FAMOUS SEA-ROVER’S CAREER RECALLED.

Hokitika Guardian, 2 June 1928, Page 4

FAMOUS SEA-ROVER’S CAREER RECALLED.

IN THE SIXTIES. STORIES OF THE KONA AND THE LEONORA. (By J.C. in the Auckland “Star.”) News of the death of a member of Captain “Bully” Hayes’ family brings up crowding memories of South Sea tales, told by old sea captains, old Island trades, veteran missionaries, a most curious medley of reminiscences of the most written about figure in the modern story of the I’acifie, Opinions of William Henry Hayes, as I have heard them from men who. knew him, were curiously diverse. One of those who knew him best, the late Louis Becke, had much that was good to tell of his old skipper and fellow-rover. Well I remember Becke’s contemptuous verdict on a blood-and-thundcr book published by Albert Dorrington, purporting to be the story of Hayes’ career. Hayes, according to this absurd concoction was a second Captain Kidd, Bluebeard and Teach combined. Becke had a very different memory of Hayes. Undoubtedly William Henry Hayes was a good deal of a bully, a bluff and a braggart, also something of. a madman, but he did not wado in blood, as some have depicted him doing. Even in his swindlings lie had a way of his own that made the trading world laugh at the “damn check” that carried it off. A MIAN OF At ANY SHIPS.

Bully Hayes association with the Pacific dates back'to the early fifties. He was in so many vessels, some of which he acquired in a semi-piratical fashion, that it is not easy to list, them all, in chronological order. The following, however, is a summary of some of his earlier activities. In 1553, at Singapore, ho bought a barque which ho renamed the C. W. Bradley, Junior; traded in her among the East Indies, and in 1857 went to Adelaide, where the barque was seised, and Hayes was declared a bankrupt.

In 1858 he sailed from Melbourne for Vancouver in, command of the British ship Orestes, of 08!) tons. In 1859 he sailed from San Francisco—ran off is one description—in the brig Ellon ita, 313 tons. Tim- Ellenita foundered at sea and Hayes reached the inland of Savaii, Samoa, with some of his people. A raft with others reached Wallis Island. A number of messengers were drowned. HAYES'COMES TO NEW ZEALAND. In 1861 he was in command of a barque called the Launceston, in which lie sailed from Newcastle, New South Wales, for Bombay. He. turned up at Java and sold the cargo to the ships there. _Noxt y° :ir he sailed from Newcastle for Otago as master of the barque Cincinnati. The ship stranded and was turned into a coal hulk. Hayes then toured Otago with a variety company and was at Queenstown. Lake Wakatipu. for a time. Next we hear of him in 1861, as owne.r of a small brigapitine called the Black Diamond. In this vessel he arrived at Auckland (July 3), bought supplies and “paid his debts with the fore topsail,” as was often his way. There was a tragic affair at the Croixellcs, on flic Nelson coast, in 18'i I. Hayes out in there to caulk the vessel and load firewood. He. borrowed a small yacht, which capsized. and his young wife, a girl of twenty, her child and a nursemaid were drowned. Hayes alone reached the shore. The Black Diamond was seized by bailiffs at Nelson on Delia If of the mortagee. Hayes’ next New Zealand vessel was a ten-ton cutter called the Wave, of Lyttelton. The sethooner, Shamrock, a seventv-ton vessel, next came into Hayes’ versatile hands. With her he traded between Lyttelton and other Now Zealand ports and Fiji and Tonga, bringing from the islands cargoes of oranges, coconuts, pigs and other items. The Shamrock was at Wanganui in March. 1860. THE BRLG RON A AND HER GUNPOWDER.

lii 1868, at Lyttelton, Kayos sold the Shamrock and purchased a brig called the Kona, a Maine-built vessel of lot) tons, Formerly called the Anglo-Saxon. He sailed for the South Sea Islands with some trade goods, bought a cargo of fruit at various islands, including Tongatabu, and on September 12, 18G6, turned up at Hokitika, laden with limes and pineappes and a deck cargo of pigs. Hokitika was then at the height (If its gold-digging boom and “Bully” sold his fruit and pigs at top prices. There is a story that on this cruise he had procured a large quantity of gunpowder and lead, which he intended to sell to the Kanban Maoris at Kawliia or some other part of tlio North Island coast. His practice was to stow the barrels of powder underneath the cabin flooring boards. No one, least of all a . Customs official, would dream that powder was stowed in so dangerous a place.

THE KONA AND THE AUCKLAND CUSTOMS.

In the year 1807 Bully Hayes paid a brief visit to Auckland in the Ilona. On January 15 of that year n strange brig anchored outside Kangitoto Beef shortly before 9 aim., and was signalled on Aft. Victoria. She hoisted no number. Two men and a woman came up to town in a boat, and one of them reported himself as Captain Hall, of the brig Haymird, bound on a trading voyage to the South Seas, nut. in for provisions. On the captain meeting Captain AVilliams, Customs boarding officer and searcher, his explanation was regarded as not quite satisfactory; the suspicions of the amthocities Aver© nroused. Captain AVilliams and Mr Hewson, of the Customs, at once started for the brig with a boat’s crew. On .reaching Itangitoto they saw that the brig was getting under way. They gave j chase, and as the wind was very light the brig was overtaken and boarded.

“ALL CLEAR.”

Then, to their surprise, the Customs men found that the “Haynard”

was the Kona, commanded by the

notorious Captain Hayes, and that she was lately from Hokitika. The vessel was searched, but nothing suspicious was found in her. Her papers were all correct. Captain Hayes said that Captain Hall, who was liis chief officer, ought to have known better than to have given the vessel a false name; also that the reason he got under way again so hurriedly was that he had only a cook and another man on board and that be was afrail

of the vessel dragging her anchor. This curious tale was quickly refuted, for before the Customs authorities left the Kona they turned out eight A.B.’s stowed away forward. The ship’s register and clearance being all right, there was, of course, nothing to detain her for, and she was allowed to go out to sea again. The Customs men were tolerably certain there .was something queer about the Kona, but they could not put their fingers on it. It was generally believed that Bully Hayes was selling gunpowder to the Afaoris, then in rebellion, but there was no definite proof of this. A CARGO OF MISSIONARIES. This little adventure in the Rona ended Haves’ chequered association with New Zealand. Then came,,his

ten years’ Pacific Islands rovings

that brought him a reputation for sharp practice, to put it mildly, and that ended in Ills violent death on his fichooner’s deck.

Hayes sailed light-heartedly off to the South Seas, minus his powder—he had no doubt traded it off to good account somewhere on the New Zealand coast—and the next we hear of him is at Niue Island, where he called to trade. The London Missionary Society’s barque John Williams had been wrecked at Niue and Hayes took off the shipwrecked missionaries and crew. That famous missionary, the Rev. James Chalmers (afterwards murdered in New Guinea) wrote of the skipper of the Rona: “Hayes was a perfect host and a thorough gentleman. His wife and children were' on hoard. Me had fearful weather all the time, yet I must say we enjoyed ourselves.” But Chalmers added: “Hayes several times lost his temper, and did very queer things, acting now and then more like a madman than a sane man. Much of his past life lie related to us at table, especially things lie did to cheat governments.” Tn 1869, the Rona, hound from Hiiaheime, Society Islands, for California, foundered off Manihiki Island. At Apia presently Haves got another vessel, the schooner Atlantic, and at Manihiki and I’ukapuka (now two of New Zealand’s coral islands) he kidnapped a lot of natives and took them to Tutuiln, in the Samoa Group. There, however, the Chief Mau.nga compelled “Bully” to put to sea again and take his free labour elsewhere. THE BEAUTIFUL BRIG LEONORA. In 1870 Hayes got into conflict with the authorities at Apia, on charges of kidnapping natives. He quietly sailed oil" with his friend, Captain Ben Peese. in the armed brig Pioneer. This afterwards famous vessel was a beautiful craft. Aberdeen built, and originally called AVatcrlily. Hayes bought her, renamed her the Leonora after Ijis daughter, and for some years roved about the Pacific acquirj in;.; cargoes in his free-and-easy fnshI ion, sometimes quiet- honestly, ovenj sionally the reverse. The Leonora was j wrecked on Strong’s Island, away tip in the equatorial Pacific, one wild I night in 1875. Louis Becke, the | South Sea novelist, who was with I Hayes for four voyages as supercargo, | was wrecked in the Leonora, and he I and Haves had a narrow escape of [ losing their lives. But wreck was ! only an incident in Bully’s wonderful life. He had many a time lost ships. : and sometimes had to swim for hii life. THE ENT) OF BULLY. Captain Hayes was killed about April, 1577. aboard the schooner-yacht Lotus, of San Francisco, off Jaluit, Marshall Island. His slayer was Peter lladeek (“Dutch Peter”), a Scandinavian sailor and cook, whom he had thrashed. Peter killed him with the iron crutch of the main boom, as lie was coining up out of the cabin. The story was that the pair had quarrelled over a woman who was oil 'board.

Hayes’ great friend and “fellowbuenneer,” as ho was often described. Captain Ben Peese, met his dentil on Bonin Island in the ’seventies. He was shot by a negro called Black Bill with whom he had quarrelled. Tho negro was immediately killed by Peese’s brothcr-m-law, a half-caste named George. LOUTS BECKE’S VERDICT.

Louis Becke in one of his stories of Bully Hayes wrote: “I have spoken of Hayes as I found him—a big. bravo man; passionate and moody at times, hut more often merry and talkative (be was nil excellent raconteur); good hearted and generous in one hour, hard and grasping in tho next. He was as suave, as courteous, and as clever as the trained diplomatist when oiension demanded the arts of civilisation. He would haze n malingerer unmercifully; but lie never omitted n nod of approval or a word of praise to a sailor who did his work' well. With women his manner was captivating, and no one entered more heartily into a romp with little native children, whom ho allowed to do anything they liked with him.”

NAVES’ CHILDREN AND grandchildren.

Lorena, one of Bully Hayes' twin daughters, married Mr R. C. Bentley, Collector of Customs at Levuka, Fiji, who died some years ago. The ' other daughter, Leonora, was married first to the late Dr B. Funk, of Apia, and afterwards to AH F. Bond, of Brisbane. In a letter to the present writer an old acquaintance of the Hayes family at Apia wrote some time ago: “Zillali, the daughter of Lorena Hayes (AHs Bentley) is a very talented milsician. like her mother; the gift was inherited from Captain Hayes and liis wife. When a child of six years old she played before the Governor of Fiji, who complimented her and her parents on her talent. The daughter of the other sister. Afrs Bond, won n, beauty competition in Queensland. Hayes had one son, Fred, a big, tall fellow, who is well remembered by some of the older residents of Suva) and Levuka.’’,