FIRST A PIRATE, THEN A HERMIT.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXII, Issue 131, 6 June 1888, Page 4

FIRST A PIRATE, THEN A HERMIT.

A vaesol which arrived nt San Francisco from Honolulu a few days asro (says -an American paper of February 28) brought news of the death of a man who is described as baring been the "deuoe of a fellow, wicked and big, with a voice like thunder." Twenty-five years ago we are told he wai a pirate ; for some years before bis death be had been a hermit. In the days of his wickedness and power he commanded a. vessel called the Bed Cloud, staunch, unusually fast, and furnished with powerful guns. Periodically this oarmine red craft disappeared from the seas, and in hpr place would oome an? ther, all in sombre blaok, and named the Black Clond. This piece of theatrical tfieo?, which cost nothing more that a little, paint, and its expected influene < upon tb'e superstitious minda of the sailors who were sometimes sent in purauifc of the vessel. Moßfc of them fully believed that thera was somttbinpr uncanny about the craft, and that her onptain baa supernatural help. In these days he was the terror of the 4 South Pacific «eo£, and the British Government ee\ a big price upon bis head. Hundreds of attempts" were made to capture him by fair fight and by traps, and by every means that conld be devised. But he alluded all the traps, came out victorious in all the fights, and in every cage sailed away with the traditional scornful laugh of tbe pirate king. He had a Spanish name, which nobody rembers now, and he was supposed to belong ep that nationalty, although he spoke Spanish, English, French, and German, all with equal fluency. At last a young English nobleman, loving .'adventure and desirous of the reward, undertook to capture him. After cruising aroafld in the Pacific for some time he came late one afternoon directly upon the Red Cloud. The buccaneer spoke the Englishman, asking where she was bound to *nd what she had on boaid. The reply was that they were looking for the pirate, that they, knew they were talking to him, and that he had better give himself op at once. In an initant bright lights appeared all over the, Bed Cloud, and her captain answered in goqd English, " X will see you below first 1 " Thiin a cannon ball whizzed through the air, but it was aimed too high and passed over the " I will see you there," shouted back the Englishman, and a broadside from Ms guns, aimed low, sent the Bed Cloud to the bottom of the sea. But the buccaneer i escaped; and not long afterwards he and two ' of his drew- appeared in a row-boat on the barren island, of Molokini, which is near the East Maul islands of the Hawaiian group. It is a small, barren, rocky place uninhabited. There his two companions even left him, and there he lived alone for 25 yeare. Since his landing there he was called only Morrotdnnee,- the native name for the island. A sailor who has been going to and from the Sandwioh Islands for 10 or 12 years learned all he . could about Morrotinnee, •- and/ aays that he was much. liked and feared by the natives. They carried to him all the deUoaoies to be found in the kingdom, and enanledhim to live a life of ease and luxury. They saW he was a tall man, big and com. raandingy with a voice like thunder —bo powerful that they firmly believed he could tjlie wind to raise or the waters to

silißiide. They would not allow white men; to go near the island if they could help it, probably because they had been so com-i nftoded by him, and when he died they buried him near the place where he had lived, with much mourning over his departure.