Concerning "Bully" Hayes Part 1

Concerning "Bully" Hayes.

by Louis Becke.

I

"BULLY" HAYES! Oh, halcyon days of the sixties and seventies, when the Pacific was not, as now, patrolled by men-of-war from lonely Pylstaart, in the Friendlies, to the low-lying far-away Marshalls and the coral lagoons of the north-west; when the Queensland schooners ran full "n.i.g.g.e.r" cargoes to Bundaberg, Maryborough, and Port Mackay; when the Government agents, drunk nine days out of ten, 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 n.i.g.g.e.r-catching fleet from the Hawaiian Islands cruised right away south to palm-clad Arorai, in the Line Islands, and ran the Queensland s.h.i.+ps close in the business. They came down from Honolulu in ballast-trim, save for the liquor and firearms, and went back full of a sweating ma.s.s of black-haired, copper-coloured Line Islanders, driven below at dark to take their chance of being smothered if it came on to blow. Better for them had it so happened, as befel the _Tahiti_ a few years ago when four hundred of these poor people went to the bottom on their way to slavery in San Jose de Guatemala.

Merry times, indeed, had those who ran the labour vessels then in the trade, when Queensland rivalled the Hawaiian Islands in the exciting business of "black-birding," and when Captain William Henry Hayes, of Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.A.--vulgarly called "Bully" Hayes--came twice a year to fair Samoa with full cargoes of oil, copra, and brown-skinned kanakas, all obtained on the stalwart captain's peculiar time-payment system.

One hardly ever hears the name of the redoubtable Bully mentioned nowadays, yet it is scarcely thirty years ago since his name was a power all over the wide Pacific, from Manila to Valparaiso. In those days did a German trading-vessel in the Islands sight a white-painted brig with yacht-like lines and carrying Cunningham's patent topsails, the Teutonic skipper cracked on all his s.h.i.+p could stagger under, and thanked heaven when he saw the stranger hull-down; for Bully, with his _fidus achates_, the almost equally notorious Captain Ben Peese, had a penchant for boarding Dutchmen and asking for a look at their chronometers, and in his absent-minded way, taking these latter away with him.

And in Sydney, and Melbourne especially, people will remember the gay, das.h.i.+ng, black-whiskered Yankee captain who, in the sixties, came to these ports in a flash clipper s.h.i.+p, where he 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 s.h.i.+p, and leaving the affections of a number of disconsolate beauties in a very bad state of repair.

The writer happened to know the gentleman well, and although it is now sixteen years since his body was thrown to the sharks among the lagoons of the Marshall Group, it is not too late to rescue his memory from much undeserved obloquy. Many a fancifully embroidered tale has been told and printed of the terrible "ma.s.sacres" he perpetrated among the inhabitants of the South Seas. These ma.s.sacres were purely apocryphal and only worthy of appearing--as they did in the first place--in an unreliable daily paper in San Francisco.

A man's true character is generally revealed by sudden misfortune. The writer sailed with Hayes for nearly two years, and was with him when, perhaps, the heaviest stroke of ill-luck he ever experienced befell him. In March of 1874 his brig _Leonora_ ground 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 few people knew that beneath that gay, laughing, devil-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 exercised over his fierce and ruffianly crew, find himself a wealthier man than when he trod his brig's deck with a full cargo of oil beneath his feet and ten thousand dollars in his cabin.

Let me first of all, though, before relating all that befell us during our sojourn on Strong's Island, where I, at least, spent many long, happy months, speak of the _Leonora_, once the _Waterlily_, and _alias_ the _Luna_, the _Leonie_, and the _Racinga_. As the _Waterlily_ she was first known, and under that name sailed 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 s.h.i.+p 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 the Greek outright by a blow of his fist, and threw another with such violence against a deck-house that he died in a few hours. An inquiry was held, and Hayes, so it was stated, 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. Of this period of his life Hayes never cared to speak, but the story of Peese and himself was given as follows:--

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's daring attack on and capture of a nest of other and real 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_, which was then on the point of sailing for Calcutta, was, at this time, chartered at a big figure by some rich merchants to take a cargo of provisions to Rangoon. Shortly after her departure Hayes resigned and went to Macao. Here he was joined by his colleague, 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, some months later, the merchants who chartered her said that Peese, who had been given command after his forced resignation from the Imperial service, had 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 s.h.i.+p, a new crew--many of whom were Hayes's and Peese's former Chinese naval service pirates--the partners sailed for the Bonin Islands, where Peese was well known, and had lived before. Two days ere making the Bonins a s.h.i.+p was sighted ash.o.r.e on a reef. It was a gunboat from Macao with an official on board, bound to the Bonin Islands to investigate the murder of a Portuguese captain and mate. A boat was lowered from the _Waterlily_, and Peese, who spoke Spanish well, learned from the captain that the gunboat, which was then hard and fast, had run ash.o.r.e in the night and b.u.mped a big hole in herself just amids.h.i.+ps. For a thousand dollars Peese agreed to stand by them and save all he could, including her four guns. The guns were rafted to the _Waterlily_, then the small arms and stores followed in the boats belonging to the gunboat. At dusk Hayes went aboard the wrecked s.h.i.+p and took the brig's Chinese carpenter with him. On examination he said the s.h.i.+p could be got off again if she could be canted over and a sail "fothered" over the hole temporarily. 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 were profuse in their expression of admiration at Hayes's skill. As the tide fell the carpenters got to work, and the gunboat was made watertight. Under Hayes's direction, at flood-tide, she was then kedged over the reef into the lagoon, and anch.o.r.ed in smooth water. Peese and Hayes then arranged to bring in the _Waterlily_ at next tide, lay her alongside the gunboat, and put the guns and stores aboard again, agreeing to take the captain's order on Macao for 700 dollars and 800 dollars in cash. But next morning the brig was nowhere to be seen, and although the captain had his s.h.i.+p he was minus his big guns, many small arms, and stores to the value of 2,000 or 8,000 dollars. In attempting to get under way he again ran ash.o.r.e, and remained hard and fast for a week.

Meanwhile Hayes and Peese had gone off on a southerly course to the Pelew Group where the cannons were sold to the chiefs, and the two captains gave a feast, and made merry generally, and got rid of nearly all their crew, taking Pelew men and seven j.a.panese in their places.

For a week or so all went well, and then Hayes and Peese fell out--over a woman, of course. Peese had bought a very beautiful girl from one of the chiefs for 250 dollars, which sum, he told Hayes privately, he did not intend to pay. Hayes insisted on his comrade either paying the sum agreed on or giving her up. Peese, declaring he 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 pistol at Peese and told him to go on board. Peese was no coward, but he knew his man, and sulkily retired. With all Hayes's wickedness he was not entirely heartless. He 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 two mutually distrusted each other.

After cruising about the Western Carolines for two or three months, and in some mysterious way filling up the brig, now named the _Leonora_, with a cargo of coco-nut oil, and getting a ton of hawk-bill turtle-sh.e.l.l, worth 6 dollars a pound, the two worthies appeared in Apia Harbour, Samoa. Here they sold the cargo and obtained a commission from the firm of Johann Caesar G.o.deffroy and Sons, of Hamburg--a firm that in Polynesia rivalled, in a small way, old John Company--to procure for them two hundred or three hundred Line Island labourers at 100 dollars per head.

In those days the most respected storekeeper in Apia 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 Pulu," the shrewdest business man in the group, would supply Hayes with 1,000 or 2,000 dollars' worth of trade, and merely take his I O U, while refusing to give credit to any other soul. Spoken to on the matter, the gruff old man replied, "That's my business, but I'll tell you why I trust a man like Hayes and won't trust any one here.

I know 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 me and said, with a dreadful oath, that if ever he could do me a 'good turn' he would. That pleased me, and when he came 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 Eury, and those of Captain Daly, of the Sydney 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 in retaliation for Daly having visited his (Hayes's) stations in some of the Kingsmill Islands, and having been too friendly with some of the local fair.

When the brig returned to Samoa, Hayes alone was in command; the voluble, bearded Peese had, he said, sold him his interest in the s.h.i.+p and gone to China again. People talked and said that Hayes had killed him, but as the strength of the big captain's right arm was well known in Samoa, n.o.body talked too loud. It was on this occasion that Hayes "had" the German firm for some thousands of dollars. It seems that in returning through the Kingsmill and Gilbert Groups he found a number of the German firm's traders in terror of their lives, the natives having warned them to clear out or be killed, they would have no white men on their islands. Hayes consented to give them all pa.s.sages to Samoa--for a consideration, of course, and they agreed on behalf of their firm to pay him each 50 dollars pa.s.sage money--a reasonable enough sum. Most of them had large quant.i.ties of oil and copra--this also was s.h.i.+pped. After the last island had been visited, Hayes called them together in the cabin and addressed them: "Now, boys, I've promised to give you all pa.s.sages to Samoa, and I will--if you do what I want. Now you've all got money belonging to the German firm. Well, each of you must give me 50 dollars, and if you take my advice you'll stick to the remainder. One thing you all know as well as I do, and that is, that the Dutchmen will take your souls out of their cases if you owe them anything. As for the oil and copra _I'll_ see to that. That's all I've 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 pa.s.sage and the privilege of annexing the firm's dollars, and each paid his 50 dollars.

When Hayes got to Samoa, Weber, the German manager, interviewed Bully, who detailed the dangers the traders had escaped, and genially said, "I hardly like to make you pay for your traders' pa.s.sages, but as I have such a heavy cargo for you, you won't object to pay me a trifle--say 50 dollars each. They've all got money for you as well as oil and copra."

Weber paid, Hayes giving an acknowledgment. Then Weber sent his cargo-boats to unload the brig. He was rather surprised when Hayes sent him a 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. I now demand freight on 200,000 lbs. copra at 1 cent per lb., 2,000 dollars; for the oil, a lump sum of 600 dollars; in all, 2,500 dollars. Unless the freight is paid at once, and delivery taken forthwith, I will proceed to New Zealand and sell to recoup myself.--W.

H. Hayes."

The German firm was furious at this trick, but knowing what Hayes was and fearing to lose everything, they paid and took delivery, and Hayes, as he paid over, 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 American corvette _Narrangansett_ steamed into Apia Harbour. It had been rumoured around Polynesia for some time previously that certain charges had been made against 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 came down full speed from Pago Pago in Tutuila.

Captain Edward Hamilton was then pilot, and brought the _Narrangansett_ in. The moment 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, stout man of herculean proportions, who bowed politely and said, "Welcome on board the _Leonora_, sir. Have you come to seize my s.h.i.+p and myself? Well now, don't apologise, but sit down a while until my steward brings you a gla.s.s 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 corvette.

As the boat ran alongside, the officers and bluejackets not on duty thronged the side to see the famous pirate, who walked calmly to the quarter-deck, and, singling out the captain (Maude, I believe, was his name), said, "How do you do, sir? I am happy to see my country's flag again in these seas; but what the h.e.l.l do you mean, sir, by putting an armed crew on my deck? By G.o.d, sir, if you don't give me good reasons I'll make you repent it." The corvette captain stood quite unmoved, although there was a suppressed t.i.tter heard 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 you 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 the naval officer acted like a charm upon Hayes. The fierce glitter in his bright blue eyes died out, and bowing to the corvette captain he turned to the group of officers, and in a bluff sincere manner, said: "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 man, yet quick to make amends when I am in the wrong."

The 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 the sh.o.r.e, and given the liberty of the s.h.i.+p whilst the captain of the _Narrangesett_ was preparing for the trial. A notification was sent to the three Consuls of his seizure, and asking them to attend and 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 if any of them ever crossed Bully's path again, and slunk away to their German protectors. After two hours'

investigation, the captain broke up the court, and formally told those present that he would announce his decision in writing.

Two hours afterwards the commander of the _Narrangansett_ wrote a brief note to the Consuls, stating that he would not--from the unreliable and contradictory evidence--be justified in taking Hayes to the United States, and added some severe remarks about the skulking and terrified manner of the witnesses.

Then Hayes was told he was a free man, and straightway the prisoner became the guest, and Bully made a neat little speech.

"Gentlemen, I thank you for your kindness and courtesy to me. You have done me a good service. If I went to the States now and told how I had been seized by a tyrannical American officer, it would make me a rich man. I could run for President. I could get in, too. I could paint you all as a crew of piratical ruffians disgracing the uniform of the greatest country in the world, and the papers would back me up. They would make me President of a big bank, and the Secretary of the Navy would keep the _Narrangansett_ at sea for another two years--to save you from getting lynched by an indignant nation. But I am just going to be good and generous and remain in obscurity; and to-morrow night I shall be proud and happy if you will honour me by coming to my house and see the pirate in his lair."

In the afternoon Bully "dressed s.h.i.+p" and gave his crew liberty. They went into Matafele, the German quarter of Apia, and made a hideous disturbance; the _Narrangansett_ sailors joined in, and, only for some officers being present, the German residents would have had a bad night of it. Hayes's crew were all gloriously drunk, so were some of the _Narrangansett_ men, and a lot of flash Samoan _manaia, i.e._, "bucks,"

lent a hand in the proceedings; for even in those days the Germans were as much hated by the natives as they are at the present time.

II

Before detailing my own experiences of the lamented "Bully," I must mention some other incidents in his career which will give a fair ill.u.s.tration of the notoriety he had acquired, and of his keen sense of humour. Long before these two gentlemen (Bully Hayes and Ben Peese) had commenced to exploit the Ellice, Gilbert, Kingsmill, Marshall and Caroline Groups, Bully, then owner of a small, fast-sailing schooner, had made unto himself a name--particularly as a connoisseur of Island beauty--among the Marquesas, Society, Hervey and Paumotu Groups, from Nuka-hiva to Rapa-nui (Easter Island), that ethnographical mystery of the Southern Seas, whose gentle and amiable people, thirty years ago, met with so dreadful a fate at the murderous hands of the Peruvian slavers.

Soon after the slavers had gone from the South Seas a story was current in Eastern Polynesia that Bully had landed armed boats' crews at Aana, in the Paumotu Archipelago, and seized a number of girls whom he sold to Chilian and Peruvian buyers. But, as a matter of fact, Hayes never _sold_ a native girl, though he was always willing to barter for a new charmer any member of his harem who had palled upon his fastidious tastes. And if the other man in these little matters evinced the slightest want of trade-reciprocity, he generally regretted it, for he would lose the household chattel, and getting nothing for her, save perhaps lumps and excoriations, or perhaps a sarcastic note informing him that the writer could not afford to waste time haggling over so trifling a matter as the price of a native Venus.

While two of the fleet of Peruvian slavers appeared among the Ellice Group, the other two remained to "work" Easter Island, the which they did successfully, carrying away all the able-bodied men and comely women they could seize (three hundred), to die miserably in guano-pits of the Chincha Islands. The vessels which "worked" the Ellice Group were a barque and a brig. The brig was commanded by a big Irishman, and simply because he was a big man and spoke in English to the natives, it was reported in the Hawaiian missionary press that the slaver captain was Bully. The natives of Nukulaelae, an island which suffered severely from the slavers' visit, always maintained for long afterward that it was Hayes (whom they had never actually seen), because the _ihi vaka_ (captain) was a tall, bearded man, who kept knocking his sailors down every minute if they were not quick in their movements; and this was the commonly accepted description of Bully and one of his habits.

But at the time the two Peruvians were cruising through the Ellices, Bully was exploiting the Paumotu Archipelago, and arousing the anger of the French authorities, by his irregular business methods. For instance, he would "buy" pearl-sh.e.l.l from the traders and kick them over the side if they had the audacity to ask for payment. In accordance with his custom, Bully, on this cruise, devoted a good deal of time to studying the soft-eyed Paumotuan _vahine_; and after filling his schooner with a fair amount of plunder, he did, it is stated, take away some ten or fourteen young Paumotu women--not to Chili or Peru, but merely on an extended and indefinite pleasure trip. Most of these young ladies were desirous of getting to Tahiti, where they believed their charms would be better appreciated than in their own island homes. In his characteristic way _Il capitano galantuomo_ offered them free pa.s.sages. Pa.s.sing through the Society Group and not entering Papeite Harbour (possibly on account of his strained relations with the French naval authorities) he made his way to the Marquesas. Here some four or five of his lady pa.s.sengers elected to remain with newly-found lovers, either white or native; and Bully always blessed the union of two happy hearts by recording the affair in his humorously-kept log and giving a spree. If the bridegroom was a white man, Bully would also "buy" his oil, fungus and cotton, make him very drunk, place his laughing and blus.h.i.+ng bride in his arms, and then, in his absent-minded way, see him over the side into his boat and sail away without paying. Bully used to say that his defective memory was the cause of all the malignant slanders set afloat about him. And, as regarded women, he used to remark he also suffered from the curious complaint of "moral astigmatism." The rest of the girls reached home somehow, after undergoing a pleasant and varied experience, each being the happy possessor of one of his peculiar and characteristically written testimonials.

It was Bully's humour to give these precious doc.u.ments to the time-expired members of his harem, in the same manner as an English mistress would give a certificate of character and efficiency to a departing maid. Some of these papers are still extant in Tahiti and Mangareva. Many years ago when buying turtle at the little island of Rurutu, I saw one pasted on a doorpost in a native house. In the Western Carolines and the Pelew Group, when whale s.h.i.+ps were plentiful and prosperous, the native girls preserved these "characters" by gumming the paper (often upside down) on a piece of panda.n.u.s leaf bordered with devices in bead-work. When a fresh s.h.i.+p arrived, the damsels would bind these around their pretty little foreheads after the manner of phylacteries--and they were always read with deep interest by the blubber-hunting skippers and mates and the after-guard generally.

Bully's "characters" ran somewhat in this wise:--

TO ALL WHOM IT MAY CONCERN.

I, William H. Hayes, hereby certify that the bearer of this, Marutahina of Vahitahi, was with me for four or five months, and I can confidently say that I can recommend her to any one in need of an active young wife, general help, or to do ch.o.r.es. She is a very good girl, and the sole support of her mother--an old thief with a tattooed back who lives on Beka Beka.

About 1871, the newspapers on the Pacific slope had a good deal to say of Bully's doings. The _Daily Alta_ of San Francisco used to speak of him as a venturesome and high-spirited American gentleman, upholding the honour of his flag in the South Seas by disregarding the hateful tyranny of petty British Consuls; while the San Francisco _Bulletin_ called him a vile and brutal miscreant who should be hanged on the same gallows with _Alabama_ Sommes and _Shenandoah_ Wardell. (Apropos of the latter gentleman, it is interesting to remember that the Melbourne (Victoria) Club gave a ball at which the adoring women cut off as souvenirs the uniform b.u.t.tons of the gallant pirate and his officers.) The spitfire _Chronicle_ "claimed" that Captain William Henry Hayes was one of Nature's gentlemen, and "was certainly not the cause of a terrible affliction that had befallen the editor of a certain esteemed morning contemporary." (The wife of the editor referred to had eloped with some one.)