THE FIRST YANKEE SHIP AT GUAM
(1801)
That minute dot on the map of the Pacific known as Guam has appealed to
the American people with a certain serio-comic interest as a colonial
possession accidentally acquired and ruled by one exiled naval officer
after another in the rôle of a benevolent despot and monarch of all
he surveys. This most fertile and populous of the Ladrone Islands,
which are spattered over a waste of blue water for four hundred miles
and more, was casually picked up as the spoils of war, it will be
remembered, by the cruiser _Charleston_ soon after hostilities with
Spain had been declared in 1898. The Spanish Governor of Guam was
rudely awakened from his siesta by the boom of guns seaward and, with
the politeness of his race, hastened to send out word to the commander
of the American cruiser that he was unable to return the salute for
lack of powder. Thereupon he was informed that he was not being saluted
but captured, and the Stars and Stripes were run above the ancient
fort and its moldering cannon which had barked salvos of welcome to
the stately galleons of Spain bound from South America to Manila two
centuries before.
The sovereignty of Castile being eliminated in this hilarious and
harmless fashion, the hard headed legatees who wore the blue of the
American navy sought to reform what had been a tropical paradise, where
no man worked unless he wanted to, where simple, brown-skinned folk
dwelt in drowsy contentment without thought of the morrow. The gospel
taught by the late Captain Richard Leary as naval governor of Guam
aimed to make these happy islanders more industrious and more moral
according to the code of the United States. His successors have labored
along similar lines and Captain Dorn, governor of Guam in the year of
1908, proclaimed such commendable but rigorous doctrine as this:
“Every resident of the island having no apparent means of subsistence
who has the physical ability to apply himself or herself to some lawful
calling; every person found loitering about saloons, dram shops or
gambling houses, or tramping or straying through the country without
visible means of support; every person known to be a pickpocket, thief
or burglar, when found loitering about any gambling house, cockpit or
any outlying barrio, and every idle or dissolute person of either sex
caught occupying premises without the consent of the owner thereof,
shall on conviction be punished by a fine of $250, or imprisonment for
one year or both.”
A brighter picture of the life of these islanders was painted several
years ago by W. E. Safford, who wrote of them in a paper contributed to
the _American Anthropologist_:
“Everybody seemed contented and had a pleasant greeting for the
stranger. It seemed to me that I had discovered Arcadia, and when I
thought of a letter I had received from a friend asking whether I
believed it would be possible to civilize the natives, I felt like
exclaiming: ‘God forbid.’”
The same visitor relates of these people and their ways:
“There are few masters and few servants in Guam. As a rule, the farm
is not too extensive to be cultivated by the family, all of whom, even
to the little children, lend a hand. Often the owners of neighboring
farms work together in communal fashion, one day on A’s corn, the next
on B’s, and so on, laughing, skylarking, and singing at their work and
stopping whenever they feel like it to take a drink of tuba from a
neighboring cocoanut tree. Each does his share without constraint, nor
will one indulge so fully in tuba as to incapacitate himself for work,
for experience has taught the necessity of temperance, and every one
must do his share of the reciprocal services. By the time the young men
have finished their round the weeds are quite high enough once more in
A’s corn to require attention. In the evening they separate, each going
to his own ranch to feed his bullock, pigs and chickens; and after a
good supper they lie down on a Pandanus mat spread over the elastic
platform of split bamboo.”
A pleasant picture, this, of toil lightened by common interest; an
idyllic glimpse of what work ought to be, perhaps worthy the attention
of socialists, labor unions, and those that scorn the heathen in his
blindness.
Almost a hundred years before Guam became a United States possession,
the island was visited by a Salem bark, the _Lydia_, the first vessel
that ever flew the American flag in the harbor of this island. There
has been preserved in manuscript an illustrated journal of the first
mate of the _Lydia_, William Haswell, in which he wrote at considerable
length the story of this historical pioneering voyage, and his
impressions of the island and its people under Spanish rule in the
faraway year of 1801. As the earliest description of a visit to Guam
by an American sailor or traveler, the manuscript has gained a timely
interest by the transfer of the island from under the Spanish flag.
However arduous may be the restrictions imposed by the conscientious
naval governors of to-day, the journal of First Mate Haswell of the
_Lydia_ shows that the islanders were released from a condition of
slavery and merciless exploitation by the memorable arrival of the
cruiser _Charleston_ and the subsequent departure from the stone palace
of the last of the Dons of Spain.
The very earliest experience of these islanders with Christian
civilization must have inspired unhappy tradition to make them far from
fond of their rulers. The Marianne or Ladrone Islands were discovered
by Magellan on March 6, 1521, after a passage of three months and
twenty days from the strait which bears his name. Among the accounts
written of this voyage is that of Antonio Pigafetta, of Vicenza, which
relates the terrible sufferings endured across an unexplored ocean.
After there was no more food the crews were forced to eat rats, which
brought a price of half a crown each, “and enough of them could not be
got.” The seamen then ate sawdust, and the ox hide used as chafing gear
on the rigging of the mainyards. The water was yellow and stinking.
Scurvy devastated the expedition, and nineteen men died of it, while
twenty-five or thirty more fell ill “of divers sicknesses, both in the
arms and legs and other places in such manner that very few remained
healthy.”
In this desperate plight, Magellan sighted two islands on which there
were no natives nor any food, and passed by them to find an anchorage
off what was later called Guam. The natives came out to welcome the
ship, skimming over the water in wonderful canoes or proas, and brought
gifts of fruit. The ships’ sails were furled and preparations made to
land when a skiff which had ridden astern of the flagship was missed.
It may have broken adrift, but the natives were suspected of stealing
it, and Captain-General Magellan at once led forty armed men ashore,
burned forty or fifty houses and many boats, and slaughtered seven or
eight native men and women.
“Before we went ashore,” writes Pigafetta, “some of our people who
were sick said to us that if we should kill any of them whether man or
woman, that we should bring on board their entrails, being persuaded
that with the latter they could be cured. When we wounded some of
those islanders with arrows which entered their bodies, they tried to
draw forth the arrow, now in one way, now in another, in the meantime
regarding it with great astonishment, and they died of it, which did
not fail to cause us compassion. Seeing us taking our departure, then,
they followed us with more than a hundred boats for more than a league.
They approached our ships, showing us fish and pretending to wish to
give them to us; but when they were near they cast stones at us and
fled. We passed under full sail among their boats, which, with great
dexterity, escaped us. We saw among them some women who were weeping
and tearing their hair, surely for their husbands killed by us.”
After this bloodthirsty and wicked visitation no attempt was made to
colonize these islands until a Jesuit priest, Padre Diege Luis de
Suavitores, landed at Guam in 1668, when a mission was established. The
Spanish Jesuits held full sway until they were expelled in 1769 and
their place taken by the Friars.
When the Salem bark, _Lydia_, visited Guam, therefore, in 1801, the
Spanish administration was in its heyday and had been long enough
established to offer a fair survey of what this particular kind of
civilization had done for the natives. The _Lydia_ was in Manila on
a trading voyage when she was chartered by the Spanish Government to
carry to Guam the new governor of the islands, his family, his suite
and his luggage. The bark sailed from Manila for Guam on October 20,
1801, and two days later, while among the Philippine Islands, the first
mate wrote in his journal:
“Now having to pass through dangerous straits, we went to work to make
boarding nettings, and to get our arms in the best order, but had
we been attacked, we should have been taken with ease. The pirates
are numerous in their prows[32] and we have but eleven in number
exclusive of our passengers, _viz._, the captain, two officers, cook,
steward, and six men before the mast. The passengers are the Governor
of the Marianna Islands, his Lady, three children and two servant
girls, and twelve men servants, a Friar and his servant, a Judge and
two servants, total passengers twenty-four and we expected but eight.
Too many idlers to drink water, and to my certain knowledge they would
not have fought had we been attacked. However, we passed in safety.
[Illustration:
From a photograph by E. G. Merrill
Salem Harbor as it is to-day]
“These passengers caused a great deal of trouble when their baggage
came on board. It could not be told from the cargo and, of course,
we stowed it all away together below, so that every day there was a
search for something or other which caused the ship to be forever in
confusion.”
There was more excitement while passing between the islands of Panay
and Negros, where the bark was becalmed close to land, “and all our
passengers were in the greatest confusion for fear of being taken and
put to death in the dark and not have time to say their prayers.” Next
day the _Lydia_ anchored at the island of Sambongue and the “Governor,
his Lady and children” went on shore to visit the officers of the
Spanish settlement. Captain Barnard of the bark did not like the
appearance of this port, and “put the ship into the highest state of
defence possible, got all the boarding nettings up, and the arms loaded
and kept a sea watch. This night a Spanish launch, as it proved to be
afterwards, attempted to come on board, but we fired at it and ordered
it to keep off.”
Cordial relations were soon established between ship and shore,
however, and the Spanish Governor of Sambongue and his sons went on
board to make a friendly call. “We had made every preparation in our
power to receive them with the greatest respect,” says the journal.
“His sons were as bad as Indians. They wanted everything they saw.
Captain Barnard presented them with a day and night glass. They in
turn sent a boatload of cocoanuts, upwards of a thousand, and some
plantain stalks for the live stock, some small hogs, two sheep, a
small ox and goat, but the live stock was for the passengers. The same
evening the Governor’s sons returned on board and brought with them
six girls and their music to entertain us, but the ship was so full of
lumber that they had no place to show their dancing. However, we made
shift to amuse ourselves till three in the morning. The current then
turning and a light breeze from the northward springing up, we sent
them all on shore, they singing and playing their music on the way.”
The following day, November 7th, saw the _Lydia_ under way and William
Haswell, with cheerful recollections of this island, found time to
write:
“The town of Sambongue is a pleasant place and protected by fifty
pieces of cannon, the greatest part of them so concealed by the trees
that they cannot be seen by shipping. This proved fatal to two English
frigates that attempted to take it. They landed their men before the
Spaniards fired. The Spaniards destroyed two boats and killed, by their
account, forty men, one of them a Captain of Marines. The English
made the best of their way back to the ships. One of them got aground
abreast of the Fort and received great injury. This is their story,
but we must make allowance. One thing is certain, the British left the
greater part of their arms behind them. The English account is, the
_Fox_, four killed and twelve wounded, the _Sybille_, two killed and
six wounded.
“The English have so much of the Malay trade that but little comes to
the share of the Spaniards, and in the words of the Governor’s wife
there is plenty of cocoanuts, water and girls at Sambongue, but nothing
else. I was well pleased with the inhabitants, as they did everything
in their power to serve us.
“November 8th. We had fine weather, light winds and those easterly,
so that it rendered our passage long and tedious. Our passengers were
very anxious to arrive at the island where they were to be the head
commanders, a station they had never before enjoyed. The Friar was
praying day and night but it would not bring a fair wind.
“... Jan. 4th. 4 P. M. we set all steering sails and stood to the
westward and got sight of the Islands of Guam and Rota. Next day we
had light winds and calms. We steered for the north end of the island
and at five P. M. found it was too late to get in that night. Reeft
the topsails and stood off and on all night. At 4 P. M. set all sail
to get round to the S. W. side. At 10 A. M. saw the town of Aguana[33]
and at one we entered the harbour at Caldera. A gun was fired from the
Island Fort, at which we came to and handed sails, the ship rolling
very heavy. A small boat came on board to enquire who we were. As soon
as they were informed that the new Governor was on board, they set off
in the greatest hurry to carry the information to Don Manuel Mooro, the
old Governor.
“The breeze continuing, we got under weigh and beat up the harbour.
They placed canoes on the dangerous places and by 6 P. M. the ship was
up and anchored in sixteen fathoms of water, sails handed, boats and
decks cleaned. At midnight the Adjutant came on board with a letter
from Don Manuel wishing our passenger, Don Vincentz Blanco, joy on his
safe arrival and informing him that the boats would attend him in the
morning.
“Jan. 7th. Accordingly at 6 A. M. three boats came on board, one of
them a handsome barge, the crew in uniform, a large launch for baggage,
and a small boat for the Judge and his two servants. At ten the
Governor, his Lady, and suite left the Ship. We saluted with nine guns
and three cheers. We then went to work to clear ship.”
At this place in his narrative the first mate of the _Lydia_ turns
aside from the pomp and fine feathers of the new Governor’s reception
to tell of the hard fate of another vessel.
“We saw a ship heaving in sight and not able to find the passage
over the Reef. I took a small boat and went out and found her to be
an English ship in distress. I piloted them in and brought them to
anchorage near the Hill Forts in thirty fathoms of water. Their story
is as follows, that the ship was taken from the Spaniards on the coast
of Peru and carried to Port Jackson, New Holland, and condemned. The
present owners bought her there and went with her to New Zealand to cut
spars which they were intending to carry to the Cape of Good Hope. But
the ship going on shore and bilging herself, delayed them some time
which occasioned a greater expenditure of provisions than what they
expected.
“They at length got the ship repaired and loaded and went to the
Friendly Islands to get provisions, but they were disappointed as the
natives were at war with one another and nothing to be got but yams of
which they got a slender stock. They set off again, but the ship got
aground on some rocks which made her leaky. They got her off and stopt
the leak on the inside with clay as well as they could. Their men then
mutinied and insisted on carrying the ship to Macao, but not being able
to reach that place, they put in here for provisions, thinking the
Spaniards would let them go out again. But their ship was so bad that
she never left this place. They could not get at the leak any other way
than by heaving the keel out and that was a work of time. I sent them
some salt beef and pork on board and took an officer and fifty Indians
and a bower anchor and cable with me to get her up the harbour which we
were some time about, but plenty of men made light work, and I warped
her up abreast of the _Lydia_, and there moored her.
“Next day eight of the English ship’s men took a boat and went to town
to the Governor to enquire how much he would give them to carry the
ship to Manila, but he ordered them to be put in irons for mutiny.”
Meanwhile the _Lydia_ was discharging cargo and filling her water
casks. When the wind blew too hard for the boats to make a landing at
Agana, Mate Haswell writes: “I used to take my gun and two or three
Indians with me and wander into the woods, but in all my stay on the
Island I shot only one small deer and some hogs and a few birds amongst
which was a large Bat near three feet from tip of wing to wing. The
woods are so full of underbrush that it is hard labour to one that is
not used to it to get forward, but the Indians travel as fast as I can
on clear ground. I frequently went into inland Indian villages and
always found them hard at work with the tobacco which all belongs to
the King. As soon as dried it must be carried to the Governor and he
sells it all at an enormous price. Everything else they have, even the
cattle, belongs to the King.
“The houses are small, but very cleanly, and are built of a kind of
basket work, with cocoanut leaves and are about twelve feet from the
ground. Their furniture consists of two or three hammocks of net work,
and the same number of mats, a chest, one frying pan, a large copper
pan, and a few earthen jars. Near their houses is a large row of wicker
baskets in piles six feet high for their fowls to lay their eggs and
set in, the breed of which they are very careful to preserve. The fire
place is under a small shed near the house to shelter it from the rain.
Their food is chiefly shell fish and plantains, cocoanuts and a kind
of small potatoes which they dry and make flour of, and it makes good
bread when new.
“But to return to the _Lydia_. She was bountifully supplied with fresh
provisions, beef, pork, fowls, all at the King’s expense and in the
greatest plenty so that we gave three-quarters of it away to the
English ship, who had nothing allowed them but jerked beef and rice. As
our crew was small we had a great deal of duty a-going on, I often got
assistance from the English ship and with this supply of men the work
was light. I kept the long boat constantly employed bringing on board
wood and water. Four men were on shore cutting wood, and some hands
repairing the rigging, painting ship, etc., and getting ready for sea
as soon as possible.
“About this time Captain Barnard came on board and went, accompanied
by himself and the second officer, to make a survey of the hull of the
English ship, her hull, rigging, sails, etc., and found her not fit to
perform a passage without some new sails, a new cable and a great deal
of new rigging and a new boat, as hers were lost. The leak we thought
could be reduced on the inside, but all the seams were very open and
required caulking. A report of our opinions being drawn out, I was sent
to town with it.
“The Governor hinted it was impossible to get what was required, but
yet wished to send the ship to Manila. The poor owners hung their heads
in expectancy of the condemnation of the ship.”
After the _Lydia_ had been made ready for her return voyage to Manila,
Mr. Haswell relates that he went to town, Agana, for a few days, and
passed “the time in a very pleasant manner. I found them preparing our
sea stock, which was to be in the greatest abundance. It consisted of
eight oxen, fifty hogs, large and small, but in general about thirty
pounds each, twenty-four dozen of fowl, five dozen of pigeons, two live
deer and a boat load of yams, potatoes, watermelons, oranges, limes,
cocoanuts, etc. The way we came to be so well provided for was that
both the Governors and the Lieutenant Governor insisted on supplying
us with stock, but that was not all, for the Friars and the Captains
of the Villages near the seaside all sent presents on board, some one
thing, some another.
“Thus the ship’s decks were as full as they could be with live stock,
hen coops from one end of the quarterdeck to the other, the long boat
and main deck full of hogs, and the forecastle of oxen. This great
stock of provisions was more than half wasted, for the heat of the
weather was such that more than half of it was spoiled. It would not
keep more than twenty-four hours without being cooked and then not more
than two days, so that if we killed an ox of five hundred pounds, four
hundred of it was hove overboard, which was a pity, but we had no salt.
“All of the English gentlemen and some of the Spanish officers came
down to the waterside to see us embark. I then went in company with
Captain Barnard and bid the kind Governor farewell and found scarcely
a dry eye in the house. The Governor’s Lady would not make her
appearance, but she waved a handkerchief from the balcony of the Palace
as we embarked in the boats.
“Captain Barnard was disappointed as he expected to have carried the
old Governor back to Manila with us, and only required half the sum we
had for going out, which was 8,000 dollars, but the old man thought
4,000 dollars was too much and offered 2,000 which was refused, the
Captain thinking that he would give it at last. Don Manuel had the
precaution to embark all the old Governor’s goods and the remains of
his wife on board the _Lydia_ by which Captain Barnard thought he would
come up to his price, and so took them on board for the small sum of
two hundred dollars. Nothing was left behind but the old Governor and
servants. He expected to the last moment that we would stop for him,
but as soon as he saw us under weigh, he wanted to stop us, but it was
too late as we were gone before his messenger reached the fort.
“We left the Harbour de Calderon with a fine breeze N. E. and as
soon as we were at sea a man belonging to the English ship that had
secreted himself on board, came on deck and shewed himself. We had also
an Otaheita Indian that was under the care of Captain Barnard as his
servant. We had but one passenger, a Friar, and he was a good man, his
behaviour was very different from the one we carried out with us. He
was so bad that we were forced to send him to Coventry, or in other
words, no one would speak with him.”
Having finished this running chronicle of the voyage to Guam, the
first mate of the _Lydia_ made a separate compilation of such general
information as he had been able to pick up. His account of the
treatment of the natives by their Spanish overlords is in part as
follows:
“They are under the Spanish martial law. All (native) officers are
tried by the Governor and the King’s officers of the army. They have
the power to inflict any punishment they think proper. When a man is
found worthy of death he must be sent to Manila to be condemned and
then brought back again to be executed. There was only one lying in
irons for murder, but Captain Barnard would not take him with us. The
whole island belongs to the King of Spain whom the Governor personates,
and the inhabitants must pay a yearly rent for their houses and lands
and all the cattle are the property of the Crown and can be taken from
them at the pleasure of the King’s officers, nor dare they kill their
cattle but with the permission of the Governor or the Friars, and then
never kill a cow till she is very old. The only things they have are
the milk and butter and the labour of the beast, and a small piece when
it is killed.
“They are called free-men, but I think contrary. If the Governor wants
a road cut he calls on all the men and sets them about it and only
finds them rice till it is done. The old Governor carried too far and
was called a great Tyrant. He made them build two forts and a bridge
and cut a road through a high rock, build a school house and some other
things and never allowed them to be idle, but for want of a supply of
food from Manila the poor men were near starving as he did not give
them time to cultivate the land.
“The Church also has its modes of trial. They have a kind of
Inquisition or trial by Torture established but I never heard of their
punishing any person. The poor Indians respect the Friars highly,
but the Governor will not let the Friars meddle with the affairs of
Government, as they often want to do. They were at variance about a man
that had committed murder and fled to the Church for protection. One of
the Officers took him from under the altar. The priests resented this
but were forced to hold their tongues. They sat on trials before, but
now they are excluded and the Governor takes care of things temporal.
But we carried out a Judge with us to examine into the Governor’s
behaviour and to hear the complaints of the poor to see them redressed.
“On the arrival of the new Governor the ship that brings him salutes
him when he leaves the ship and on his landing all the forts fire
except the Citadel which fires on his entering the church. The road was
lined with the militia without arms and he was received at the landing
place by the Lieutenant Governor and Adjutant and the Guards under
arms. There was a handsome carriage and four horses for the children
and two chair palanquins for him and his Lady, but he mounted the
Adjutant’s horse, and rode under triumphal arches of flowers and leaves
of trees to the church which he entered with all his family. The forts
then fired and the Guards received him on his leaving the church and
conducted him to the Palace where the old Governor received him and the
Guards fired three volleys.
“A grand entertainment was provided of which all the officers partook
and in which the old Governor shewed his taste. His table was covered
with the best of provisions, consisting of beef, venison, fowls, fish,
turtle, etc. All was in the greatest style, and the old man still had
good wines and chocolate though he had been five years without supplies
from Manila. The feast he gave was grand and by far surpassing what was
to be expected on a barren island. The next day all the officers waited
on the Governor’s Lady to pay their respects. All of them brought
presents, _viz._, butter, eggs, fowls, fruit, but the Adjutant’s wife
gave her a pair of ear-rings of pearls, the largest that I ever saw.
They were entertained with music and dancing and had beverages served
round to them, but some of the head ones had chocolate, wine, cakes,
etc.
“In their dances the natives imitate the Spaniards as near as possible.
Their voices are soft and harmonious, their songs are short and
agreeable, their language borders on the Malay but not so that they can
understand one another. These people are very hospitable and on your
entering their huts they offer you young cocoanuts and will get any
kind of fruit they have in a few moments. They are in general healthy
and strong but a certain malady introduced among them by the Spaniards
has made sad ravages and they had no medicines in the Island at the
time of our arrival, and they have no person that is acquainted with
medicines or with disorders of any kind. It is a great pity that the
Spanish Government does not send a man sufficiently qualified to put a
stop to that dreadful disorder.
“The Roman Catholic religion is universally established in all its
Terrors. I could not find out whether the Indians had any of their
own, but they pay great respect to some large flat stones of an oval
shape that are often found near their villages and are engraved with
characters like Malay, but there was no person on the Island that could
decipher them, as all kinds of learning have been long lost by the poor
Indians. The Spaniards have established a school to teach them to
read and write, but there are few of them who learn more than to read
the Prayers which are given them by the Friars.
[Illustration: The old-time sailors used to have their vessels painted
on pitchers and punch bowls. (The legend beneath this gallant brig is
“Success to the Peggy”)]
[Illustration: Title page from the journal of the _Lydia_, bound to
Guam in 1801]
“In the inland places the men and women go naked, but they have clothes
and on the appearance of a European they run and put them on and are
proud of being dressed, but they cannot buy clothes to wear in common
because they are so dear, for the Governor gains eight hundred per
cent. on all he sells them. And no other person is allowed to trade.
They are very obedient to government and it is seldom that there is any
disturbance.
“Of the troops one company is of colored men formerly brought from
Manila but now more than half Indians. They are well clothed and make a
good appearance with bright arms and a good band of music. Of militia
there is one regiment of one thousand men. Their arms are in bad order,
so rusty that when the Militia paraded to receive the new Governor
they were not armed but sat about cleaning them. The payment of this
militia is the only cash in circulation on the Island. Every man has
ten dollars a year to keep himself in readiness. When pay day comes
it causes a kind of market. The Governor’s secretary pays them and
they carry the money to the dry goods store and lay it out in Bengal
goods, cottons, and in Chinese pans, pots, knives, and hoes, which soon
takes all their pay away so that the cash never leaves the Governor’s
hands. It is left here by the galleons in passing and when the Governor
is relieved he carries it with him to Manila, often to the amount of
eighty or ninety thousand dollars.
“The population is estimated at 11,000 inhabitants[34] of which twelve
only are white and about fifty or sixty mixed. The Governor and four
Friars are the only Spaniards from old Spain, the others are from Peru,
Manila, etc. The city or capital of the Island is on the north side in
a large bay, but there is no anchorage for shipping. It is a pleasant
town and contains five hundred houses of all sorts and one thousand
inhabitants of all descriptions. It is on a small plain under a hill
which protects it from the heavy gales that sometimes blow from the
eastward. The town consists of six streets, one of them three-quarters
of a mile long. The buildings of the Governor and Chief Officers are of
stone and are good houses. The Palace is two-story and situated in a
very pleasant part of the town with a large plantation of bread-fruit
trees before it, and a road from it to the landing place. It is in
the old Spanish style. The audience chamber is near a hundred feet
long, forty broad and twenty high and well ornamented with lamps and
paintings. At each end of it are private apartments. In the front is
a large balcony which reaches from one end of the house to the other.
Behind the palace are all the outhouses which are very numerous. Close
to the Palace are the barracks and guard-room. It is a large building
and is capable of containing five hundred men with ease. To the
northward stands the church, built like one of our barns at home. It
has a low steeple for the bells. On the inside it is well adorned with
pictures, images, etc. On the south east and near the church is the
free school which has a spire. Here the alarm bell is hung, also the
school bell. The scholars never leave the house but to go to church.”
In this rambling fashion does Mr. William Haswell, mate of the Salem
bark _Lydia_, discourse of Guam as he saw it in the year of Our Lord,
1801. He dwells at some length also on the remarkable abundance of
fish, shells and _beche de mer_, the animals wild and tame, “the finest
watermelons I ever saw,” and the proas or “Prows” which he has seen
“sail twelve knots with ease.” Of one of these craft he tells this tale:
“There is a Prow that was drove on shore in a southerly gale from the
Caroline Islands with only one man alive. She had been at sea fourteen
days, and ten of them without provisions. There were three dead in the
boat and the one that was alive could not get out of the boat without
assistance. She had but one out-rigger which they shifted from side
to side. In other ways she was like the Guam Prows. The man that came
in her was well used and has no desire to go back. He looks a little
like a Malay, but there was no person in the Island that understood his
language.”
Mate William Haswell has left unfinished certain incidents of his
voyage to the bewitching island of Guam. Why was the Friar of the
outward voyage sent to Coventry? Did the thrifty “old Governor” finally
overtake the remains of his wife which sailed away to Manila without
him? One might also wish to know more of the brilliantly successful
methods of the Governor as a captain of industry. The system by which
he kept all the cash in the island in his own pockets, paying his
militia in order that they might immediately buy goods of him at a
profit of eight hundred per cent., seems flawless. It has not been
surpassed by any twentieth century apostle of “high finance.”
Whatever sins of omission may be charged against the literary account
of First Mate William Haswell, it is greatly to his credit that
he should have taken pains to write this journal of the _Lydia_,
a memorial of the earliest voyage under the American flag to that
happy-go-lucky colony of Uncle Sam which in more recent years has added
something to the gaiety of nations.
FOOTNOTES:
[32] Proas.
[33] The name of the capital or chief town of Guam is spelled “Agana”
to-day.
[34] The first American census of Guam reported a native population of
between 9,000 and 10,000.