By March of 1821, American missionaries in the island observed that Liholiho had amassed his own fleet of ships, which were employed by all of the ali‘i to sail between the islands. Liholiho’s fleet included Cleopatra’s Barge, Thaddeus, Neo, Columbia, Bordeaux Packet, and the Kaua‘i schooner Eos. Ships afforded the ali‘i a measure of independence, allowing them to come and go as they pleased, to engage with pesky foreign agents or depart for familiar places devoid of foreign presence. They were also very visible signs of the wealth and power of the ali‘i.
The most famous ship to be sold to Hawaiian chiefs also turned out to be the most infamous trade of this Hawaiian age of sail/sale. The Bryant and Sturgis pleasure craft Cleopatra’s Barge had enjoyed an entirely different life, having been built on October 21, 1816, for the wealthy Salem, Massachusetts, merchant George Crowninshield, costing him a reported $50,000.35 Apparently the barge lived up to its name, delighting Hawaiians so much that John Coffin Jones complained that it was “so superior” to any ships offered for sale by Marshall and Wildes that the chiefs would “scarce look at them.” Liholiho had agreed to purchase the eighty-three-foot-long, 191-ton brig that had sailed into Honolulu under the direction of Capt. John Suter on November 16, 1820.36
Bryant and Sturgis agent Charles Bullard returned to the islands on March 24, 1821, expecting to collect payment for the barge and reap the additional benefits that resulted from the king’s continued goodwill toward his concern for selling him such a beautiful ship. After meeting with Liholiho, Bullard found that the best lots of wood had been cut, expecting that these would soon be delivered in payment for the vessel. Unfortunately, Ka‘ahumanu was very sick, so the business was postponed. In the meantime, Liholiho went with Bullard to examine the cargo of goods recently arrived and “appeared much pleased with them.” The cargo was of such quality that according to Bullard, “a taboo was put on the trade in order that he and the Head chiefs might have first choice.”37
The king and chiefs placed kapu setting the terms of buying and selling—who could purchase certain cargo and at what time. April was a busy month for trade on O‘ahu. Ka‘ahumanu’s prolonged illness, the large numbers of whaleships visiting the port (approximately sixty), and two vessels from New Holland, one of which proved to be a present from the king of England to Liholiho, all conspired, to Bullard’s irritation, to “take up so much attention of the ‘court’ ” preventing his making a “prompt” sale. “Until April 18th,” Bullard wrote in his letter, “my business was in the best possible terms,” when to his consternation, carpenters “overhauling the Barge” reported it was “rotten.” This was a charge that Bullard was reluctant to believe, but which upon examination he found was “too true.” In describing the damage to his employers, he spared no words, “from the main chains aft above the water, She was a complete mass of dry rot.” Bullard’s hopes for making a good voyage had moldered along with the barge. The response of the ali‘i to his concern was immediate and harsh. “Their [the chiefs’] disappointment was great in proportion to their previous expectations—When I went to Court where I before received every attention I found nothing but frowns—I saw at once that my voyage was nearly done up, If not quite ruined.”38
To make matters worse, the chiefs in council reportedly told Bullard that his partner, Captain John Suter, had promised them that the barge was a “first rate vessel, nearly new and guaranteed she would wear ten years without repair.”39 As criticism, the ali‘i deployed the words of rival merchant agents to stinging effect; “the concern” they accused, “were a set of liars and villains,” who had sent the barge out “on purpose to deceive them.”40
Bullard, his high aspirations dashed, reported that a “grand consultation of chiefs was held,” at which the chiefs decided not to pay any more wood. After three weeks of negotiation with various chiefs, Bullard succeeded in persuading a “majority” in his favor, who allowed the collection of 1,984 piculs on the price owed. Remaining in Honolulu harbor through May 30, Bullard, at the “request of some chiefs,” decided it was best to make a trip around the island to collect more wood. But Bullard had yet to feel the strength of the king’s resentment against him and his concern. “I was aware that opposition would follow me and was not in the least disappointed,” he wrote. “The ship was no sooner under way, than messengers were sent to every part of the island, forbidding (in the name of the King) the sale of any wood—but notwithstanding his Majesty’s taboo, I succeeded in obtaining over 1400 piculs.”41
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Another detail of trade emerges here in Bullard’s letter. Ships obtaining permission to collect sandalwood in payment were dispatched from port cities to areas on the island that were sandalwood collection sites. If a merchant or captain incurred the displeasure of the high chiefs, messengers would be dispatched and a kapu placed on trading with particular individuals. Bullard was savvy enough to understand that he had to keep his relationship with the chiefs on the best possible terms if he wanted to collect on previous accounts owed and also purchase wood for his concern: “The animosity of the King’s party and some others is so great on account of the Barge, that they are determined if possible that I shall not buy any wood; and I am obliged to keep on as good terms as possible with them on account of old debts.”42
Three months later, Charles Bullard was still attempting to collect sandalwood as payment for the rotten Cleopatra’s Barge, reporting in his letter to his employers that Captain Thomas Meek, who worked for Marshall and Wildes, had been contracted to “bring timber and plank from Norfolk sound” to repair the damage; begrudgingly, he observed that “he (Meek) will probably make a profitable job of it.”43 Bullard had just come from an intimate audience with Liholiho, who offered to show him a “house of wood” provided that Bullard would simply “take the whole”—an incredulous Bullard declined. Liholiho’s offer came with a justification: since the long-awaited barge had been guaranteed for ten years but was rotten, Liholiho was only willing to pay in sandalwood pieces he deemed suitable for the balance of the transaction. The offer provoked from Bullard an early version of a soon-to-be familiar merchant complaint about chiefly authority in the islands: “The fact is, there is no Government here at present—all the chiefs have more [or] less to say, and some of them have used their influence from the first not to pay any thing.”44
Charles Bullard’s disenchantment with Captain John Suter’s divergent approach to trade in the islands meant that he was inclined to believe the chief’s claim that the vessel had been guaranteed to “wear ten years without repair.”45 While admitting as much in his letters to his employers, Bullard still blamed the chiefs for the dissolution of the once promising transaction. Hammatt and Bullard’s employers, Bryant and Sturgis, were not apprised of the situation regarding Cleopatra’s Barge when they wrote Hammatt’s contract three months later, advising him on the proper way to sell ships to ali‘i. Charles Hammatt’s instructions of 1822 directed him to get as much sandalwood from the chiefs as possible by selling the ship he sailed in on, the Champion. He was also directed to sell the ship Lascar, another of Bryant and Sturgis’ ships working in the Pacific: “To effect the sale of the ships, we should advise you on arrival to avoid making it known that it was contemplated. You will soon perceive it, would they take a fancy to her and should they, then will be the time for making a bargain.”46 By the next year, Charles Hammatt was still seeking 480 piculs, the balance of the 2,000 piculs agreed upon as its price, which Liholiho refused to pay since the Cleopatra’s Barge had proved “rotten.” The chiefs, incensed at being sold poor goods, refused to deliver the balance of the wood, sending it instead to rival agent John Coffin Jones.47
What is clear from Bullard’s