As merchant Captain Hunnewell sails off to Canton, China as a passenger aboard a sandalwood run, he notes in his log the plans of the other ships. Captain Reynolds of the Sultan was remaining in port. He was the one who had paid off Joseph back on Hawaii on Aug. 24 for his work. So Reynolds would have been seeing Joseph around Honolulu’s waterfront....
September 12, 1818 Crew member dies
One of the seaman dies aboard the patriots’s ship. William Bush had been confined to quarters for 10 months. The first act of the Argentines mariners was to bury the man with military honors in Honolulu. According to James Hunnewell’s account, Bush “lived respected and died lamented.” This doesn’t sound like the exploits of some...
September 11, 1818 Bouchard arrives at Honoraru
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...
August 24 Joseph Chapman joins Bouchard’s crew!
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...
Aug. 23 Another Warship of Argentinian Pirates!
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...
Aug. 22 American ship arrives with more pirate news
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...