Scoundrels & Eccentrics of the Pacific

A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of New Zealand.

ISBN

E: 978-1-988516-50-9

M: 978-1-988516-52-3

An Upstart Press Book

Published in 2018 by Upstart Press Ltd

Level 4, 15 Huron Street, Takapuna 0622

Auckland, New Zealand

Text © John Dunmore 2018

The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

Design and format © Upstart Press Ltd 2018

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

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Contents

Foreword

Chinese Explorer or Conman?

Pirates and Their Ilk

Bligh of the Bounty

Mary Bryant and the Aftermath of the Bounty

Mutinous Mutineers

William Hayes: Bully and Thief

Captain Bureau, Unlucky Trader

A Mormon Adventurer

Shipwrecked Victims

Colonial Scoundrels

Chinese Victims

Queen Emma Coe

James Proctor

Charles de Rays, King of Oceania

Count Von Attems

Father Rougier

Niels Sorensen

Select Bibliography

Map of Oceania drawn in 1820.

Foreword

The Pacific Ocean was the last region to be discovered and explored by Europeans. Even for those who lived along its shores, it was a world of mystery, danger and legend. Venturing into its vastness was often considered unwise, and in most cases the earliest settlers, mostly from Asia and its outlying islands, had sailed into it to avoid some invasion or some threat from their own region, hoping that they might find a new and safer home on an uninhabited island. This had taken centuries and the islands of the Pacific eventually each presented their own private world, with their own legends, their way of life and their traditions.

The Europeans came much later, with discoveries, often unexpected, gradual exploration, followed by venturesome trade, settlement, exploitation and colonisation. The great powers tried to exclude each other and create their own empire – first the Spanish and the Dutch, then the British, the French, the Germans and in time the Japanese. But in between, there were raiders, pirates, thieves, private individuals who worked and often cheated in the hope of building their own little world, exploiting an ocean which was only slowly being controlled and brought into the theoretical orderliness that dominated the rest of the world.

This is a small collection of the tales that have been told of the men, and in some cases the women, who sought to benefit from the discoveries of the early explorers, scoundrels and rogues with little conscience but great craftiness, and of those who as a result found themselves victims of situations they could hardly imagine. It shows that humankind, in whatever period and whatever part of the world, may have its heroes, but it always has its villains.

1

Chinese Explorer or Conman?

To the people who lived along the coasts, the Pacific Ocean was the edge of the world. They stared out at this immensity of water, sometimes placid, more often angry, as they might at eternity itself. It might hold promise for a few; for some it was a world of legend, with mythical heroes and monsters, but it held terror for most. Wise indeed were those who merely took it for granted, something about which one did not speculate, a foreign world that was incomprehensible or meaningless. One could fish and sail along the shore, usually in some frail craft, but one would be unwise to venture out too far, out of sight of land, for one might never return.

To the Chinese, living in what most believed was the centre of the world, the Middle Kingdom, the sea was one of the limits of the universe. No one could live out there, certainly not human beings. It was a world of strange aliens, possibly the abode of the Immortals, but certainly one of mystery. For centuries, the Chinese built their empire across Asia, leaving the ocean to itself.

Those who lived close to the great rivers, such as the Yangtze and the Yellow River, the Huang He, and saw them roaring towards the ocean, swollen by heavy inland rains, overflowing and flooding into the rice fields, believed that there was a giant maelstrom out in the ocean, the Wei Lu, a great hole into which poured the water, taking with it any unfortunate craft that had ventured too close to it. If there was no such plughole, then the waters would rise up everywhere and flood the world. It was much more logical to believe in this Wei Lu, where the waters poured down into the earth and, after being cleansed in the underworld, re-emerged as bubbling springs in the mountain ranges or rose in spiralling clouds over the horizon. This belief remained widely held for centuries, because as late as the 13th century of the modern era the historian Chau Ju Kua, the author of Zhu Fan Zhi, or "A Description of Barbarous People, reminded his readers of the Great Hole of Wei Lu, where waters drain into the world from which men do not return".

The old legends also spoke of Fu Sang, a paradise somewhere beyond the horizon, a magical place where enchanters dwelt, where silkworms grew two metres long, and where the herb of eternal youth might be found. Immortality is a theme that was often found in the old legends that were narrated around the fire or discussed in temples.

Stories these might be, but some began to dream of going to see for themselves. Around the year 219 B.C., the Emperor Shi Huang Ti raised the question with one of his courtiers, Hsu Fu, or Xu Fu, who had a reputation as a skilled man and also as a sorcerer. Shi Huang Ti could look back on his own life with a great deal of satisfaction: he had started in 245 B.C. as a mere local ruler, but in less than 20 years he had unified China under his rule. He had reorganised the country, extended its frontier to the edges of Vietnam and Korea, had had a great wall built to keep out intruders, and was now ruling a vast empire with great efficiency and ruthlessness. His dynasty, the Qin or Ch’in, would give the country its name, and as a ruler he was both admired and feared.

Emperor Shi Huang Ti

However, one thing worried him, as he grew older, and that was the prospect of death. His name, he knew, would become immortal, his body would be preserved in a great mausoleum and guarded by an army of small soldier-like figurines, but his life would have ended, and he would know nothing of what the future might hold. He had heard, however, like most of the Chinese, of wondrous islands far off in the Pacific Ocean, where there grew a magic herb that ensured eternal life. The plant of immortality might be a myth, but it was worth a try, a feeling that grew after at least one assassination attempt and the onset of middle age. His courtier suggested that he could sail off in the name of the emperor, using his own great talents to deal with whatever magic islands he might encounter. Shi Huang Ti agreed and supplied him with the ships, made mostly of bamboo, and the crews and supplies he would need.

Hsu Fu is reported to have set out on his first expedition early in the year 219 B.C. He is said to have sailed from the ancient city of Lang Yu in Shantung province with a small fleet of large bamboo ships and to have begun his search for the islands where the Immortals lived, with the mission of persuading them to share their wonderful herb to preserve the life of the great Chinese emperor. He probably thought it a wise move, as he was only in his early thirties and he feared the struggles for succession that would inevitably occur after the emperor’s death and which, as one of the elderly ruler’s prized courtiers, would probably cost him his life.

There was no sign of him for almost a year, and most of the courtiers who knew about the enterprise assumed that he had been caught by the currents and driven into Wei Lu, or else fallen victim to some other monsters who were believed to inhabit islands of the Pacific. But he did reappear one day and reported that, after many a struggle, he had discovered an island he said was called Peng Lai and a palace known as the Chich Cheng, guarded by a fearsome dragon, and housing a powerful ruler whom he was finally allowed to meet. He presented the gifts he had brought and paid homage to the powerful Immortal on behalf of the emperor. But he had not succeeded in obtaining any of the sacred plants. The ruling magician knew how valuable the herb was, but he wanted more than Hsu Fu had brought – and he stressed that it needed to be well guarded on the voyage back to China, so that no unworthy person, no one in fact other than the emperor, could receive that marvellous plant. He had heard of the great Ch’in empire and its achievements, and he asked for Chinese young men of noble lineage, together with maidens of similar status and a number of skilled artisans. They would serve his own kingdom, learn his own magical skills and ensure the safety of the invaluable herb of immortality.

It seemed a straightforward proposition, and the emperor was soon persuaded. He gave Hsu Fu 3,000 young men and women – some say the number was even greater – and all the artisans and guards he needed. He added an ample supply of food and samples of Chinese artefacts, as well as personal gifts for the ruler, now referred to as the Great Magician of the Sea. Re-equipped and supplied with new rafts, Hsu Fu sailed away. He was never seen again, at least not by the emperor who died within a year or so of his departure. There was no magic herb for him, and the Qin dynasty collapsed a few years later in widespread disorder and endless plots and counterplots. It sounds to us as though Hsu Fu had found an attractive island somewhere, and that he planned to found a colony there. There might well be no magic herb at all, but Emperor Shih Huang Ti, a realist to the end, might have believed that if that was the case Hsu Fu in his colony would become his vassal, and if there was no herb of longevity, there would be at least an annual tribute. He was disappointed. His gamble did not pay.

According to most tales, Hsu Fu was never heard of again. But there are versions stating that Hsu Fu did return a few months later, saying that all was well and that the Great Magician of the Sea was keeping his promise to supply the plants, but that they were too precious to be taken to China without more armed guards powerful and numerous enough to protect them from any strangers or any of the island rulers that lay on the road back. By now, however, Shi Huang Ti was dead, and his heirs were not interested. Hsu Fu disappeared, supposedly returning to Peng Lai to persuade the Great Magician to relent.

Hsu Fu was undoubtedly a skilled navigator and there has been a fair amount of speculation over the years about the actual route he followed. In 1993, the Englishman Tim Severin attempted to prove that a bamboo raft could actually cross the Pacific. He sailed from Vietnam and covered several thousand miles before his vessel – which he had named the Hsu Fu – finally disintegrated. It is unlikely that the real Hsu Fu ever sailed to America – a continent the ancient Chinese knew nothing about – but it is fairly certain that he sailed to several large Pacific islands and was setting up his own kingdom on one of them.

Chinese mythology does mention a number of islands that lay out in the ocean – away from the dangerous Wei Lu – such as the kingdom of Queen Pimiko, in a country called Wa. It is mentioned in an ancient Chinese chronicle, the Hou Han Shu, compiled around the fifth century, and was probably situated in southern Japan. Pimiko is possibly a corrupted version of himeko, an archaic Japanese word meaning princess. When a princess, she remained unmarried, busying herself instead with magic and sorcery, and bewitching the populace, whereupon she became their queen. She kept 1,000 female attendants at her court, but few of the people ever saw her. There was only one man there, who was in charge of her wardrobe and her meals, and who acted as her means of communication. She lived in a palace surrounded by towers and stockades, defended by armed guards.

A thousand miles to the south of this queen’s land, there was another land, where dwarfs lived. Its inhabitants were no more than three or four feet high. Then to the south-east, much further off – as the journey, some said, took a year – one came to the land of the Naked People, and then to the country of the Black-Teethed Men. These stories may sound like imaginary myths, but they suggest some knowledge of the islands of Micronesia and Melanesia, where clothing can be regarded as skimpy indeed, and of some of the Philippines, where betelnut chewing is common and turns the teeth a distinctive and, to outsiders, startling black.

But it is now generally accepted that Hsu Fu travelled to what is now Japan. It is relatively close to the Chinese mainland, particularly to Shantung province, from which he had set out, and Hsu Fu is in fact recognised as one of the founders of early Japan. His arrival coincided with changes in agricultural techniques, and his name is included in several documents about early Japan. He is sometimes called the God of Farming, the God of Medicine and the God of Silk. Memorials to him can be found in several places, including a Ku Shu Research Institute attached to a local teachers’ college. His influence on early Japanese culture and trade is the subject of current research, including his possible influence on the Shinto religion. In a totally different context, he was used as a character in the Marvel Comics in 2011. . .

Hsu Fu was undeniably a skilled navigator, driving a small fleet of ships and rafts made largely of bamboo. As Tim Severin showed, they would not have survived a