed, he noted that on Oahu, the houses at Waikiki were numerous, but many appeared to have been entirely abandoned. At Kauai, the village of Waimea was “reduced by at least two-thirds of its size since the years 1778 and 1779.” There were now only grass and weeds where houses had once been numerous. The spread of venereal and other disease brought to the islands added to the impacts of warfare. Vancouver knew of the culpability of Cook’s ships but blamed the traders.

  His particular enmity for Kendrick emerged as he wrote, “I shall take leave of the Sandwich islands by stating the advantages which the Americans promise themselves by the commercial interests they are endeavoring to establish in these seas.” John Williams had told him that Kendrick believed he could gather twenty vessels from New England for the sandalwood and fur trade to China. Vancouver mocked him, saying: “Mr. Kendrick must, undoubtedly, flatter himself” with the expectation of great profits. He doubted the quality of both the sandalwood and the pearls, and denigrated what he believed was an ill-considered and ill-prepared venture.

  Under orders to sail to the Northwest Coast by March, Vancouver left Niihau on March 17, two weeks after he arrived in the islands. Hehad neither the time nor comfort yet to fulfill his orders to carefully survey the islands’ shores and harbors. Amid the volatile warring chiefs and the encroaching Americans, he pondered how he might be able to gain these islands for Britain upon his return.

  WHILE VANCOUVER WAS at the Sandwich Islands, John Kendrick lay anchored in Dirty Butter Bay. He had arrived at Macao on December 7, 1791, about five weeks from Niihau. At the smuggler’s haven he found a small American flotilla gathered: Ingraham with the Hope, Crowell in the Hancock, and Coolidge with the Grace, and they were joined by the Fairy a few days later. The blustery and generous Scotsman William Douglas, who seems to have been chronically ill, died on the passage from the Sandwich Islands. Ingraham noted that Douglas had gained great profits on his voyage in 1790 when very few ships were on the coast, but that the unsettled nature of his partnerships, profits, and debts would most likely benefit only agents and opportunist merchants. Ingraham observed: “This is generally the case with the effects of any man who dies in this part of the world, for unless he has some extraordinary friend at hand most of his property will be infallibly sacrificed.”

  American shipmasters kept making black market payments to remain unhampered at Dirty Butter Bay. They avoided local officials and circumvented the fur embargo, selling sea otter pelts at the isolated harbor or having them smuggled upriver to Whampoa. Prices were much lower than expected: fifteen to twenty-five dollars for a prime fur. Ingraham received a price of twenty-five dollars each for a small shipment of one hundred furs. Kendrick sold one thousand furs for “twenty-one thousand Spanish head dollars.”

  FROM THE CIRCLE OF COMPATRIOT FUR TRADERS, Kendrick apparently heard the full story of Gray and Haswell’s denunciation ofhim in Boston. Kendrick was no longer confused about why Gray had taken command of the Columbia. If Kendrick had planned to sail for New England to resolve things with Joseph Barrell and to bring back a number of ships (as Rowbottom and Williams told Vancouver), that plan was now utterly impossible. With Kendrick’s reputation destroyed, he would have to acquire or build a second ship in Macao. After paying his crew and most of his debts, he began work on a small schooner to function as a tender to the Washington.

  KENDRICK ALSO RESPONDED to the charges made against him. Eighteen months after Gray’s allegations, on March 28, 1792, Kendrick wrote
to Joseph Barrell from Macao: “I am confident you have been told many untruths respecting the voyage, and matters have been represented in a wrong light, neither have you had true accounts rendered into you …” Kendrick urged Barrell to look into the matter to verify what he was saying and promised that “you may depend on my honor and integrity … and further you may rely on my rendering you a proper statement of my affairs and transactions.” He had acted on Barrell’s instructions to proceed with his own determinations and confirmed he was “firm and steady to my first agreement, and am, content to stay and prosecute the voyage or voyages to the end …”

  With information from Ingraham, he alleged that Gray had cheated the owners by trading on his own account on the Columbia‘s first voyage. “I can prove that the Furs which were on board the Columbia, when she arrived at Canton was sold by Messrs. Shaw & Randle for twenty-six thousand dollars and upwards, and might have sold for much more.” He wrote that “the officers even encouraged the people to follow their examples [trading on their own accounts], they have not only made their boasts, and told of it themselves.”

  He also described the debt the Washington had fallen into the previous year, and offered a generalized, ham-handed, and dismal account of his transactions that was riddled with guilt. He admitted his embarrassment, and that he had held off writing until his situation improved. He told Barrell, “I wish to convince you I have strove the utmost in my power for the benefit and interest of the concerned …” In what must have been a pleasant surprise to Barrell, he revealed, “In my last Voyage, I purchased of the natives five tracts of land and copies of the deeds which was signed shall be sent to you the first opportunity.”