by Scott Ridley
Mackenzie had determined that there were no Straits of Admiral de Fonte. Though Vancouver would have valued this information, he had begun to reach the same conclusion. By September, after searching inlets a hundred miles farther along the coast toward Baranof Island,the British commander began to believe that stories about passageways from the Straits of de Fonte in the north and de Fuca in the south were fabrications. Disillusioned, and with the winter closing in on the bleak, rocky landscape as it had on Caamano the year before, he started back to Nootka, arriving on October 5.
The San Carlos was the only ship in the harbor at Friendly Cove. Ramon Saavedra had taken command from Fidalgo. He told Vancouver of the ships that had arrived and sailed for China: eight American traders, seven British, two French, and one Portuguese. Kendrick and the Lady Washington were still at Clayoquot. The Jefferson and Resolution were preparing to winter at Barkley Sound to the south. No orders or letters had come for Vancouver since he’d left for the north in the spring, and negotiations with Quadra remained suspended.
BACK IN LONDON, British and Spanish representatives signed a second Nootka agreement on February 12, 1793, in which Spain pledged that it would pay 210,000 Spanish dollars to John Meares as compensation for loss of his ships and land. But the agreement did not attempt to clarify the terms Vancouver and Quadra wrestled with. In fact, there were no other orders issued for Vancouver. The Home Office and the Admiralty were immersed in the spreading war in Europe, which had forced England and Spain into an unlikely alliance.
Vancouver knew nothing of this yet. He remained wary of the Spanish and saw the time for his expedition running out. While he had been given this opportunity to complete James Cook’s work, in his darker moments he must have felt the voyage had become a fool’s errand: he was ignored by his superiors as he attempted to claim lands for which there was no clear title and spent arduous months searching for a passage that did not seem to exist.
In the absence of explicit orders, and under a growing sense of failure, events ate at him. Hampered by Kendrick and the Americans,and by those he saw as treacherous natives, the frustrated commander became desperate for some victory. The importance of the Sandwich Islands for Britain’s “extension of her commerce over the Pacific Ocean” made it imperative that he succeed there. It seemed like an outrageous goal, but he continued to want “a voluntary resignation of these territories [Sandwich Islands], by formal surrender of the king and the people to the power and authority of Great Britain.” Achieving such a surrender, he wrote in his journal, would create “an incontrovertible right” and prevent altercations with other nations over claims to the Sandwich Islands in the future.
Vancouver and William Brown undoubtedly discussed the situation, and what to do about the Americans. Both men believed that those under the American flag had, as Vancouver wrote, “taken up their abode with different chiefs of some power and consequence, who esteemed these people as great acquisitions, from their knowledge of firearms …” Whether they understood Kendrick’s distribution of muskets and his loose leadership of the “banditti of renegadoes” as part of a conscious strategy is not clear. Although Kendrick had no government support and little in the way of men or resources, his ability to form alliances and support native hostility posed a grave threat to British ambition. As in the insurrection on Kauai, Vancouver saw Kendrick and his men “furthering the ambitious views of the haughty chiefs, with whom they are resident” and blocking a surrender of the islands. He would need to raise a powerful threat to sway the chiefs to come under Britain’s control. The influence of the Americans and other foreigners had to be removed.
ON THE MORNING OF OCTOBER 8, Vancouver headed south for New Albion and the mission ports of Spanish California. He wanted to repair Discovery in a safe harbor with ample supplies, and to gather more intelligence and gifts to renew the seduction of Kamehameha and his chiefs.
Stalled in light winds that first day, just south of Nootka, Vancouver noted a “strange sail” to windward that he could not overtake. John Kendrick was leaving Clayquot at about the same time, and the two ships might have crossed paths, but night was coming on and the strange sail slipped off in the darkness.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Possession
Sandwich Islands
JANUARY–MARCH 1794
THE SHADE UNDER THE DEEP CANOPY of leaves cooled the forest floor on the slopes above the village of Waiakea. James Boyd, followed by a priest, picked out the tall koa trees he wanted cut. Boyd had been brought here to the north side of Hawaii by John Kendrick and placed in the service of Kamehameha to build his dream ship, a fortyton, thirty-six-foot armed sloop. The bulky island king was ecstatic. Boyd, who had been ship’s carpenter for the Jefferson, was probably promised whatever he wanted by Kamehameha. Kendrick also received the king’s gratitude for providing Boyd.
After the priest offered a prayer to mark each tree, the cutters would chop through the creamy sapwood and red heartwood and haul the logs to the shore to season before being trimmed into a frame. Confident of the outcome, Kendrick set off through the islands to trade and meet the men he had left nearly twenty months earlier: John Williams, John Rowbottom, and James Coleman. He had learned from Kamehameha and his chiefs that Vancouver was trying to persuade them to place Hawaii under British rule. And in the Leeward Islands he was stunned to find that William Brown had already struck an agreement with Kahekili that Brown believed gave him ownership of Maui, Lanai, Molokai, and Oahu. In light of their deep animosity toward Americans, there was no telling what steps Vancouver and Brown might take to close the islands to American ships. Returning to Kealakekua, Kendrick set out to determine what he could do to disrupt their plans.
Vancouver’s ships were sighted on January 9. The weather was dark and gloomy, with low-lying clouds and the shore enveloped in fog. In the early morning, as the ships labored through a heavy ocean swell, the clouds and fog broke under strong winds from the north. Vancouver stood offshore and sent in three armed boats to find an anchorage at Waiakea harbor.
When Vancouver last saw Kamehameha ten months earlier in March 1793, the understanding was that they would meet here. Vancouver waited anxiously as a few daring canoes ventured into the wind to the ship. They traded fish and brought news of his arrival back to shore. At 10 a.m., Kamehameha appeared with several other chiefs and their women, breaking through the surf in a large canoe and flying an English pennant that Vancouver had given him. The robed island king offered a hearty welcome as he climbed on board, and told Vancouver that he had been awaiting his ship for weeks. The British commander responded warmly and bestowed presents on the chiefs and their women. It began as an auspicious reunion, but within a short time the conversation turned sour.
Vancouver was told that John Kendrick had left a shipwright named Boyd on shore, and that to Kamehameha’s great joy, the frame of his first vessel had been cut. Vancouver also learned that Kendrick was on the opposite side of the island at Kealakekua, where he had been attended for the past two months by Kamehameha’s aide, John Young.
The British commander tried to restrain himself. At this point, Kendrick must have seemed like a prescient ghost. During the last visit, Vancouver had turned down Kamehameha’s request to leave a warship here. Although it seemed impossible, Kendrick had found a way to deliver one. As Brown had said, there were too many Americans settled here, and at Oahu, and Kauai. They had too much influence, and were always turning up behind the scenes to reinforce the chiefs’ sense of independence and sovereignty with more arms. Things seemed to be going off course right from the start.
Hilo from the Bay by James Gay Sawkins. Vancouverturned down staying at the harbor at Waiakea Hilo and was eager to leave for Kealakekua, where Kendrick was engaged with the chiefs.
VANCOUVER WAS EAGER to get to Kealakekua and asked Kamehameha to come with him. The island king declined. There was a makahiki taboo on, and he was compelled to stay within the limits of the district in which the ceremonies had commenced. In ad
dition to religious rites and festivities, a procession went to each district of the island to collect annual taxes. No one could travel until the task had been completed and the makahiki taboo was lifted. Vancouver suggested that Kamehameha seek the indulgence of the priests to break the taboo. Kamehameha refused and proposed that the vessels stay near Waiakea, promising they would be well supplied.
Vancouver was caught in a dilemma. He couldn’t leave Kamehameha, and he couldn’t let Kendrick remain unchallenged at Kealakekua. This would be his final chance to gain these islands. The festive atmosphere at Kealakekua, where Cook had been greeted as a god, was the essential backdrop for the diplomacy and seduction he planned. Kamehameha had to be there if Vancouver were to accomplish anything. Seeing no choice, he had to risk a desperate move.
Vancouver said he couldn’t stay because there was no safe harbor for his ships along this coast. Kamehameha knew this was false and didn’t respond. Afraid that the king would return ashore, Vancouver then provoked his jealousy, suggesting that their friendship had cooled, and that if he had to sail without him, he “had no doubt of soon finding amongst the other islands some chief, whose assistance, protection, and authority would on all occasions be afforded.” It was a clear allusion to the Leeward Island kings Kahekili and Kaeo, and the teasing threat worked. Kamehameha probably knew of Brown’s new alliance with the enemy chiefs and grew distraught. He stayed overnight on the Discovery but would not eat. He considered himself the last person who should violate the established taboo of leaving the district at this point in makahiki, yet he wanted and needed Vancouver’s support. Yielding to the British commander, Kamehameha sent his half-brother, Kalaimamahu, ashore to reason with the priests and ask for an indulgence to break the taboo. But before the young chief could return with an answer, the Discovery set out with Kamehameha and the remaining six chiefs and their consorts.
The wind continued to blow hard out of the northwest and west, creating rough seas. As they rounded the eastern end of the island, tall columns of smoke rose over the upland, indicating volcanic activity and setting off superstitious whispers about the gods among Kamehameha’s entourage. As they approached Kealakekua on June 12, the wind dropped and they lay offshore through the afternoon in light rain showers. In the evening, Vancouver sent a messenger for John Young to bring out hogs and vegetables. Young appeared the next morning, but brought no hogs because of the island-wide taboo. What he did have was a letter from John Howell, an agent for Kendrick now living ashore under the protection of Keeaumoku, the chief of the Kona district. It was a letter of welcome, and rankled Vancouver further. Late in the day, as the ships lay far out in the persisting calm, Young took Kamehameha ashore.
As dusk settled, Kamehameha arrived and there was a stir in the village with his landing and word of vessels offshore. At 10 p.m. three ships appeared at the broad entrance to the harbor—Vancouver’s Discovery, followed by the Chatham and the storeship Daedalus. Kendrick called to have the American colors hoisted.
Kamehameha had fires lit along the beach near the Discovery‘s former anchorage. Vancouver saw the lamplight of a ship already in that spot and maneuvered in close beside her. The Washington and her American flag appeared in the dark with a few of her crew on deck. At last he would come face-to-face with Kendrick.
Vancouver’s ships were greeted by calls from shore as they anchored. Women paddled out to them. The British commander’s sense of competition with Kendrick was evident. “At this late hour many of our former friends, particularly of the fair sex,” Vancouver noted happily, “lost no time in testifying the sincerity of the public sentiment in our favor.” Using a strategy of lavish praise, generous gifts, and veiled threats, he was determined to pull out all the stops to sway support away from the American renegades and get what he wanted.
During the passage, Vancouver had learned that James Boyd planned to construct Kamehameha’s prized new vessel on the beach at Waiakea. Dismissing the shipwright’s abilities, he told Kamehameha he would have the frame transported and his carpenters would construct the ship at Kealakekua. From his own supply rooms he would provide sails, a mast, spars, caulking, and tackle. Kamehameha was delighted. Vancouver congratulated himself that there was no other favor he could have bestowed that would have pleased the island king more. He completed his takeover of the project, declaring that the vessel would be christened Britannia, and described her as Kamehameha’s first “man-of-war.” In view of his constant criticism of others supplying weapons to the natives, taking over construction of a master weapon for Kamehameha showed that Vancouver was more than willing to compromise his “humanitarian” views and skirt the limits of his own orders.
Vancouver also found during the passage from Waiakea that Kamehameha was struggling with his personal life, being estranged from his favorite queen, the teenage Kaahumanu, because of suspected adultery between her and Kaiana. Kamehameha brushed aside Vancouver’s offer to help him with a reconcilation, but the British commander would later persist in playing cupid when he recognized the critical gains Kaahumanu could deliver.
vANCOUVER’S SHIPS WERE IMPRESSIVE alongside the Washington. The sea-worn sixty-foot, ninety-ton American brigantine was much smaller than the eighty-foot, 135-ton Chatham, less than half the bulk of the 340-ton, ninety-nine-foot Discovery, and dwarfed by the storeship Daedalus. Vancouver seemed to have an endless supply of trade goods to offer (except the avidly desired weapons). And with more than one hundred eighty uniformed officers and men, the British expedition vastly outnumbered the Washington‘s polyglot crew, which probably did not number thirty.
In his typical style, Kendrick took things head on. Early on the morning after the British arrival, he appeared on the deck of the Discovery, accompanied by John Howell and the district chief Keawea- heulu. Vancouver was in the midst of having livestock delivered ashore as a gift: a bull and two bull calves, a cow, three rams, and three ewes he had picked up at Monterey. Vancouver was perhaps surprised at Kendrick’s impressive size and his direct, casual manner as he presented himself, dressed in the best coat his sea chest had to offer. This was the brazen American. Vancouver concealed his judgment in their polite banter.
He knew that Kendrick had already sailed among the other islands to check on affairs at Oahu and Kauai. It was clear that the American captain was taking advantage of any business opportunity to build his ties with these people. He was trading for feathered war cloaks, and one he had on board his ship was said to be nine feet long and twenty-four feet wide, the largest in the islands. He had reportedly given his two stern chasers for it. He also had on board chunks of ambergris, a grayish waxy substance produced by sperm whales, treasured in the East for making perfume. One piece was said to weigh more than eighty pounds (valued at about $230 per pound). His men at Kauai were still collecting sandalwood and pearls, and he would soon set up a small operation to make molasses there, which would trade at a premium for furs on the Northwest Coast. He told Vancouver that he had been at Kealakekua for six weeks and was wintering over before returning to the Northwest Coast next spring. Howell would be staying here to manage business.
Vancouver had already met Howell at Yuquot when he acted as one of Quadra’s translators in the first failed negotiations two years before. He had impressed Vancouver as highly educated and articulate, though he would be regarded by later captains as a wayward opportunist and con artist.
Wanting to probe what these men were up to, and perhaps hoping to see Kendrick’s charts of the Northwest Coast, Vancouver invited them to dine with him the following day. At daylight the next morning (January 15), three large canoes “laden with forty very fine hogs, and thirty small ones, with a proportionate quantity of vegetables” came to Vancouver’s three ships from Kamehameha. The period of taboo was over, and many people were gathering for the festival of makahiki—celebrations and games, dancing, theatrical performances, and mock battles—characterized as “a sort of Saturnalia” by the Europeans. Thousands of people flooded into the two Kealakek
ua villages and camped in temporary shelters on the nearly barren lowlands to the south.
That evening Kendrick and Howell went on board the Discovery for dinner with Vancouver and his officers. After formalities and polite conversation, Kendrick wanted to talk about William Brown and the Butterworth group. He understood the constraints Vancouver was under as a royal officer. Brown, on the other hand, was free to commit whatever acts he chose, apparently with Vancouver’s tacit approval. There was the episode of the killings at Clayoquot and hostility toward American traders, and other actions here in the islands, especially at Kauai.
Vancouver already had Brown’s side of the story. In addition to their discussions, Brown left a letter for Vancouver at Kealakekua complaining that Kendrick’s men had taken up arms at Kauai in support of Inamoo. The rebellion hadn’t ended with the first round of killings. After Vancouver met captives in transit to Oahu last year, Kahekili sent a party of his warriors to investigate the rebellion. Inamoo was warned of war canoes approaching, and he dispatched Kendrick’s men and others with muskets to the beach. They “drove them with great slaughter from the island,” Vancouver noted, “and pursued them in their flight until they left few to relate … the untimely fate of those who had fallen.” Vancouver believed that “This melancholy event would not, most probably, have happened had not these strangers advised and assisted in perpetuation of this diabolical and unprovoked barbarity …”
According to Brown, Kahekili received a report of the attack from the few survivors and decided to go to Kauai. Brown offered him the use of his ships and arms. He took Kahekili aboard the Butterworth and sailed to Kauai, where Inamoo was brought aboard and questioned. Inamoo explained that the rebellion had not been against Keao and Kahekili, but plotters had sought to overthrow Inamoo’s regency and had to be stopped. Kahekili was satisfied with Inamoo’s answers. Brown used the occasion to offer Kahekili a pledge of support and protection against any attack, including an assault from Kamehameha. Kahekili signed an agreement with him in the fall of 1793 giving Brown certain rights to the Leeward Islands. From a native perspective such agreements lasted only for the chief’s lifetime, but Brown believed that he was now lord of all the Leeward Islands except Kauai and Niihau.