BULLY
HAYES
The Lasl of Ihe Pirales
•
An Ou+-of-+he-Industry Fea+ure
by
Commander Caps+ickdale
•
n
URING my journeyings up and down
the Pacific, I was always runnin{!;
across the name of Bully Hayes. Tahiti,
Fiji and the Gilberts resounded with mem-
or ies of this strange individual, whose
deeds were so at variance with the esteem
and even affection in which people ap-
peared to hold him, that I resolved to run
down the facts of his career.
Bully Hayes, stealer of ships and men
might be considered as a postscr ipt to the
Age of Piracy, for he appeared on the
scene later-much later-a man born out
of his time.
In the sixties of the last century, there
arrived in Honolulu a blonde giant of
charming manners. Although only in his
twenties, he had been a Lieutenant in Com-
mand in the U. S. Navy, but had left the
service for reasons which he was never
known to disclose. For a week he put up
at the best hotel, then he became the guest
of King Kamahama's Secretary of State,
Gibson, staying with him for some months,
and charming everyone with whom he came
in contact. He left the island in command
of a trading schooner, the "Kiaulani,"
whose name he changed to "Dancing
Wave," bound for the Paumotos and Ta-
hiti.
In the days when Fiji was a No Man's
Land and anything went, Hayes sailed into
Leuoka. His schooner was getting old and
leaky, and Hayes' admiring glance fell on
a trim locally owned barkentine. One morn-
ing the German trader, her master, awoke
to find that overnight she had disappeared,
and left in her stead a disreputable old
schooner-no good for even island trade.
For some years, Hayes sailed the former
German vessel around the Line Islands and
the groups of the Southwest Pacific_ At
first no questions were asked, but then the
islands became too hot to hold Hayes. At
one time in the seventies, war ships of no
less than four nations were looking for the
ex-naval officer, who greatly enjoyed giving
them a merry chase. Two of them he out-
sailed, and gave the others the slip by hid-
ing away in a remote lagoon. Then he
departed for China and larger en terprise.
At Shanghai, he fell in love with a smart,
locally owned brig, the "Hwah Ping," and
to want with him meant to take. He
stole the brig from her moorings, where
she lay ready to sail, loaded to the hatches
with a cargo of "Yankee notions" for trade
in the Pelews. This time he sailed away
in his new craft without leaving the old
one in exchange.
The barkentine he turned over to his
mate, Ben Pease, an out and out rascal
w ithout a single redeeming trait. Pease had
been an ordinary seaman in the Navy,
while Hayes was a commissioned officer.
For a year or two, the vessels worked in
concert, trading in the Moluccas and Cele-
be and taking spices to Singapore. Load -
ing at Amboyna with cargoe for Java, the
two sea robbers headed their ships the
other way, and made for the Pacific. There
they transshipped their loads to Sydney
for sale, and had trade goods sent to them
with the proceeds.
Then the ships separated, Hayes going
down to Rotomah, and Pease working the
Ellice Islands. Here, at Vaitipu, he met
old Harry Holderness, a trader from the
Gi lberts, who was on his way to San Fran-
cisco. Pease immediately turned on his
tracks and made for Nonuti in the Gi lb erts,
whence Holderness had sai led. Here he
told old Harry's relief that Holderness
wished to have the contents of his godown
turned over to Captain Hayes when he
arrived.
Commander Capstickdale, au-
thor of this interesting article,
has had a very adventurous ca-
reer. He has been Master under
steam and sail; Commander of a
torpedo boat and minesweeper in
the British Navy; Trader in the
Gilbert and Solomon Islands and
Manager of a rubber and tobacco
estate in Java. At present he is
somewhere on the Medi terr-
anean.
He obtained the data of Bully
Hayes-last of the Pirates of the
Pacific Ocean-from those who
had known Hayes personally-
to their cost.
•
Hayes played up to Pease and took
$2,000 worth of copra from Nonuti, paying
for it with worthless bills on a San Fran-
cisco bank. Old Holderness lost every cent
of his money, yet he told me when I knew
him a quarter of a century or more later,
"Yes, sir, Bully Hayes was the finest man
I ever met in my life. They don't come
any better."
"But he swindled you out of a lot of
money," I ventured to remark. "How about
that ?"
"Never mind about that. Hayes was a
gentleman and a grand fellow."
This interested me, because it was more
or less what I had heard many times re-
peated while I was trying to piece together
an account of Hayes' life, and talking to
people who had known him-to their cost.
Incidentally, "Bully" was an entire mis-
nomer. Where he got it remains a mystery.
Hayes was anything but that. He was dead-
ly and implacable, as cold as ice, but
always suave when he was most dangerous.
Never was he known to raise his voice, ex-
cept in the management of his ship in a
cyclone. He was a cu ltured man, well read
and well informed, who could recite poetry
and sing very well.
Another strange peculiarity of Hayes'
which old Holderness told me was:
"Hayes could make lace."
"What?" I exclaimed. "Lace?"
"Yes, Sir. He had hands like Yorkshire
hams, but he could perform fine work with
them. He made lace and taught his native
wives and flocks of half-caste children to
make lace. Why," Holderness continued,
warming to his subject, "all the lacework
ever made around in the Pacific Islands
was made by those he taught, or their
descendants."
"Tell me some more," I begged. After
the lace I felt I could stand anything.
"Do you know what Hayes did with my
copra ?"
I shook my head.
"Well, he took it to Auckland, and there
sold it to a merchant who was a pillar of
the Presbyterian Church. They got to be
very chummy, and Hayes read the lessons
in meeting a couple of times. That fellow
to this day won't beli'eve anything against
Hayes."
COIN
MACHINE
REVIEW
11
FOR
JUNE
J94J