THE STORY OF THE GENERAL GATES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23500, 14 May 1938, Page 7

THE STORY OF THE GENERAL GATES

A TALE OF THE DAYS OF THE GREAT SEALING TRADE

By A. Shanks

Few vessels which visited New Zealand in its early days gained such notoriety as did- the American sealer, General Gates. She commenced her history by stealing convicts from Botany Bay and was subsequently arrested by a man-of-war at the Bay of Islands, her officers being imprisoned. The sealing gangs which she landed at the southern portion of New Zealand were attacked by Maoris, and in one instance, a gang was kidnapped by a rival sealing vessel whose captain envied their profitable location. The old saying “Truth is stranger than fiction ” would appear to be amply borne out in the career of this vessel. The General Gates sailed from Boston in 1818 and duly arrived at Port Jackson on June 4. 1819, to refit before continuing her sealing voyage. She cleared for the Bay of Islands on July 29. Her commander bore the unusual name of Abimeleck Riggs. She arrived at the Bay of Islands on August 2. On board were the Rev. Samuel Marsden, the Rev. S. Butler and family, Mr and Mrs Kemp, Mr F. Hall, three mechanics and their families, and three Maoris—Tui, Titiri, and a Maori woman. In all there were 22 persons on board belonging to the Church Mission Society’s settlement. But she had on board passengers who were not legitimate, as Captain Riggs had enticed five convicts to sail with him and knowingly allowed other five to stow away. He also secured another convict who had not been given a clearance by the authorities. His action was made even more serious as these 11 men, illegally shipped, were reported to be the best mechanics in Government employ. It seems strange that Captain Riggs should have deliberately contravened the laws, then fairly stringent as he was to find out, in order to ship these convicts, but American ships visiting Australian waters about this period were, as a rule, short handed, and resorted to many illegal methods to secure full crews. A method much in favour was the raiding of rival sealing gangs when the required number of men was carried off. It is little wonder, therefore, that American vessels were objects of suspicion and distrust when they arrived off the coast where there were sealing locations. On his arrival at the Bay of Islands, Captain Riggs formally placed his illegal passengers on the ship’s articles and there seems little doubt that this was a move to frustrate any inquiries by the authorities, On February 27, 1820, the store ship, H.M.S. Dromedary, commanded by Captain Skinner, arrived at the Bay of Islands with stores and cattle for the settlement, and the Rey. Samuel Marsden and nine Maoris were passengers. It is of interest to note that one of the Maoris was Repero, a son of Hongi Hika. the great warrior, and also that the vessel was to secure a cargo of spars to take to England for naval purposes. This Captain Riggs was a real ruffian as, having inveigled the convicts on board his vessel, he condemned them to a more bitter servitude than that from which they had escaped, information of the condition of things on board the American vessel caused Captain Skinner to board the General Gates when he secured eight of the convicts, the other three having been landed with a sealing gang on the island of St. Paul. The prisoners, who were squalid and miserable, told Captain Skinner that they had been cruelly treated, and some of them had been flogged with barbarous severity. As a consequence of his actions Captain Riggs was placed under arrest, and with the ship and convicts, was sent to Port Jackson in charge of a British crew.

In due course the American captain appeared before the Port Jackson authorities on 12 charges—--11 for carrying away so many men, and the other for violation of the bond under port regulations. On September 15, 1820, judgment was entered against him when he was fined £SOC on each of the charges. It is not known when Captain Riggs paid his reckoning, but the General Gates was detained in Port Jackson until February, 1821. when she cleared for the islands of St. Paul and Amsterdam to relieve sealing gangs landed there before her seizure in New Zealand. After the gangs had been relieved the General Gates made for Hobart Town, refitted, and sailed on August 10 for southern New Zealand, arriving off the coast on the 21st, when a sealing party of six men, with provisions for some time, was landed on what appeared to be an' excellent location. Another gang was landed at Chalky Sound, about which more will be told anon.

The location of the first gang fulfilled expectations, as in the course of the first six weeks the party, under Joseph Price, secured 3563 skins, which they salted and made ready fo. shipment The gang was, however, not destined to profit from its efforts, as on the night of October 11 its cabin was surrounded by a marauding band of Maoris, who took the Americans prisoners, and, not knowing the value of the provisions and skins, set fire to the cabin, which was destroyed with its contents. From their base the sealers were marched for some days to Looking Glass Bay, to the north of Caswell Sound, where the party rested and then continued a northerly march to Sandy Bay. At this place four of the sealers were sacrificed for cannibal feasts, and a fifth, James West, had been informed that he was to be the next victim Fortunately for him and his remaining companion a fearful storm, accompanied by thunder and lightning, frightened the Natives into hiding from the fury of the elements, and the two men found means to unfasten the flax ropes which bound them. The storm, occurring at night, afforded the men excellent cover for their escape to a beach, a few miles away, where they arrived at daybreak A small canoe that was on the beach was launched and they put out to sea, without provisions or water, preferring death in this manner to the dreadful fate of their comrades. They had barely cleared the surf when some of the Maoris searching for them saw the canoe and immediately rushed down into the water in an endeavour to recapture them. Desperation gave strength to the men to paddle the craft beyond the reach of their pursuers out to the open sea. For three days the two survivors, James West and Joseph Price, drifted about on the high seas and they were in a terrible condition when their canoe was sighted and they were rescued by the sealing brig Macquarie, Captain White, who eventually landed them at Port Jackson on November 10. 1821. The men killed were John and William Rawton, James White, and William Smith.

After having landed the gangs already mentioned Captain Riggs sailed for the Bay of Islands, having informed the men that he would relieve them in January, 1822. On November 10, 1821, the General Gates anchored in Matavai Bay and was reported as having 11,000 seal skins on board. On the 15th of the same month she sailed for the Leeward Islands.

The crooked nature of Captain Riggs is again shown as he had not the slightest intention of sailing to the relief of his men, for the General Gates was reported at Whampoa, China, in March, 1822, and she remained cruising off the Chinese coast until May 14, when she sailed for Manila and Batavia. From Batavia she made south and arrived at Hobart Town on November 2, 1822, refitted, and cleared that port on December 15 to anchor 13 days later in Chalky Sound. A small boat was sent to the shore to pick up the gang landed on the previous visit, and it was discovered that the sealers had been relieved by the schooner Snapper, Captain Edwardson. This party had been 15 months on its location when relieved by the schooner and had also suffered at the hands of the Maoris, as of eight men landed, four had been killed and one lost by drowning. On this second visit the General Gates left another gang on the Chalky Sound location, which was about as unfortunate as its predecessor. This time, however, the despoiler was a rival sealing captain, John Grono. He was a well-known sealing captain, having followed the trade for a number of years, and it would appear that he had heard that the General Gates’s gangs were on excellent grounds and had come across the Tasman to view the lay-out for himself. When his brig, the Elizabeth, made the south coast of New Zealand on January 21,1823, a small boat came off manned by a crew of seven men, who reported that they were a sealing gang of the Genera] Gates in charge of the chief officer, Burnham. They informed Captain Grono that the Maoris were very hostile and had killed four of their party. Captain Grono then proceeded to the shore ostensibly to investigate the position, but at the same time no doubt to sum up the American location. The sight of a vast number of seals so impressed him that he decided to secure the ground, fair means or foul. In some manner he discovered that one of the party was an escaped convict, and this was right into his hands, as he immediately imprisoned the gang, despatching a party of his own to the base. The Americans were informed that, as they were escaped convicts, they would be taken to Port Jackson, and, in spite of their earnest denials of this charge, they were kept in confinement until the arrival of the Elizabeth at Port Jackson on February 23, 1823, when they were handed over to the authorities.

About this period convicts had frequently been shipped on sealing and whaling vessels. In an endeavour to have these convicts brought to the penal colony the authorities had granted power to certain captains of vessels to arrest them and return them to the settlement, where they were summarily dealt with to their own detriment. It was under this power that Captain Grono acted, and it was the lever he employed to usurp the base. In due time the magistrates heard the case against the Americans and the result was anything but pleasant for the covetous captain, as, instead of creating a favourable impression, he was soundly rated for his high-handed action and for the wrongful use of the power in him vested. In the end he was no doubt a chastened and wiser man. There were vicissitudes suffered by sealing gangs of the General Gates as the schooner Samuel, Captain Dawson, on her arrival at Port Jackson on March 31, 1824, from the south coast of New Zealand, had on board a black woman and her child of two, who were the sole survivors of a sealing gang left by the General Gates after her Hobart Town visit. This gang was surprised by the Maoris and all were killed save the woman, who with her child, hid under a rock and there remained until the raiders had departed. For eight months the unfortunate woman and child were compelled to subsist on the flesh of such birds and seals as she was able to capture, not daring to light a fire for cooking and warmth, even had she the means, for fear of a further descent by the Maoris. On June 18, 1823, the General Gates arrived at Tahiti from the Marquesas, but there is no record of the date on which Captain Higgs returned to the south of New Zealand to discover that his men had been massacred. That he eventually did return was long remembered by the Maoris. After killing the gang, the Maoris .secured the stores and nrovisions Being unacquainted with European provisions they threw away the flour as being useless; soap did not suit the Maori palate and even worse was the taste of tobacco. Included in the stores was some gunpowder the discovery of which did not at the time mean anything to the natives and they carelessly scattered it about. Later in the evening they lit a fire and were sitting round it when suddenly flames broke out amongst them to their great consternation and utter discomfort, and they hastily beat a retreat from the immediate neighbourhood.

It was some time after the massacre of the sealers that some canoes and all their crews were lost, and the Natives could not imagine what had hanpened to them. Eventually the mystery concerning their loss was explained when some whalers, who had become friendly with the Maoris, told them that an American captain had come over to attend to the needs of his sealing gang and discovered that his men had been killed and eaten. It was in the course of his sailing that he had encountered the canoes and promptly sailed them down. Thus did Captain Riggs, whom is was presumed to be, take terrible toll from the Maoris for the murder of his men. The last record of the movements of the General Gates are in February of 1825. when she was reported to be coasting from off Manila. Surely few sealing gangs of vessels which worked New Zealand in the days of the great sealing trade suffered so extensively as aid the unfortunate men left by the General Gates, and their story forms another episode in the early history of this Dominion.

What was the ultimate fate of this vessel after all these momentous events? Perhaps some historian in the future will solve this question, which at present remains a mysten owing to certain records having been destroyed.