Kidnapping in the Pacific; Or, The Adventures of Boas Ringdon / A long four-part Yarn

by William Henry Giles Kingston

“Had the passage been long we should probably have lost a good many of them; but as it was, only three or four died, and we landed the rest in tolerable condition. The captain said that they had all come on board of their own free will; that if they had changed their minds since, that was no fault of his. They were soon engaged by the colonists, who wanted labour at any price. He had no difficulty, in consequence of the favourable report he made, of again getting a licence, and without loss of time we sailed on another cruise.

“We had kept more to the eastward than usual, when it came on to blow very hard, and we had to run before the gale out of our course a considerable distance, the captain being very much vexed at this loss of time. The gale had somewhat moderated, but it was still blowing hard when we caught sight of a sail which, as we neared her, proved to be a large double canoe, with twenty or more hands on board. The captain thought she would prove a good prize, as we might sink her and carry off the people, and no one be the wiser. She consisted of two large canoes, so to speak, some way apart, but united by a strong deck placed upon them. Through the deck were cut hatches, to enable the people to go below into the canoes, and above the deck was a square house with a platform on the top of it. As we drew near, intending to run her down old Sneezer advised us to let her pass, as she belonged to Fiji, and as he said the people would give us more trouble than they were worth, as they were savage fellows, and would neither work in their own islands nor in Australia, and would very likely murder their masters. We accordingly let them go, and away she flew close hauled on a wind, though the supercargo sighed, as he thought of letting so many fine-looking fellows escape us. The gale ceasing, we hauled up, and stood back for Erromanga.

“Old Sneezer was as useful to us as before. On his first visit to the shore he persuaded a dozen natives to come off, by telling them that he had plenty of pigs on board for a feast they were about to hold. Very fat pigs they were, according to his account, and plenty of tobacco, so that they might smoke from morning till night to their hearts’ content. We took them off in our own boat not to alarm the rest, by having to sink their canoe. When they got on deck they asked for the pigs and tobacco. The only answer they got was finding themselves shoved down below. They shrieked and cried out till the mate went among them with a thick stick and made them quiet.

“We were not quite so successful at the next haul. Sneezer got off six fellows as he had the former ones; but they heard the others cry out before we had them secured, and tried to escape. Three were knocked down in time, but the other three leaped overboard and swam to the shore. The captain sang out for a couple of muskets; one however was not loaded, and the other would not go off, and the men escaped. Knowing that we should get no more labourers there, we had to make sail and run to another place. After this we got several quite quietly, and they were induced to put their marks to the paper shown to them, and to believe all that Sneezer said.

“One day we pulled in to the shore a few miles south of Dillon’s Bay, where the surf ran too heavily to allow us to land, but Sneezer caught sight of four men on the shore, and hailing them, said he was their friend, and had plenty of tobacco to give them if they would come off for it. They all swam out to us, when in our eagerness we caught hold of two of them somewhat roughly, perhaps, and hauled them into the boat; the others, taking the alarm, swam back and escaped.

“You see in this trade, as in every other, we have our disappointments.

“We had heard of the skipper of a trading schooner, who somehow or other got on very well with the Erromangians by treating them kindly, I suppose, and paying them what he promised. So says Sneezer, ‘I will tell them Captain Tom has got a new vessel, and this is her, and that he wishes to see them.’

“On this Sneezer went on shore, and nearly two dozen natives came off to see their friend Captain Tom. They were then told that he was in his cabin, when they were easily persuaded to step quietly down below. As may be supposed, we didn’t let them come on deck again. What they thought about the matter, or what their friends on shore thought about it, I don’t know; perhaps the next time Captain Tom touched at that port they might not have been inclined to be so friendly with him as before; it’s just possible, indeed, that they might have knocked him on the head without inquiring whether or not he had paid them a visit a short time back, and carried off some of their people.

“The natives we had last got began moaning and groaning, and cursing their folly, because their chief, who was a Christian, had warned them beforehand, and told them that he feared some trick might be played, not liking the looks of the vessel.