The ships and sailors of old Salem

by Ralph Delahaye Paine

FOOTNOTES:

[30] The name of this island is spelled Decima, Disma, Deshima, by the sailor diarists. In the official records of Commodore Perry’s voyage it is spelled Dezima.

[31] Magistrates or police officers.

CHAPTER XIV
THE FIRST YANKEE SHIP AT GUAM
(1801)

That minute dot on the map of the Pacific known as Guam has appealed to the American people with a certain serio-comic interest as a colonial possession accidentally acquired and ruled by one exiled naval officer after another in the rôle of a benevolent despot and monarch of all he surveys. This most fertile and populous of the Ladrone Islands, which are spattered over a waste of blue water for four hundred miles and more, was casually picked up as the spoils of war, it will be remembered, by the cruiser Charleston soon after hostilities with Spain had been declared in 1898. The Spanish Governor of Guam was rudely awakened from his siesta by the boom of guns seaward and, with the politeness of his race, hastened to send out word to the commander of the American cruiser that he was unable to return the salute for lack of powder. Thereupon he was informed that he was not being saluted but captured, and the Stars and Stripes were run above the ancient fort and its moldering cannon which had barked salvos of welcome to the stately galleons of Spain bound from South America to Manila two centuries before.

The sovereignty of Castile being eliminated in this hilarious and harmless fashion, the hard headed legatees who wore the blue of the American navy sought to reform what had been a tropical paradise, where no man worked unless he wanted to, where simple, brown-skinned folk dwelt in drowsy contentment without thought of the morrow. The gospel taught by the late Captain Richard Leary as naval governor of Guam aimed to make these happy islanders more industrious and more moral according to the code of the United States. His successors have labored along similar lines and Captain Dorn, governor of Guam in the year of 1908, proclaimed such commendable but rigorous doctrine as this:

“Every resident of the island having no apparent means of subsistence who has the physical ability to apply himself or herself to some lawful calling; every person found loitering about saloons, dram shops or gambling houses, or tramping or straying through the country without visible means of support; every person known to be a pickpocket, thief or burglar, when found loitering about any gambling house, cockpit or any outlying barrio, and every idle or dissolute person of either sex caught occupying premises without the consent of the owner thereof, shall on conviction be punished by a fine of $250, or imprisonment for one year or both.”

A brighter picture of the life of these islanders was painted several years ago by W. E. Safford, who wrote of them in a paper contributed to the American Anthropologist:

“Everybody seemed contented and had a pleasant greeting for the stranger. It seemed to me that I had discovered Arcadia, and when I thought of a letter I had received from a friend asking whether I believed it would be possible to civilize the natives, I felt like exclaiming: ‘God forbid.’”

The same visitor relates of these people and their ways:

“There are few masters and few servants in Guam. As a rule, the farm is not too extensive to be cultivated by the family, all of whom, even to the little children, lend a hand. Often the owners of neighboring farms work together in communal fashion, one day on A’s corn, the next on B’s, and so on, laughing, skylarking, and singing at their work and stopping whenever they feel like it to take a drink of tuba from a neighboring cocoanut tree. Each does his share without constraint, nor will one indulge so fully in tuba as to incapacitate himself for work, for experience has taught the necessity of temperance, and every one must do his share of the reciprocal services. By the time the young men have finished their round the weeds are quite high enough once more in A’s corn to require attention. In the evening they separate, each going to his own ranch to feed his bullock, pigs and chickens; and after a good supper they lie down on a Pandanus mat spread over the elastic platform of split bamboo.”

A pleasant picture, this, of toil lightened by common interest; an idyllic glimpse of what work ought to be, perhaps worthy the attention of socialists, labor unions, and those that scorn the heathen in his blindness.

Almost a hundred years before Guam became a United States possession, the island was visited by a Salem bark, the Lydia, the first vessel that ever flew the American flag in the harbor of this island. There has been preserved in manuscript an illustrated journal of the first mate of the Lydia, William Haswell, in which he wrote at considerable length the story of this historical pioneering voyage, and his impressions of the island and its people under Spanish rule in the faraway year of 1801. As the earliest description of a visit to Guam by an American sailor or traveler, the manuscript has gained a timely interest by the transfer of the island from under the Spanish flag.

However arduous may be the restrictions imposed by the conscientious naval governors of to-day, the journal of First Mate Haswell of the Lydia shows that the islanders were released from a condition of slavery and merciless exploitation by the memorable arrival of the cruiser Charleston and the subsequent departure from the stone palace of the last of the Dons of Spain.

The very earliest experience of these islanders with Christian civilization must have inspired unhappy tradition to make them far from fond of their rulers. The Marianne or Ladrone Islands were discovered by Magellan on March 6, 1521, after a passage of three months and twenty days from the strait which bears his name. Among the accounts written of this voyage is that of Antonio Pigafetta, of Vicenza, which relates the terrible sufferings endured across an unexplored ocean. After there was no more food the crews were forced to eat rats, which brought a price of half a crown each, “and enough of them could not be got.” The seamen then ate sawdust, and the ox hide used as chafing gear on the rigging of the mainyards. The water was yellow and stinking. Scurvy devastated the expedition, and nineteen men died of it, while twenty-five or thirty more fell ill “of divers sicknesses, both in the arms and legs and other places in such manner that very few remained healthy.”

In this desperate plight, Magellan sighted two islands on which there were no natives nor any food, and passed by them to find an anchorage off what was later called Guam. The natives came out to welcome the ship, skimming over the water in wonderful canoes or proas, and brought gifts of fruit. The ships’ sails were furled and preparations made to land when a skiff which had ridden astern of the flagship was missed. It may have broken adrift, but the natives were suspected of stealing it, and Captain-General Magellan at once led forty armed men ashore, burned forty or fifty houses and many boats, and slaughtered seven or eight native men and women.

“Before we went ashore,” writes Pigafetta, “some of our people who were sick said to us that if we should kill any of them whether man or woman, that we should bring on board their entrails, being persuaded that with the latter they could be cured. When we wounded some of those islanders with arrows which entered their bodies, they tried to draw forth the arrow, now in one way, now in another, in the meantime regarding it with great astonishment, and they died of it, which did not fail to cause us compassion. Seeing us taking our departure, then, they followed us with more than a hundred boats for more than a league. They approached our ships, showing us fish and pretending to wish to give them to us; but when they were near they cast stones at us and fled. We passed under full sail among their boats, which, with great dexterity, escaped us. We saw among them some women who were weeping and tearing their hair, surely for their husbands killed by us.”

After this bloodthirsty and wicked visitation no attempt was made to colonize these islands until a Jesuit priest, Padre Diege Luis de Suavitores, landed at Guam in 1668, when a mission was established. The Spanish Jesuits held full sway until they were expelled in 1769 and their place taken by the Friars.

When the Salem bark, Lydia, visited Guam, therefore, in 1801, the Spanish administration was in its heyday and had been long enough established to offer a fair survey of what this particular kind of civilization had done for the natives. The Lydia was in Manila on a trading voyage when she was chartered by the Spanish Government to carry to Guam the new governor of the islands, his family, his suite and his luggage. The bark sailed from Manila for Guam on October 20, 1801, and two days later, while among the Philippine Islands, the first mate wrote in his journal:

“Now having to pass through dangerous straits, we went to work to make boarding nettings, and to get our arms in the best order, but had we been attacked, we should have been taken with ease. The pirates are numerous in their prows[32] and we have but eleven in number exclusive of our passengers, viz., the captain, two officers, cook, steward, and six men before the mast. The passengers are the Governor of the Marianna Islands, his Lady, three children and two servant girls, and twelve men servants, a Friar and his servant, a Judge and two servants, total passengers twenty-four and we expected but eight. Too many idlers to drink water, and to my certain knowledge they would not have fought had we been attacked. However, we passed in safety.

From a photograph by E. G. Merrill

Salem Harbor as it is to-day

“These passengers caused a great deal of trouble when their baggage came on board. It could not be told from the cargo and, of course, we stowed it all away together below, so that every day there was a search for something or other which caused the ship to be forever in confusion.”

There was more excitement while passing between the islands of Panay and Negros, where the bark was becalmed close to land, “and all our passengers were in the greatest confusion for fear of being taken and put to death in the dark and not have time to say their prayers.” Next day the Lydia anchored at the island of Sambongue and the “Governor, his Lady and children” went on shore to visit the officers of the Spanish settlement. Captain Barnard of the bark did not like the appearance of this port, and “put the ship into the highest state of defence possible, got all the boarding nettings up, and the arms loaded and kept a sea watch. This night a Spanish launch, as it proved to be afterwards, attempted to come on board, but we fired at it and ordered it to keep off.”

Cordial relations were soon established between ship and shore, however, and the Spanish Governor of Sambongue and his sons went on board to make a friendly call. “We had made every preparation in our power to receive them with the greatest respect,” says the journal. “His sons were as bad as Indians. They wanted everything they saw. Captain Barnard presented them with a day and night glass. They in turn sent a boatload of cocoanuts, upwards of a thousand, and some plantain stalks for the live stock, some small hogs, two sheep, a small ox and goat, but the live stock was for the passengers. The same evening the Governor’s sons returned on board and brought with them six girls and their music to entertain us, but the ship was so full of lumber that they had no place to show their dancing. However, we made shift to amuse ourselves till three in the morning. The current then turning and a light breeze from the northward springing up, we sent them all on shore, they singing and playing their music on the way.”

The following day, November 7th, saw the Lydia under way and William Haswell, with cheerful recollections of this island, found time to write:

“The town of Sambongue is a pleasant place and protected by fifty pieces of cannon, the greatest part of them so concealed by the trees that they cannot be seen by shipping. This proved fatal to two English frigates that attempted to take it. They landed their men before the Spaniards fired. The Spaniards destroyed two boats and killed, by their account, forty men, one of them a Captain of Marines. The English made the best of their way back to the ships. One of them got aground abreast of the Fort and received great injury. This is their story, but we must make allowance. One thing is certain, the British left the greater part of their arms behind them. The English account is, the Fox, four killed and twelve wounded, the Sybille, two killed and six wounded.

“The English have so much of the Malay trade that but little comes to the share of the Spaniards, and in the words of the Governor’s wife there is plenty of cocoanuts, water and girls at Sambongue, but nothing else. I was well pleased with the inhabitants, as they did everything in their power to serve us.

“November 8th. We had fine weather, light winds and those easterly, so that it rendered our passage long and tedious. Our passengers were very anxious to arrive at the island where they were to be the head commanders, a station they had never before enjoyed. The Friar was praying day and night but it would not bring a fair wind.

“... Jan. 4th. 4 P. M. we set all steering sails and stood to the westward and got sight of the Islands of Guam and Rota. Next day we had light winds and calms. We steered for the north end of the island and at five P. M. found it was too late to get in that night. Reeft the topsails and stood off and on all night. At 4 P. M. set all sail to get round to the S. W. side. At 10 A. M. saw the town of Aguana[33] and at one we entered the harbour at Caldera. A gun was fired from the Island Fort, at which we came to and handed sails, the ship rolling very heavy. A small boat came on board to enquire who we were. As soon as they were informed that the new Governor was on board, they set off in the greatest hurry to carry the information to Don Manuel Mooro, the old Governor.

“The breeze continuing, we got under weigh and beat up the harbour. They placed canoes on the dangerous places and by 6 P. M. the ship was up and anchored in sixteen fathoms of water, sails handed, boats and decks cleaned. At midnight the Adjutant came on board with a letter from Don Manuel wishing our passenger, Don Vincentz Blanco, joy on his safe arrival and informing him that the boats would attend him in the morning.

“Jan. 7th. Accordingly at 6 A. M. three boats came on board, one of them a handsome barge, the crew in uniform, a large launch for baggage, and a small boat for the Judge and his two servants. At ten the Governor, his Lady, and suite left the Ship. We saluted with nine guns and three cheers. We then went to work to clear ship.”

At this place in his narrative the first mate of the Lydia turns aside from the pomp and fine feathers of the new Governor’s reception to tell of the hard fate of another vessel.

“We saw a ship heaving in sight and not able to find the passage over the Reef. I took a small boat and went out and found her to be an English ship in distress. I piloted them in and brought them to anchorage near the Hill Forts in thirty fathoms of water. Their story is as follows, that the ship was taken from the Spaniards on the coast of Peru and carried to Port Jackson, New Holland, and condemned. The present owners bought her there and went with her to New Zealand to cut spars which they were intending to carry to the Cape of Good Hope. But the ship going on shore and bilging herself, delayed them some time which occasioned a greater expenditure of provisions than what they expected.

“They at length got the ship repaired and loaded and went to the Friendly Islands to get provisions, but they were disappointed as the natives were at war with one another and nothing to be got but yams of which they got a slender stock. They set off again, but the ship got aground on some rocks which made her leaky. They got her off and stopt the leak on the inside with clay as well as they could. Their men then mutinied and insisted on carrying the ship to Macao, but not being able to reach that place, they put in here for provisions, thinking the Spaniards would let them go out again. But their ship was so bad that she never left this place. They could not get at the leak any other way than by heaving the keel out and that was a work of time. I sent them some salt beef and pork on board and took an officer and fifty Indians and a bower anchor and cable with me to get her up the harbour which we were some time about, but plenty of men made light work, and I warped her up abreast of the Lydia, and there moored her.

“Next day eight of the English ship’s men took a boat and went to town to the Governor to enquire how much he would give them to carry the ship to Manila, but he ordered them to be put in irons for mutiny.”

Meanwhile the Lydia was discharging cargo and filling her water casks. When the wind blew too hard for the boats to make a landing at Agana, Mate Haswell writes: “I used to take my gun and two or three Indians with me and wander into the woods, but in all my stay on the Island I shot only one small deer and some hogs and a few birds amongst which was a large Bat near three feet from tip of wing to wing. The woods are so full of underbrush that it is hard labour to one that is not used to it to get forward, but the Indians travel as fast as I can on clear ground. I frequently went into inland Indian villages and always found them hard at work with the tobacco which all belongs to the King. As soon as dried it must be carried to the Governor and he sells it all at an enormous price. Everything else they have, even the cattle, belongs to the King.

“The houses are small, but very cleanly, and are built of a kind of basket work, with cocoanut leaves and are about twelve feet from the ground. Their furniture consists of two or three hammocks of net work, and the same number of mats, a chest, one frying pan, a large copper pan, and a few earthen jars. Near their houses is a large row of wicker baskets in piles six feet high for their fowls to lay their eggs and set in, the breed of which they are very careful to preserve. The fire place is under a small shed near the house to shelter it from the rain. Their food is chiefly shell fish and plantains, cocoanuts and a kind of small potatoes which they dry and make flour of, and it makes good bread when new.

“But to return to the Lydia. She was bountifully supplied with fresh provisions, beef, pork, fowls, all at the King’s expense and in the greatest plenty so that we gave three-quarters of it away to the English ship, who had nothing allowed them but jerked beef and rice. As our crew was small we had a great deal of duty a-going on, I often got assistance from the English ship and with this supply of men the work was light. I kept the long boat constantly employed bringing on board wood and water. Four men were on shore cutting wood, and some hands repairing the rigging, painting ship, etc., and getting ready for sea as soon as possible.

“About this time Captain Barnard came on board and went, accompanied by himself and the second officer, to make a survey of the hull of the English ship, her hull, rigging, sails, etc., and found her not fit to perform a passage without some new sails, a new cable and a great deal of new rigging and a new boat, as hers were lost. The leak we thought could be reduced on the inside, but all the seams were very open and required caulking. A report of our opinions being drawn out, I was sent to town with it.

“The Governor hinted it was impossible to get what was required, but yet wished to send the ship to Manila. The poor owners hung their heads in expectancy of the condemnation of the ship.”

After the Lydia had been made ready for her return voyage to Manila, Mr. Haswell relates that he went to town, Agana, for a few days, and passed “the time in a very pleasant manner. I found them preparing our sea stock, which was to be in the greatest abundance. It consisted of eight oxen, fifty hogs, large and small, but in general about thirty pounds each, twenty-four dozen of fowl, five dozen of pigeons, two live deer and a boat load of yams, potatoes, watermelons, oranges, limes, cocoanuts, etc. The way we came to be so well provided for was that both the Governors and the Lieutenant Governor insisted on supplying us with stock, but that was not all, for the Friars and the Captains of the Villages near the seaside all sent presents on board, some one thing, some another.

“Thus the ship’s decks were as full as they could be with live stock, hen coops from one end of the quarterdeck to the other, the long boat and main deck full of hogs, and the forecastle of oxen. This great stock of provisions was more than half wasted, for the heat of the weather was such that more than half of it was spoiled. It would not keep more than twenty-four hours without being cooked and then not more than two days, so that if we killed an ox of five hundred pounds, four hundred of it was hove overboard, which was a pity, but we had no salt.

“All of the English gentlemen and some of the Spanish officers came down to the waterside to see us embark. I then went in company with Captain Barnard and bid the kind Governor farewell and found scarcely a dry eye in the house. The Governor’s Lady would not make her appearance, but she waved a handkerchief from the balcony of the Palace as we embarked in the boats.

“Captain Barnard was disappointed as he expected to have carried the old Governor back to Manila with us, and only required half the sum we had for going out, which was 8,000 dollars, but the old man thought 4,000 dollars was too much and offered 2,000 which was refused, the Captain thinking that he would give it at last. Don Manuel had the precaution to embark all the old Governor’s goods and the remains of his wife on board the Lydia by which Captain Barnard thought he would come up to his price, and so took them on board for the small sum of two hundred dollars. Nothing was left behind but the old Governor and servants. He expected to the last moment that we would stop for him, but as soon as he saw us under weigh, he wanted to stop us, but it was too late as we were gone before his messenger reached the fort.

“We left the Harbour de Calderon with a fine breeze N. E. and as soon as we were at sea a man belonging to the English ship that had secreted himself on board, came on deck and shewed himself. We had also an Otaheita Indian that was under the care of Captain Barnard as his servant. We had but one passenger, a Friar, and he was a good man, his behaviour was very different from the one we carried out with us. He was so bad that we were forced to send him to Coventry, or in other words, no one would speak with him.”

Having finished this running chronicle of the voyage to Guam, the first mate of the Lydia made a separate compilation of such general information as he had been able to pick up. His account of the treatment of the natives by their Spanish overlords is in part as follows:

“They are under the Spanish martial law. All (native) officers are tried by the Governor and the King’s officers of the army. They have the power to inflict any punishment they think proper. When a man is found worthy of death he must be sent to Manila to be condemned and then brought back again to be executed. There was only one lying in irons for murder, but Captain Barnard would not take him with us. The whole island belongs to the King of Spain whom the Governor personates, and the inhabitants must pay a yearly rent for their houses and lands and all the cattle are the property of the Crown and can be taken from them at the pleasure of the King’s officers, nor dare they kill their cattle but with the permission of the Governor or the Friars, and then never kill a cow till she is very old. The only things they have are the milk and butter and the labour of the beast, and a small piece when it is killed.

“They are called free-men, but I think contrary. If the Governor wants a road cut he calls on all the men and sets them about it and only finds them rice till it is done. The old Governor carried too far and was called a great Tyrant. He made them build two forts and a bridge and cut a road through a high rock, build a school house and some other things and never allowed them to be idle, but for want of a supply of food from Manila the poor men were near starving as he did not give them time to cultivate the land.

“The Church also has its modes of trial. They have a kind of Inquisition or trial by Torture established but I never heard of their punishing any person. The poor Indians respect the Friars highly, but the Governor will not let the Friars meddle with the affairs of Government, as they often want to do. They were at variance about a man that had committed murder and fled to the Church for protection. One of the Officers took him from under the altar. The priests resented this but were forced to hold their tongues. They sat on trials before, but now they are excluded and the Governor takes care of things temporal. But we carried out a Judge with us to examine into the Governor’s behaviour and to hear the complaints of the poor to see them redressed.

“On the arrival of the new Governor the ship that brings him salutes him when he leaves the ship and on his landing all the forts fire except the Citadel which fires on his entering the church. The road was lined with the militia without arms and he was received at the landing place by the Lieutenant Governor and Adjutant and the Guards under arms. There was a handsome carriage and four horses for the children and two chair palanquins for him and his Lady, but he mounted the Adjutant’s horse, and rode under triumphal arches of flowers and leaves of trees to the church which he entered with all his family. The forts then fired and the Guards received him on his leaving the church and conducted him to the Palace where the old Governor received him and the Guards fired three volleys.

“A grand entertainment was provided of which all the officers partook and in which the old Governor shewed his taste. His table was covered with the best of provisions, consisting of beef, venison, fowls, fish, turtle, etc. All was in the greatest style, and the old man still had good wines and chocolate though he had been five years without supplies from Manila. The feast he gave was grand and by far surpassing what was to be expected on a barren island. The next day all the officers waited on the Governor’s Lady to pay their respects. All of them brought presents, viz., butter, eggs, fowls, fruit, but the Adjutant’s wife gave her a pair of ear-rings of pearls, the largest that I ever saw. They were entertained with music and dancing and had beverages served round to them, but some of the head ones had chocolate, wine, cakes, etc.

“In their dances the natives imitate the Spaniards as near as possible. Their voices are soft and harmonious, their songs are short and agreeable, their language borders on the Malay but not so that they can understand one another. These people are very hospitable and on your entering their huts they offer you young cocoanuts and will get any kind of fruit they have in a few moments. They are in general healthy and strong but a certain malady introduced among them by the Spaniards has made sad ravages and they had no medicines in the Island at the time of our arrival, and they have no person that is acquainted with medicines or with disorders of any kind. It is a great pity that the Spanish Government does not send a man sufficiently qualified to put a stop to that dreadful disorder.

“The Roman Catholic religion is universally established in all its Terrors. I could not find out whether the Indians had any of their own, but they pay great respect to some large flat stones of an oval shape that are often found near their villages and are engraved with characters like Malay, but there was no person on the Island that could decipher them, as all kinds of learning have been long lost by the poor Indians. The Spaniards have established a school to teach them to read and write, but there are few of them who learn more than to read the Prayers which are given them by the Friars.

The old-time sailors used to have their vessels painted on pitchers and punch bowls. (The legend beneath this gallant brig is “Success to the Peggy”)

Title page from the journal of the Lydia, bound to Guam in 1801

“In the inland places the men and women go naked, but they have clothes and on the appearance of a European they run and put them on and are proud of being dressed, but they cannot buy clothes to wear in common because they are so dear, for the Governor gains eight hundred per cent. on all he sells them. And no other person is allowed to trade. They are very obedient to government and it is seldom that there is any disturbance.

“Of the troops one company is of colored men formerly brought from Manila but now more than half Indians. They are well clothed and make a good appearance with bright arms and a good band of music. Of militia there is one regiment of one thousand men. Their arms are in bad order, so rusty that when the Militia paraded to receive the new Governor they were not armed but sat about cleaning them. The payment of this militia is the only cash in circulation on the Island. Every man has ten dollars a year to keep himself in readiness. When pay day comes it causes a kind of market. The Governor’s secretary pays them and they carry the money to the dry goods store and lay it out in Bengal goods, cottons, and in Chinese pans, pots, knives, and hoes, which soon takes all their pay away so that the cash never leaves the Governor’s hands. It is left here by the galleons in passing and when the Governor is relieved he carries it with him to Manila, often to the amount of eighty or ninety thousand dollars.

“The population is estimated at 11,000 inhabitants[34] of which twelve only are white and about fifty or sixty mixed. The Governor and four Friars are the only Spaniards from old Spain, the others are from Peru, Manila, etc. The city or capital of the Island is on the north side in a large bay, but there is no anchorage for shipping. It is a pleasant town and contains five hundred houses of all sorts and one thousand inhabitants of all descriptions. It is on a small plain under a hill which protects it from the heavy gales that sometimes blow from the eastward. The town consists of six streets, one of them three-quarters of a mile long. The buildings of the Governor and Chief Officers are of stone and are good houses. The Palace is two-story and situated in a very pleasant part of the town with a large plantation of bread-fruit trees before it, and a road from it to the landing place. It is in the old Spanish style. The audience chamber is near a hundred feet long, forty broad and twenty high and well ornamented with lamps and paintings. At each end of it are private apartments. In the front is a large balcony which reaches from one end of the house to the other. Behind the palace are all the outhouses which are very numerous. Close to the Palace are the barracks and guard-room. It is a large building and is capable of containing five hundred men with ease. To the northward stands the church, built like one of our barns at home. It has a low steeple for the bells. On the inside it is well adorned with pictures, images, etc. On the south east and near the church is the free school which has a spire. Here the alarm bell is hung, also the school bell. The scholars never leave the house but to go to church.”

In this rambling fashion does Mr. William Haswell, mate of the Salem bark Lydia, discourse of Guam as he saw it in the year of Our Lord, 1801. He dwells at some length also on the remarkable abundance of fish, shells and beche de mer, the animals wild and tame, “the finest watermelons I ever saw,” and the proas or “Prows” which he has seen “sail twelve knots with ease.” Of one of these craft he tells this tale:

“There is a Prow that was drove on shore in a southerly gale from the Caroline Islands with only one man alive. She had been at sea fourteen days, and ten of them without provisions. There were three dead in the boat and the one that was alive could not get out of the boat without assistance. She had but one out-rigger which they shifted from side to side. In other ways she was like the Guam Prows. The man that came in her was well used and has no desire to go back. He looks a little like a Malay, but there was no person in the Island that understood his language.”

Mate William Haswell has left unfinished certain incidents of his voyage to the bewitching island of Guam. Why was the Friar of the outward voyage sent to Coventry? Did the thrifty “old Governor” finally overtake the remains of his wife which sailed away to Manila without him? One might also wish to know more of the brilliantly successful methods of the Governor as a captain of industry. The system by which he kept all the cash in the island in his own pockets, paying his militia in order that they might immediately buy goods of him at a profit of eight hundred per cent., seems flawless. It has not been surpassed by any twentieth century apostle of “high finance.”

Whatever sins of omission may be charged against the literary account of First Mate William Haswell, it is greatly to his credit that he should have taken pains to write this journal of the Lydia, a memorial of the earliest voyage under the American flag to that happy-go-lucky colony of Uncle Sam which in more recent years has added something to the gaiety of nations.