The Devil in Paradise--Captain Putnam in Hawaii

by James L. Haley

  What I hold to be of greatest interest here are two things. First, the pirates here are strictly correct to regard themselves as a separate nation. Indeed they are a distinct people called the Boogis. They are very numerous and are spread among several sovereign territories, but they are most emphatically a sea people, and even live in houses built upon pilings over shallow water. Their distinctive style of boat is called a proa, they can be both sailed and rowed, and they come in all sizes, from efficient little fishing outriggers to large war-galleys that can, as I learned, challenge an American warship. Second, with all the Asiatic religions to choose from, these Boogis centuries ago converted to Mohammedanism. So I suppose I need not be surprised, considering the two wars that we fought with the Tripolitan states, that they consider piracy an honorable way of making a living, and believe that they have divine sanction to pillage the followers of other religions!

  What is lost on them is any notion that piracy, itself, is wrong. After my one battle with them, we fished the captain and a few dozen of his crew from the water—although I confess I would happily have left them to the sharks, with which these waters are thickly teeming. When put to questions, captain and crew alike had no idea they had done anything wrong, they wanted only to know what potentate was so lucky as to have engaged me and my powerful ship! What is wanted is for some powerful Western country to conquer this lawless hell and impose order. From what I have learned here in Singapore, it begins to appear as though the British and the Dutch are going to divide that duty—British on the mainland and Dutch in the islands. The common people suffer so from the present petty tyrants, a colonial government could scarce leave them worse off.

  The good news for you, my love, is that you needn’t worry for my safety, for the pirates here are no better hands at fighting than the Algerines were twenty years ago. The proas in which they usually attack merchant vessels are large enough to carry perhaps twenty men while being rowed by a dozen others, and may carry one small gun, say a six-pounder or swivel piece. When they attack a merchant ship they come in a swarm, maybe six to ten proas at a time. As in the Mediterranean, they depend upon their reputation for cruelty to convince merchant captains to surrender without a struggle and sue for mercy, which is customarily granted. But if there is resistance, or if the Boogis suspect that a captain is concealing valuable property from them—I do not wish to disturb you with a relation of what tortures they can resort to, and have done.

  Their war proas are adequate for molesting the innocent, but as elsewhere in the world cannot stand up to a real warship for a moment. I commenced my run up the Malacca Strait, where they carry out most of their business, having disguised my vessel as a large merchantman. Perhaps it was foolish to even attempt to mask such a large warship as a trader, and we expended some pretty pennies in the effort, but apparently we deceived only ourselves—and some few other passing merchantmen in the Strait who hailed us to learn our cargo and where we were bound!

  We were not unobserved, however, for upon our return the Boogis sank a hulk in the channel to foul us, and whilst we were engaged in getting free staged an ambuscade. They came round an island in a vessel of their same basic design, but much larger. They might have been upon us and worked some damage, but my bosun did some quick thinking and adjusted the sails to pull us free. Once we gained steerage their fate was sealed, and American powder and ball, and some good shooting, did its work. My casualties were three men wounded forward, when their one shot that they got off knocked a chaser off its carriage, and also lamentably carried away our figurehead. My men are recovering, but I fear that poor Mary Washington has been cast upon some lonely beach, or floats lost among the roots of a mangrove swamp.

  In the morning we shall be bound for Canton to show the flag, confer with the American agent there, and report facts of salient interest to the government at home.

  As for me, I cannot come back to you soon enough—and no doubt to see little Benjamin twice the size I left him!

  I remain your very loving (and healthy and uninjured) husband,

  Bliven Putnam, Capt. USN

  MRS. CLARITY PUTNAM,

  ABCFM MISSION

  C/O UNITED STATES CONSULAR AGT.

  HONORURU, KINGDOM OF HAWAII

  When Bliven sent a note ashore to the resident commandant that he had pirates held prisoner aboard and asked how he should dispose of them, Travers came out himself in a large cutter with a guard of red-coated marines to take them off his hands. The two watched together from the quarterdeck as they were led barefoot up the ladder and relieved of their bonds long enough to climb down to the cutter.

  “We heard quite a fearful rumpus across the strait yesterday,” said Travers. “That must have been you.”

  “Yes. We were surprised they would attack us so close to Singapore. We were expecting it in some more remote place.”

  “Well, but being good pirates, they expected that you expected that.”

  Bliven signed the receipt that he was handing over the prisoners. “No doubt I should have expected that they expected that I expected—”

  “And so on, yes.” They laughed. “Where are you bound now, Captain Putnam?”

  “Canton. Have you any advice?”

  “Oh, God, fifty miles of mudflats. Best thing is to stop in Macau and take on a pilot. Plenty of them there, and they know the channels like the veins over their knuckles.”

  “I shall. Perchance do you know if Mr. Dunn is still the American agent there who I should call on?”

  Travers’s face turned sour. “Yes, to the latest that we know, he is still there. You shan’t have trouble finding him, just look for a fat, pesky little old moralizing son of a bitch up to his knees in silk fans and jade goddesses, lamenting how the poor Chinese are induced to smoke opium. Once you are among the Thirteen Factories, you will find him quick enough, his is the place that looks like a curiosity shop.”

  “My thanks, Commandant.” He did not ask into the fate of the pirates. He knew that, balanced around the world, there was an even chance they would hang, or be paroled back to continue their trade, whether on the promise to behave themselves or by the discreet passage of gold to their captors. In the morning they saluted the battery and stood out east.

  * * *

  * * *

  ONE DIVIDEND THAT the Portuguese reaped from their glory days of exploration, even in their fallen state, was that they retained the commercial enclave of Macau on the west entrance of the Pearl River, that mighty third river of China after the Yangtze, and which actually carried more water, and silt, than the Yellow River, having laid down at its mouth a braid of channels through mudflats fifteen miles wide and more than thirty miles inland to Canton. Their first night under way, Bliven fished out his copy of Jedidiah Morse’s Compendious Geography to see what he could learn about the place, and his amazement only began with the assertion that Canton held some one and one-half million inhabitants—he could scarce even imagine such a city—and every year exported some eighteen million pounds of tea.

  Putting in to the harbor at Macau, Bliven selected from his choice of pilots a gray-haired man of indeterminate but certainly mixed race, by the name of Emanuel Sosa, on the evidence of his being the most experienced. With Bliven and his lieutenants on the quarterdeck, this English-speaking Chinese-Portugee directed Yeakel to shorten to fore and main topsails, and the fore and main topmast staysails. Yeakel complied, then caught Bliven’s eye and shrugged his shoulders; but Sosa seemed to know exactly what he was about, for as Rappahannock creeped forward into life, they noticed that the darkest and greenest water always seemed to lie ahead of them. “Mr. Bosun, you fix sails to follow my turns, yes? Otherwise we hit bottom, maybe.”

  “Your pardon, Captain.” Yeakel backed away. “It looks like I am going to be busy for a little bit.”

  The Pearl River estuary narrowed by degrees to a broad river that, as they ascended, divided and subdivided with s
tunning frequency, and at each confluence Sosa chose a channel and entered it, as unerring as he was laconic, with no chart of any kind for a guide. Human presence along the river, never entirely absent, thickened the farther they ascended, until houses became neighborhoods, and roads became thickly traveled streets, and at length they found themselves as much in the beating heart of a city as the Thames is the center of London. They beheld ships at anchor in a cacophony of trading schooners and brigs, and scattered liberally among them Chinese junks, which to Bliven seemed to distill some essence of what he had imagined China to be. So, too, did the uncountable sampans that shuttled about, pushed with steering oars—the transport of the common people who looked up at the big Western ships with a commercial eye, laden with trade goods, fresh vegetables, and girls.

  Bliven approached him at the wheel. “Tell me, Mr. Sosa, have you recently piloted a large schooner, an American, the Fair Trader, Captain Saeger?”

  “Not I, but my brother has.” He cast his glance about. “Don’t see him just now, but he may still be in here somewhere.” From their northerly heading Sosa made a sudden ninety-degree turn to starboard, sending Yeakel into a flurry of turning the yards as almost at once they found themselves opposite a large square off the port side, with a row of buildings in European architecture lined up opposite the river.

  “Let go your anchor!”

  The heavy cable whirred through the hawsehole as their four-ton bow anchor crashed into the water, running out almost nothing as it settled into the shallow mud. Sosa left the wheel and joined the officers at the port rail. “Very well, gentlemen, let me tell you where you are. Starboard behind you is Honam Island; upstream beyond you lies Whampoa. Those need not concern you, for foreigners are most strictly limited to this square of Canton. It is called the Thirteen Factories, and there you see them.”

  His arms swept from left to right across the square, where three hundred yards away lay a row of stone storefronts with arched windows in a second story above them.

  “Are they factories?” asked Miller. “They look more like mercantiles to me.”

  “They are mercantiles,” Sosa agreed. “‘Store’ and ‘factory’ are very similar words in Chinese. Going farther in away from you on the left is New China Street, with the Danish trading house on the left and the Spanish on the right, and the French next to them. Then you see Old China Street. It is lined with local merchants, so when you let your men go ashore and they wish to purchase something to show they have been to China, that is where they will go. Now, listen to me good, both those streets, and Hog Street over on your right, pass through to Thirteen Factory Street. No one—and mark me, no one—may go beyond Thirteen Factory Street for any reason. Foreigners are not wanted in China, except in this one small place. Westerners are called lo faan; that means barbarians. I hope for your own sakes you will not test this boundary.”

  “I believe your meaning is clear, Mr. Sosa.”

  “Very well. Now, just east of Old China Street is the American factory, or shop, and next to it the Austrian, Dutch, and so on, the British on the far right; you see everyone’s flags out front. The man you want to see about American matters is Mr. Dunn; inquire at the American factory. He lives upstairs. Is there anything else you need of me?”

  “No, Mr. Sosa. You have been very helpful, and we thank you.” Bliven extended his hand and he took it.

  “Now, on the shore of this square you see two little customshouses. If you will lower a boat and take me to them, I can make my way from there.”

  “My bosun will see to it. Mr. Yeakel!”

  “Sir?”

  “Lower my gig, if you please.”

  Bliven accompanied Sosa to the customshouse and thanked him again before entering the square, heading straight but leisurely toward the American flag, and rather enjoying the penetrating stares of the Chinese who came to the Thirteen Factory Square to look at foreigners.

  When he entered the American factory his attention was at once drawn to a plump man of forty with a sharp nose and small mouth and receding curly brown hair. He drew attention not for his appearance, nor even for his meticulous dress, but for the fact that he was conversing in rapid and apparently faultless Chinese with two wealthy-appearing locals. When he saw Bliven’s uniform he excused himself, shaking not their hands but his own as he bowed himself away.

  “Mr. Dunn, may I presume?”

  “I am Nathan Dunn.” He extended his hand and Bliven took it.

  “Captain Bliven Putnam, United States sloop of war Rappahannock, just now come into harbor. May I speak with you for a few moments?”

  “By all means. You must come up and have tea.” He led him to the side of the mercantile, to a narrow stair that had not been visible behind a mahogany lattice screen. Bliven followed Dunn through a door and once in the apartment he stopped, stock-still in his tracks. “Good heavens! Is this the fourteenth century? Was that door a portal into the past? Where is Marco Polo? I have always wanted to meet him!”

  With each sentence Dunn laughed harder, a shaking loaf of jolly amiability. “Oh, you are a breath of fresh air, Captain. We don’t see many Americans here. Sometimes it is only Mr. Abeel, the missionary, and myself, and he is not always fun to be around.” A servant entered from a rear room, and a few words in Chinese sent him away for tea.

  “Well, that is a large part of why I have come, Mr. Dunn. Your country’s policy is now to look outward upon the world more than in the past. I am here to show the flag and inquire whether you have any needs that you wish to draw the government’s attention to. But first you must tell me about these . . . things! Never have I seen such an explosion of fine treasures. What did you do, loot the imperial palace? Do I need to sneak you out to safety before you are discovered?”

  Dunn began again to laugh hard. “Stop, Captain! Mercy! Oh, my. Yes, I am a collector of fine Oriental crafts and art. But no, I have not raided the imperial palace. I am, however, supported in this endeavor by the emperor himself, who has permitted me to buy much of this.”

  “Yes, I heard something of your court connections from the British when I was just in Singapore. You do not seem to be their favorite person.”

  Dunn smiled, this time sardonically. “No, I should think not, and I can only imagine what they might have told you. You would like for me to explain my wealth and my connections straightaway, to ease your suspicions of my character? Very well, I shall save you the time. Let me ask you this, Captain, as you seem to have a better than average education. When you studied history, did you learn much about the colonial American economy, based upon that unholy triangle dependent on sugar and rum and slaves?”

  Bliven smiled nervously. “Well, yes, but I am certain it was not put in such blunt terms as to injure my feelings of patriotism.”

  “No, it never is, but it will help you understand the China trade.” Bliven found his change of mood astonishing, from the jovial to the precise and direct. “Here it is in a nutshell: There is enormous demand in the West for Chinese silk, tea, porcelain, furniture, and so on. In exchange, we sell our goods to them, but they are not interested in buying much of anything. This creates a great imbalance in payments. The British have discovered one product that the Chinese are very keen to acquire, and that is opium from British India; and once they become dependent upon it, they become desperate to acquire it. The British feel no qualms about balancing their payments by creating a whole class of wretched opium addicts. The emperor, however, despises what they are doing, and he has issued one decree upon another against the opium trade, and the British ignore them, of course. I, however, have found a way to balance our trade without opium, of which the emperor has taken favorable notice, and it puts English noses severely out of joint.”

  “May I ask how you worked such a financial miracle?”

  Dunn wagged a finger in the air. “Ha-haa, you must not ask my trade secrets! But look around you. I was once a ban
krupt in Pennsylvania, for which the Quakers threw me out of their Society. One creditor to whom I owed a great deal of money, instead of putting me in debtors’ prison, set me up as a partner to manage his business. Now I have paid him off, and I have as much money as I will ever be able to spend, and I collect objects that demonstrate the Chinese way of life, as you see.”

  “Yes. I thought for a moment I had entered a museum.”

  “Well, in a way you have. When I take all this home, I intend to exhibit it. Just look: teak, jade, porcelain . . . Some of it is five hundred years old.”

  “Wait, though—I was just told that foreigners may not leave the Thirteen Factory Square. How have you managed to collect all this?”

  “Because the emperor is so pleased with my stand against the opium trade, he has seen to it that I have the proper contacts, all over the country. It has driven the British nearly mad with jealousy, and I fear causes them to cling even harder to their infernal opium trade. And I may say that in this endeavor I have been most nobly supported by one of the leading hong merchants, a Mr. Ting Qua, whom I should like for you to meet. He can tell you more stories about the British than I can, and far more colorfully.”

  “Well, I am heartened to discover that an honest Quaker can prosper—”

  “Former Quaker, we must say in all truth, but when they expelled me it was with the proviso that they would welcome me back when I was cleared of my debts.”

  “Why should they care? My word, that seems an odd stance for such an egalitarian religion. ‘Simple Gifts’ and all that.”

  Dunn’s face hardened. “Yes, isn’t it?”