On hearing of this farewell testimonial business, the skipper of the schooner that was taking the young fellow away became greatly excited--Hayes, he said, would put his own construction on the gifts. To this, in his youthful innocence, the youth replied that he didn't care, as it was his business to make a present if he chose; whereupon the skipper, a jolly old sea-dog named Tom English, told him that that was all very well, but that he (English) would be looked upon as an accessory, and Hayes would make him suffer for it when they met again.
"Accessory to what?" said the wondering youth.
"D---- your thick skull, you young ass, why, accessory to makin' love to his girls."
This amused us immensely, but as the lad saw that English was serious, and was equally determined not to take the presents back, he wrote a note as follows and showed it to the old fellow, who said it might possibly pass with Bully:--
Dear ------ The above-mentioned I have supplied as per bill. I will feel obliged if you will pay the 120.00 to any of our firm's vessels on my account, I hope that, as I have not charged you native prices, you will pay me soon,
He then handed the bill to old Tuna, and told her that she must give it to the captain when he reached Nukutavake. When he did meet Bully a long time afterwards in Samoa, Hayes paid up like a man. But long before this old Tuna had given the trader's bill and letter to Hayes. Two years later the young trader found awaiting him at the American Consulate at Tahiti, the following letter:--
Dear Sir,--I received your note and bill for supplying some of my household with some rotten cheese-cloth out of your store, which you have the infernal impertinence to call muslin; also, five bottles of stinking bilge-water, labelled musk. I don't know who you are, but you can tell your employers from me, that I will see them roasted before I will give my good money for their filthy and disgusting Sydney trade goods, and when I drop across you, you will get a head put on you that will teach you not to again presume to interfere in my domestic affairs.
Three or four years passed by, during which time the writer cruised about from island to island in the North and South Pacific--sometimes living ashore as a trader, sometimes voyaging to and fro among the many groups as supercargo or recruiter in the labour trader; and then one day the schooner, in which I then served as supercargo, reached Samoa, and there I accepted the dignified but unsatisfactory financial position of inter-island supercargo to a firm of merchants doing business in Apia, the distracted little capital of the Navigator's Island. At this time, the late Earl of Pembroke, the joint author with Dr. Kingsley of "South Sea Bubbles," was in Apia Harbour in his schooner yacht _Albatross_, and every day we expected to see the French Pacific Squadron steam into the port and capture the numerous German ships then laying at anchor there. But the gallant Admiral Clouet, who commanded, disdained such work as this--he was willing and eager to fight any German warships that he could come across, but had no inclination for the inglorious task of seizing unarmed merchantmen.