The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1909-12-05


peopled with the dull-digger Indians
TO Canton, bright with the civilization
of three thousand years.
On the seventeenth Of March, 1870
John Young, boatswain of the Elanora
which some histories call the Eleanor
left the vessel. according to the his
tories. to trade. and was refused per
mission to return to his ship. On the
twenty second of the same month he
had evidently not yet returned for his
peppery skipper wrote to him and 9th
or white men, who were with the chief,
the following letter. This epistle, yell
low and musty from age, is IN the
archives of Hawaii, one of the first
letters even penned in Hawaii mel.
This is the letter:
Elanora. off Owhyhee
% March. 1890.
Sirs:--As my boatswain landed by
your invitation, if he is not returned
to the vessel, consequences of an I'M
pleasant nature must follow. (To dis
tress a vessel in these seas is an affair
of no small magnitude.) If your word
peatedlY told me there can be no diff
ficulty in doing me justice in this
business, otherwise l am possessed of
sufficient powers to take ample revenge
which it is your duty to make the head
chief acquainted with,
] am gentlemen,
Yours, &C., &C.,
(Sgd) SIMON MEDCALF.
This letter was addressed to Messrs.
S. l. Thomas, |. Piedler, Joseph Mackey
and John Young. The fact that this
arbitrary epistle was addressed to the
man that the history says was the boat
swain that was detained seems rather
queer, but whether that history is cor
rect or not, the old letter is real enough.
Then comes Capt. George Vancouver,
dashing British naval officer and polite
ly and suavely wiggles into the affec-
tions of Tamaah Neutrality-suspicious.
of immortal fame-and won for his
king the island of Hawaii. Vancouver
had been sent to what is now the State
of Washington to receive from the
hands of a Spanish commissioner the
session of that country. Vancouver
city receives its name from him, Puget
Sound its name from Lieutenant Puget,
commander of the armed tender Cha
than which accompanied the Discovery,
VancOuver's ship.
Vancouver made three trips to the
Island and there are two copies of
letters written by him in the archives,
one of which bears his own signature.
The first of these letters is dated Ellis
Britannia Majesty's Ship Discovery,
Toeyay Bay, o 'Whyhee, March g.,
1893. y The extracts from it which fol-
low give dainty picture of uniformed
men exchanging courtesies with the
splendidly formed men of the South
Seas CARRIED in feather capes sometimes,
probably in nothing at all some of the
time It also shows keen eye to
business
81 beg leave to inform all comman-
ders of vessels, etc, &c., says Van
eouver, "into whose hands this testi-
mony may fall that on February 81,
1898, / was visited at sea by Tamaah
Maah, the sole acknowledged king of
Owhyhee; and in company with His
Britannia Maiesty's armed tender
"Chatham on the following day en-
tered Karakakooa Bay, where we re-
NAMED until the Sth of March, 1898,
having our tents, observatory, &C., on
shore where they were guarded equally
by the people of Tamaah Maah. ~
Compare these dates and that given
In the heading of the letter with those
given in Alexander s history and it
win be seen that the latter is generally
three or four days off right along dur
ing this period.)
% Tamaah Maah, with the gem
ererality of the chiefs and the whole of
the lower order of the People, have
conducted themselves towards us with
the strictest civility. These
were first and without exception Ia
maah Maah, next Kahou Motoo, third
" Tirri Mite (Tamaah Maah S own
brother) and Cavehero, the Chief of
the village of Kowrara.''
Compare the tenor of this letter
with that of the Yankee skipper and no.
tice the difference. Medcalf, a man of a
race that had been fighting the saw
ages of the American woods for a bare
existence, could not consider these ISL
anders as anything better than savages
aud so conducted himself. When a GER
tain high priest committed some offense
he hogged him with a cat-o-nine tails;
when the savages captured the Fair
America and killed his son he destroyed
a hundred natives by firing into them
while they were around his ship in
canoes. With this in mind these let
tiers are doubly interesting.
Of the capture of the American
schooner, Vancouver says:
cit has been reported. much to
the prejudice of Tamaah Maah's bene-
violent, humane and friendly character.
that ne was principally accessory in the
taking of the schooner Fair America
and Mr.. Medealf, the younger, comman-
der; in such report find from the un-
doubted authority of Isaac Davis, who
was captured in her, and now residing
with Tamaah Maah. to be totally
groundless; and that he had not the
smallest knowledge or acquaintance
with the matter until If was fully ae.
complished; that horrid deed being ex.
eeuted by a Chief named Tamaah Mo-
too; the principal part being the murder