Sea captain/merchant James Hunnewell keeps a record of the ships coming and going at Honoraru (another spelling that the Western ear heard of the Hawaiian word) since he’d become a resident nine months earlier. It is generally a pretty quiet village. But on this day, two Spanish warships ships arrive from Owyhee (Hawaii). They’d been expecting one...

EUREKA! It’s the smoking gun! It comes from the ship’s log of  American Captain Reynolds. He was anchored at Kealakekua Bay on the island of Hawaii at King Kamehameha’s royal compound. The captain wrote on this day that he paid off Joseph Chapman for some work he’d done on his ship out of Boston, the Sultan. Who knows, maybe Joseph had...

A brig coming from the Spanish Main (the Enterprise) and one arriving from the Columbia River in Oregon Territory  (the Levant) both confirm the presence of the ominous Spanish warship anchored at the king’s island, Owyhee. The news that their marines rounded up the former pirates of the mutiny who were living on island around His Majesty’s compound...

Captain James Hunnewell greeted an American captain coming from Owyhee (Hawaii), who had stopped in to pay fees to King Kamemehaha first — as ships were required to do seeking anchorage at Oahu. Henry Guisely (Gyselaar as others would write it) of the Clarion brought amazing news. There was another Spanish pirate ship down in Owyhee! And this wasn’t...

The ship returns from Kauai. James Hunnewell notes “their stories are contradictory.” The mutineers stay eight days, weighing anchor on July 24.