some of them appeared in Highland plaids and kilts to the great admiration of the natives.
While visits of ceremony and grand diplomatic conferences were going on between the partners and the king, the captain, in his plain, matter-of-fact way, was pushing what he considered a far more important negotiation; the purchase of a supply of hogs. He found that the king had profited in more ways than one by his intercourse with white men. Above all other arts he had learned the art of driving a bargain. He was a magnanimous monarch, but a shrewd pork merchant; and perhaps thought he could not do better with his future allies, the American Fur Company, than to begin by close dealing. Several interviews were requisite, and much bargaining, before he could be brought to part with a bristle of his bacon, and then he insisted upon being paid in hard Spanish dollars; giving as a reason that he wanted money to purchase a frigate from his brother George, as he affectionately termed the king of England. *
At length the royal bargain was concluded; the necessary supply of hogs obtained, besides several goats, two sheep, a quantity of poultry, and vegetables in abundance. The partners now urged to recruit their forces from the natives of this island. They declared they had never seen watermen equal to them, even among the voyageurs of the Northwest; and, indeed, they are remarkable for their skill in managing their light craft, and can swim and dive like waterfowl. The partners were inclined, therefore, to take thirty or forty with them to the Columbia, to be employed in the service of the company. The captain, however, objected that there was not room in his vessel for the accommodation of such a number. Twelve, only, were therefore enlisted for the company, and as many more for the service of the ship. The former engaged to serve for the term of three years, during which they were to be fed and clothed; and at the expiration of the time were to receive one hundred dollars in merchandise.
And now, having embarked his live-stock, fruits, vegetables, and water, the captain made ready to set sail. How much the honest man had suffered in spirit by what he considered the freaks and vagaries of his passengers, and how little he had understood their humors and intentions, is amusingly shown in a letter written to Mr. Astor from Woahoo, which contains his comments on the scenes we have described.
“It would be difficult,” he writes, “to imagine the frantic gambols that are daily played off here; sometimes dressing in red coats, and otherwise very fantastically, and collecting a number of ignorant natives around them, telling them that they are the great eris of the Northwest, and making arrangements for sending three or four vessels yearly to them from the coast with spars, &c.; while those very natives cannot even furnish a hog to the ship. Then dressing in Highland plaids and kilts, and making similar arrangements, with presents of rum, wine, or anything that is at hand. Then taking a number of clerks and men on shore to the very spot on which Captain Cook was killed, and each fetching off a piece of the rock or tree that was touched by the shot. Then sitting down with some white man or some native who can be a little understood, and collecting the history of those islands, of Tamaahmaah’s wars, the curiosities of the islands, &c., preparatory to the histories of their voyages; and the collection is indeed ridiculously contemptible. To enumerate the thousand instances of ignorance, filth, &c.—or to particularize all the frantic gambols that are daily practiced, would require Volumes.”
Before embarking, the great eris of the American Fur Company took leave of their illustrious ally in due style, with many professions of lasting friendship and promises of future intercourse; while the matter-of-fact captain anathematized him in his heart for a grasping, trafficking savage; as shrewd and sordid in his dealings as a white man. As one of the vessels of the company will, in the course of events, have to appeal to the justice and magnanimity of this island potentate, we shall see how far the honest captain was right in his opinion.
* It appears, from the accounts of subsequent voyagers, that
Tamaahmaah afterwards succeeded in his wish of purchasing a
large ship. In this he sent a cargo of sandal-wood to
Canton, having discovered that the foreign merchants trading
with him made large profits on this wood, shipped by them
from the islands to the Chinese markets. The ship was manned
by natives, but the officers were Englishmen. She
accomplished her voyage, and returned in safety to the
islands, with the Hawaiian flag floating gloriously in the
breeze. The king hastened on board, expecting to find his
sandal-wood converted into crapes and damasks, and other
rich stuffs of China, but found, to his astonishment, by the
legerdemain of traffic, his cargo had all disappeared, and,
in place of it, remained a bill of charges amounting to
three thousand dollars. It was some time before he could be
made to comprehend certain of the most important items of
the bill, such as pilotage, anchorage, and custom-house
fees; but when he discovered that maritime states in other
countries derived large revenues in this manner, to the
great cost of the merchant, “Well,” cried he, “then I will
have harbor fees also.” He established them accordingly.
Pilotage a dollar a foot on the draft of each vessel.
Anchorage from sixty to seventy dollars. In this way he
greatly increased the royal revenue, and turned his China
speculation to account.
CHAPTER VII.
Departure From the Sandwich Islands.—Misunderstandings—
Miseries of a Suspicious Man.—Arrival at the Columbia—
Dangerous Service.—Gloomy Apprehensions—Bars and
Breakers.—Perils of the Ship. Disasters of a Boat’s Crew.—
Burial of a Sandwich Islander.
IT was on the 28th of February that the Tonquin set sail from the Sandwich Islands. For two days the wind was contrary, and the vessel was detained in their neighborhood; at length a favorable breeze sprang up, and in a little while the rich groves, green hills, and snowy peaks of those happy islands one after another sank from sight, or melted into the blue distance, and the Tonquin ploughed her course towards the sterner regions of the Pacific.
The misunderstandings between the captain and his passengers still continued; or rather, increased in gravity. By his altercations and his moody humors, he had cut himself off from all community of thought, or freedom of conversation with them. He disdained to ask questions as to their proceedings, and could only guess at the meaning of their movements, and in so doing indulged in conjectures and suspicions, which produced the most whimsical self-torment.
Thus, in one of his disputes with them, relative to the goods on board, some of the packages of which they wished to open, to take out articles of clothing for the
