BULLY HAYES; PIRATE OF THE PACIFIC

New Zealand Times, Volume LIV, Issue 9841, 23 February 1893, Page 4

BULLY HAYES; PIRATE OF THE PACIFIC

A CHAPTER OF SOUTH SEA HISTORY. ‘ Bully’ Hayes ! 0, halcyon days of ‘7O and ‘7-1, when the Pacific was not, as now, patrolled by mon-of-war from lonely Pylstaart, in the Friendlk-a, to the lowlying far-away Marshalls and the coral lagoons ol the North-west ; the Queensland echooutrs ran full nigger cargoes to Bundabcrg, Maryborough and Port MaoUay ; when the Government Agents, dnink nine days out of ten (as they probably will be now), did as much recruiting as the recruiters themselves, and drew (even as they may draw to-day) thumping bonuses from the planters sub rosa. In those days the Hawaiian niggercatching fleet of Spreckels cruised right away south to palrn-clad Arorai, in the Lino Islands, and ran the Queensland ships close in the business. They came down from Honolulu in ballast-trim, save for the liquor and fire-arms, and went back full of a sweating mass of blackhaired, copper-coloured Lino [slanders, driven below at dark, to take their chance of being smothered if it came on to blow. Better for than had it so happened, as bofel the Tahiti a ft w months ago, when 400 souls sank on their way to slavery in San Jot 6de Guatemala. Merry limes, indeed, hid we then in the trade ‘ absolutely above reproach ’ when Queensland rivalled the Uawaiim Islands in the exciting business of nigger-catching, and when Captain William Henry Hayes, of Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.A., vulgarly called ‘ Bully ’ Hayes, came twice a year t-> Samoa with full cargoes of oil, copra, and niggers, all obtained on the captain s peculiar time payment system.

A few weeks ago I met an old shipmaster coming out of Sydney Exohanoe. We fell to talking of bygone days when we were bolh in ‘ the trade,’ he a pastmaster in the art of black-biiding, and I but a callow recruit, or rather recruiter, having plenty of enthusiasm and a conscience sufficiently elastic for the pecularities of the business ‘absolutely above reproach.’ Presently the old fellow who, by the way, was a Scotchman and accustomed to speak of the trade as a ‘ verra ineequeetous business,’ said, with a sigh, as he put down his ‘gleas’—‘Weel, weel, it’s use use talkin,’ there was wltecpa o’ money in it, and noo that Saum Oteefilha has gone on the ithor tack (the man hastin' the guts of a sltairk) I’m thinkiu’ we’ll have another chance o’ grabbin’ niggers wool again, and it’s no so unlikely that “ ,o’ the Hopeful ” ’ (referring to a well-known Australian politician at one time Samuel W. Griffiths’ bote noir) ‘ willna’ hae the pluck to show his colours, too, and send oot anither Hopeful. D’ye mind, noo, that there was nae sae lucky a raou at it a’ than that deevil’s pup of n Bully Hayes, as ye know weel.’ One hardly ever hears the name of the redoubtable Bully mentioned nowadays ; yet it Is not so many years ago since his name was a power all over the wide Pacific from Manilla to Valpasaiso, In those days did a German (rading vessel in the islands sight a white-painted brig with yacht-like lines and carrying Cunningham's patent top sails the Teutonic skipper cracked on all his ship could stagger under and thanked Gott when ho saw the stranger hull down ; for Bully, with his fidus Achates, the almost equally notorious Captain Bon Peeso, had a penchant for boarding Dutchmen and asking for a look at their chronometers, and in his absent-minded way was taking these latter away with him. And in Sydney, too, many of the pompous pauncheous, grey-headed, I-am-u-Broken Hill-shareholder-air city men will remember the gray, dashing, blackwhiskered Yankee captain when, in the ‘ sixties,’ came to Melbourne in a flash clipper ship and paid also a visit to Port Jackson, where ho spent his money royally, flirting (alas; if he had but stopped at that) with every accessible woman of high or low degree-—provided she was fair to look upon—and playing the devil generally in every known and unknown manner ; and who then sailed gaily away to China, neglecting to attend to many little financial matters In connection with the refitting of his ship, and leaving the affections of a number of disconsolate beauties in a very bad-slate of repair. I knew Bully Hayes well, for I with and was wrecked with him in his famous brig, and, after the conversation just alluded to, the memory of those wild days comes strongly upon mo. lam not goingtorisk damnation of soul by spinning a fancifully embroidered tale about things that did not happen, and wrong the momnryof the defunct pirate (whose bones Heat the bottom of the North-west Pacific, unless, indeed, as is moat likely, they were long ago digested by the blue sharks), by even alluding to the murders, most foul and unnatural, credited to him by his enemies. Many of these tales are purely missionaries’ babble and slander—the nidus formed in Micronesia, and spread by villainous newspaper reports nil over the United States. I will relate what I did see and what did occur. A man’s true character is always revealed by sudden misfortune. I was with Hayes when, perhaps, the heaviest stroke of ill-luck he ever experienced befell him. In March of ‘74, the lily white brig Leonora gagged herself to death on the jagged coral of Strong's Island, in the Caroline Group, and Bully seemed for the nonce a broken man. But I did not so well know then that beneath that gay, laughing, ddVil-may- care exterior there lay a whole world of dauntless courage and iron resolution ; that six months after the brig was destroyed he would, by unwearying toil and the wonderful fascination he cvercised over his fierce and ruffianly crew, find himself a wealthier man than when he trod his brig’s dock with a full oargoof nil beneath his feet and ten thousand dollars in his cabin.

Let me first of all, though, speak of the Leonora, once the SVaterlily, and alias the Lana, the Leonio, and the Racings. As the Waterlily she was first known, and under that name did her maiden voyage in the opium trade and beat the record. At this time Hayes made his appearance at one of the Treaty Ports in a ship named the Old Dominion. On the way out from New York his crew had mutinied, headed by the steward, a Greek. In the fight that ensued Hayes killed one man outright by a blow of his fist, and threw another with such violence that he died in a few hours. An inquiry was held, and Hayes came out of it well. The Old Dominion was sold, and Hayes entered the Imperial Chinese service as commander of a gunboat. Another gunboat was commanded by one Ben Peese. The two became friends, and in conjunction with some mandarins of high rank, levied a system of blackmail upon the Chinese coasting junks that brought them (not the junks) in money very rapidly, and Hayes’ daring attack on and capture of a nest of (other) pirates procured for him a good standing with the Chinese authorities. Peese soon got into trouble, however, and when a number of merchants, who had been despoiled, had succeeded in proving that his gunboat was a worse terror to them than the pirates whom he worried, he disappeared for a time. The Waterlily, instead of sailing for Calcutta, was chartered at a b : g figure by some rich merchants to take n cargo to Rangoon. Shortly after her departure, Hayes resigned and went to Macao. Here he was joined by bis co'league, in command of the Waterlily. How Peese had got possession of her was not known. Hayes told people that his friend had bought her, but those intimate with Peese knew a great deal better. Anyhow, the merchants who chartered her said that Peese had pirated 'her, landed them somewhere, in the straits, taken all their dollars, sold the cargo to the Dutch military authorities, and cleared out.

And then with a new ship, a new crew (many of whom Were Hayes’ and Peeae’a former Chinese naval pirates), the partners sailed for the Bonin Islands, where Peeae was well known and had lived before. Two days ere making the Bonins a ship was sighted ashore on a reef. It was a gunboat from Macao with an official on board bound to the Bonin Islands to investigate the mnrdrr of a Portuguese captain and mate. A boat was lowered from the Waterlily, and Peese, who spoke Spanish well, learned from the captain that thegunboat, wh : ch was then hard and fast, had run ashore in the night and bumped a big bole in herself just amidships. Peese agreed for a thousmd dollars to stand by them and eave'all ho could, including her four guns. The guns were rafted to the Waterlilp in the boats belonging to the gunboat. At dusk Hayes went aboard and took the brig’s Chinese carpenter with him. On examination he said the ship could be got off again if she could be canted over and a sail put over the hole. This the gunboat captain agreed to try, and signalled for his boats to return from the Waterlily. After working all night the thing was done, and the captain and officers wore profuse in their expressions of admiration of Hayes’s skill, As the tide (ell the car-

! pontera got to work, and the gunboat was macto water-tight. Ueder Hayes’s dirrctiim at flood lido, slio was then hedged over tho roof into the lagoon, and anchored in smooth water. Poese and Hayes then arranged to sail in the brig (at next tide), lay her alongside and put tho guns and stores aboard again, agreeing to take the captain’s order lor 700 iols. and SOOdola. in cash. But next morning the brig was nowhere to be seen, and although the captain had his ship, he was minus his big guns, small arms, stores to the value of 2000 or 3000 dollars, and his passenger, the Corregidor. In attempting to get under weigh he again ran ashore, and remained hard and fast for a week. Meanwhile, Hayes and Peese had gone off on a southerly course to the Pelew Group (the Corregidor was put on board a German barque met on the way), where the camions were sold to the chiefs, and the two captains gave a great feast, and got rid of neatly all their clew, taking Pelew men and seven Japanese ir. their places. Here Hayes and Peese fell out—over a woman, of course. Peese had bought a very beautiful girl from one of the chiefs for 2501015., which ho told Hayes privately, he did not inteul to pay. Hayes, for reasons of his own, insisted on his either paying the sum agreed on or giving iier up. Peese, declaring ho would do as he liked, drew his pistol and ordered the girl into the boat. Hayes tore the weapon from him, and seizing the girl with one hand, pointed the piVol at Peese and told him to go on board. Peese was no coward, but he knew his man, and sulkily retired. With all Hayes’ wickedness he was not entirely heartless. Ho asked the girl to tell him if she was afraid of Peese. She said ‘ No !’ and then Bully quietly told her to follow his fellow captain aboard. But Peese never forgave him, and from that day the pair were lull of mutual distrust. After cruising about the Western Carolines for two or three months, and in some mysterious way filling up the brig with a cargo of cocoanut oil, and getting half a ton of hawk-bill turtle shell worth CJols a pound, tho two worthies appealed in Apia Harbour, Samoa. Here they sold the cargo and obtained a commission from the firm of Johann Ccoiar Godeffroy and Sons, of Hamburg—a firm that in Polynesia rivalled, in a small way, John Company—to precuro for thsm 200 or 300 Line Island labourers at lOOdols per head. In those days the most respect od storekeeper in Ap’a was a retired mariner—a Captain Turnbull—a stout old man, slow of speech, and profoundly, but not obtrusively, religious. People used to wonder how it was that * Misi Pulti, the shrewdest business-man in the group, would supply Hayes with a thousand or two thousand dollars' worth of trade, and merely take his I O U, while refusing to give credit to any other soul. Spoken to on tho matter, the gruff old man replied, ‘Thai’s my business, but I’ll toll you why I trust a man like Hayes and won’t trust anyone here. I hww the man, and I’ve told him what none of you would dare to tell him, that I looked upon his course of life with horror. He laughed at mo and said with a dreadful oath that if over he could do me a “good turn” he would. That pleased me, and when he c une to me a week afterwards and said that he wanted new canvas and running-gear, but the Dutchmen wouldn’t sell him any on credit, I said I would—and did, and he paid me, and I’ll give him a few thousand dollars credit any day.’ Bully and Peese sailed for the Ellice and Gilbert groups, and soon news reached Sydney that they had been playing havoc with the traders there. With the traders of Captain Bury, and those of Captain Daly, of the brig Lady Alicia, they were very rough, appropriating all their oil and other native produce and giving them sarcastically - written receipts. Hayes stated that this was iu retaliation for Dily having visited his stations in some of tho Kingsmilla, and having been too friendly with soma of the local fair. When the brig returned to Samoa Hayes alone was in command; the voluble, bearded Peese had, lie said, sold him his interest in the ship and gone to China again. People talked and said that Hayes had killed him, but ns the strength of tho big oaptains’s right arm was well known in Samoa nobody talked too loud. It was on this occasion that Hayes ‘hsd’ the German firm for some thousands of dollars. It seems that in returning through the Kangamill and Gilbert groups he found a number xif the German firm’s traders in terror of their lives, tho natives having warned them to clear out or be killed. Hayes consented to give them all passages to Samoa—for a consideration of course, and they agreed on behalf of their firm to pay him each SOdols passagemoney, a reasonable enough sum. Moat of them had large quantities of oil and copra—this also was shipped. After the last island had been visited Hayes called them together in the cabin and addressed them : ‘ Now, boys, I’ve promised to give yon all passages to Samoa, and I will —if you do what I want. Now, you’ve all got money belonging to the Geiman firm. Well, each of you must give me SOdols, and if you take my advice you’ll slick to the remainder. One thing you all know as well as 1 do, and that is, that the Dutchmen will take your aoula out of their oases if you owe them anything. As for the oil and copra Til see to that. That’s all I’vo got to say, and if any of you won’t agree to this let him come on deck and try and convince me. The traders grinned and consented to take the offer of a passage and the privilege of annexing the firm’s dollars, and each paid his SOdols. When Hayes got to Samoa, Weber, the German manager, interviewed Bully, who detailed the dangers traders had escaped, and genially said: ‘ I hardly like to make you pay for yonr traders’ passages, but as I have such a heavy cargo for you, you won’t object to pay mo a trifle—say SOdols each. They’vo all got money for you ao well as oil and copra.’ Weber paid, Hayes giving an acknowledgment. Then Weber sent his cargo-boats to unload tho brig. He wa rather surprised when Hayes sent him note :

Brig Leonora, Apia. Dear Sir. You have forgotten that you have not yet made any arrangements with me about the freight of your oil and copra. Freight on 200,0001hs copra, atloent per lb, 2000dols; for the oil a lump sum of 500dols ; in all 2500Inis. Unless the freight is paid at once, and delivery taken forthwith, I will proceed to New Zealand, and sell to recoup myself.—VV. f. Hayes. The Germans nearly went mad, but knowing what Hayes was and fearing to lose everything they paid and took delivery, and Haye», as he paid oyer, told Weber that he would always have a good opinion of him in future for his prompt manner in settling up. Weber gasped, but said nothing. Just about this time the U.S S. Narranganaett steamed into Apia harbour. It had been rumoured around Polynesia for some time previously that certain charges had been made agaiust Bully by American citizens. What the exact nature of these charges were has never been known. Anyhow, the captain of the corvette heard that Hayes was at anchor in Apia, and ome down fall speed from Pago Pago in Tu'uila. Captain Ed., Hamilton (wh > died only last year) was then pilot, and brought the Narrangansett in. The monient the anchor was down, an armed boat’s crew dashed aboard the Leonora and took possession. The officer in command had a surprise in store for him, when, entering the brig’s cabin, he

saw seated at the table, not the truculent, piratical ruffian he expected to see, but a quiet, atout man of herculean proportions, who bowed politely and said, ‘Welcome on board the Leonora, sir. Have yon come to seize my ship and myself? Well, now, don’t apologia-, but sit down awhile until my steward brings you a glass of wine, and then I’ll go and see what all this is about.’ This officer afterwards told Hamilton that he was so struck with Bully’s cool effrontery and his equally genial smile that he did sit down and take a drink, and then Hayes accompanied him to the corvet’e. As the boat ran alongside, the officers and bluejackets not on duty thronged to the side to see the famous pirate, who walked calmly to. the qnarter-deok, and, singling out the captain (Meade, I think, was his name) said : ‘ How do you do. sir. lam happy to see my country’s flag again in these seas; but irluit the hell do you mean, sir, by putting an armed crow on my deck? By God, sir, if you don’t give me good reasons I’ll make yon repent it.’ The corvette captain stood quite unmoved, although there was a suppressed titter beard amongst his officers.

‘ I pardon you your offensive language. Captain Hayes, as I daresay you feel excited. If you will come below I will show yon good authority for my action. I have orders to arrest you and investigate serious charges against you. I trust, however that you will be able to clear yourself.’

The quiet, gentlemanly manner of (ho naval officer acted like a charm upon Hayes. The fierce glitter in his bright bine eyes died oyt, and bowing to the corvette captain he turned to the group of officers, and in a bluff sincere manner eaid : ‘Gentlemen, I apologise to 'your captain and to you for my insulting manner. I see that I have acted in an unbecoming way ; but I am a hasty wan, yet

quick to make amende when I am in the wrong.’ Tim officers returned his salute, and then Bully went below and listened with an unmoved face to the warrant for his arrest. He was allowed to write a letter to his wife, and given the liberty of the ship whilst the captain of the Narraagansett wis preparing for the trial. A n'dication was tent to the three Consols of his seizure, and asking thorn to verify the charges made to them by various persons against Hayes. None but the German Consul responded, and his witnesses (traders whose stations had been cleaned out by Hayes) utterly broke down. One look at those steady, steel-blue eyes was enough for them. They knew what was in store for them it any of them crossed Bully’s p ith again, and slunk away to their German protectors. After two hours’ investigate!!, the captain broke up the court, and formally told those present that lie would announce his decision in writing. As the German Consul, followed by two German merchant skippers, rose from the table, Hayes asked the captain if he could say a few words. Leave was granted. ‘ I merely wish to tell those gentlemen leaving that I hatadiars—especially Dutch liars.’ 1 You fbrgat your position, sir, said the captain, turning away to hide a smile. Two hours afterwards the Nsrrangansetts’s captain wrote a brief note to the Consols, s'ating that he w-.nld not—from ihe iinrelinhle «nd contradictory evidence - -he justified in inking Hayes to tiro United Stems, and mlil.-d some severe remarks sbnit the skulking and terified manner of the witn’Ssep. Then Hayes was told ho was a freeman and stra’ghtway the piisoimr became the guest, and Bully made a neat little speech. ‘Gentlemen, I thank you fir yt ur kindness and courtesy to me. You have done me a good service. If f went to the Skates now and told how I had boon seized by a lyiannicsl American officer, it would make me a rich man. 1 could run for President. 1 could get in, I could paint y»u all as a crew of piratical ruffians disgracing the uniform of the greatest country in tha world, and the papers would back m» up. Dhey would make me president of ahi&bankand would send all of you to sdrvo your country its Alaska —to keep you from getting lynched by an indignant nation. But lam just going to be good and generous and remain in obscurity ; and to morrow night I shall he proud and happy it you will honour me by coining to my house and aee the pirate in his lair.’ In tha the afternoon Bully ‘dressed ship ’ and gave his crew liberty. They went into Matafele, the German quarter of Apia, and painted tire town vermilion ; the Narrangansett sailors joined in, and, only for ggme officers being present, the German residents would have had a bad night of it. Hayes’ craw were all drunk, so were the Narrangansett men, and a lot of flash Samoans lent a hand in the proceedings.—Sydney Bulletin.