When the little schooner hoisted the union jack and fired a swivel in token of good-by, the king and his young son came aboard from a canoe, to be together until the vessel had passed out through the channel of the reef. A multitude of natives followed in canoes, offering gifts of fruit and flowers, yams and cocoanuts, which could not be accepted for lack of space. Gently they were told this, but each held up a little something, crying: “Only this from me! Only this from me!” Other canoes were sent ahead to pilot the schooner or to buoy the reef. When it came time for the king to summon his own canoe he said farewell to his son, and then embraced Captain Wilson with great tenderness, saying:
“You are happy because you are going home. I am happy to find you are happy, but still very unhappy myself to see you going away.”
In this manner two rare men saw the last of each other. Captain Henry Wilson was far too modest to claim credit to himself, but it is quite obvious that the happy ending of this tragedy of the sea was largely due to his own serene courage, kindliness, and ability as a seaman and a commander. An inferior type of man would have made a sorry mess of the whole affair.
The schooner pluckily made her way through fair weather and foul until she safely reached the roadstead of Macao. There the little vessel was found to be so stanch that she was sold for seven hundred Spanish dollars. Captain Wilson then took passage for England in an East Indiaman, and the young prince Lee Boo went with him. Arrived home, the commander made the guest a member of his own household, and sent him to school at Rotherhite, in London. He was of a bright mind and eager to learn, and his experiences and impressions make most entertaining reading.
Alas! he fell ill with small-pox after less than a year of exile from his distant island, and died in a few days. At the foot of his bed stood honest Tom Rose, the sailor who had served as an interpreter. At the sight of his tears, the boyish prince rebuked him, saying,
“Why should he be crying because Lee Boo die?” The doctor who attended him wrote in a letter to an official of the East India Company:
He expressed all his feelings to me in the most forcible and pathetic manner, put my head upon his heart, leant his head on my arm, and explained his uneasiness in breathing. But when I was gone he complained no more, showing that he complained with a view to be relieved, not to be pitied. In short, living or dying, he has given me a lesson which I shall never forget and surely for patience and fortitude he was an example worthy the imitation of a Stoic.
Thus died a worthy son of his father, the good king Abba Thulle of the Pelew Islands. Over his grave in England was placed a stone with this inscription:
To the Memory
of PRINCE LEE BOO,
A native of the Pelew, or Palos Islands,
and Son to Abba Thulle, Rupack or King
of the Island Coorooraa;
Who departed this life on the 27th of December, 1784,
Aged 20 Years.
This Stone is inscribed
by the Honorable United East India Company
as a Testimony of esteem for the humane and kind
Treatment afforded by his Father to the crew of
their ship, the ANTELOPE, Captain WILSON,
which was wrecked off that Island
In the Night of the 9th of August, 1783.