The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1870-10-01
THE COOLIE SHIPS.

1t is far from our intention or desire to defend
often seen it alluded to as having been a most dis
reputable business, and for anything we know to
the contrary it probably was, and may be so yet.
We were, however, somewhat astonished when we
learned that the statement, that a wealthy Chinese
merchant was imprisoned, along with the other
" captives' in the hold of the Dolores Ugdrte, had
got so far credited that the Friend, of the LIST ult.,
alluded to the circumstance as at least a highly
probable one. We were, therefore, not surprised
that the Rev. S. E. Bishop should write from Maui
the indignant letter on the subject, which appeared
in this paper on the 10th ult. That letter does
honor to the Reverend g~entleman's kind heart and
humane spirit. For, on the supposition that there
were " five hundred fainting captives" on board
that vessel, and that we in Honolulu knew it, he
might well ask, " where is your public sentiment,
your indignation meetings? ? your r~esistless popular
wrath ?" He might well think the people of Hon
olulu had become dead to all sense of justice and
humanity, to treat the matter so coolly as they ap-
peared to do. When we read the calm and moder-
ate paragraph in the Friend, which concluded by
saying, 1--WE are told a Chinese merchant of great
wealth was kidnapped in Macao, or China, and is
now in the hold of that coolie ship which recently
touched at Honolulu, !" we confess we were surpris-
u 10 uuU LudI lndI was IHe emu Oh ne drCCle, anu
we think the Friend itself may thus have laid itself
open to a share of the Rev. S. E. Bishops indigna-
ton at the Indifference of the Honolulu people
under such a state of circumstances.
Our issue to-day commences with an entirely
new programme. We have adopted the Prospectus
that was intended for the Commercial Herald. The
supporters of that project have been called the
"Coolie Ring" ara the paper the "pro-slavery
organ,'' and so on, and our Reverend friends on this
group may in consequence of the character thus
given us in advance. look upon our statements with
suspicion but we can assure them that it is a fact
that not only did the Honolulu people not know or
believe that this wealthy Chinese merchant was
thus captive, but we can further assure them that
the great probability is that there was not a single
" captive /" on board of the ship Dolores Ugdrte, in
the proper sense of that term. If the Reverend gen.
tlemen will consider US for a moment as the - Coolie
Ring and as unprincipled trahickers in human
fesh," they will see that if we had known about
the wealthy Chinese merchant, our course would
have been Immediately to take a whaleboat and
four oarsmen. go of to the Dolores Ug0rte, pur-
chase the contract of the wealthy merchant from the
Captain flor that's all the object the Captain or those
whom he represents can have,) and resell his time
to the merchant himself at a good round profit.
But we did not know about it. and we lost that
chance. The truth is he was not there. The story
is one of those canards which refute themselves
1t may seem to give color TO the statements that
these coolies are kidnapped !" and kept " captive"
because there are barricades, gratings, ~sentries
and precautions used on board these ships but
any one who has had experience with the lower
classes of Chinese knows that it is perfectly con-
sistent with truth and probability, that every man
on board that ship had made a willing contract,
knew precisely what he bad contracted to do, and
where he was going /; and yet that gratings, barri-
cades and sentries became absolutely necessary,
and that without any particular blame being at
tached to the owner, master or any of the officers
of the ship We have had cases come under our
notice of this kind-one where we know that every
Chinaman had made a contract and came on board
the ship of his own free will-everything had gone
pleasantly on the voyage for over a month, and no
restraint or severity was necessary. One of the
sailors in sweeping the decks happened TO brush
a little dirt into a Chinaman's plate of rice. A
quarrel between the two ensued. This brought on
a general disturbance and the Cinnamon worked