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Updated: June 23, 2025
Notwithstanding the great success which attended the beginning of the whaling, it was six months before the Rancocus was loaded, and ready to sail for Hamburgh with her cargo. This time the ship went east, at once, instead of sailing to the westward, as she had previously done taking with her a crew composed partly of colonists and partly of Kannakas.
This last occurrence turned out to be fortunate, in the main, however, since it induced all the Kannakas to believe that the strangers were their enemies, in particular; else why kill one of their number, when there were just as many colonists as Kannakas to shoot at! As the governor expected, the ship did not venture to follow the Abraham in.
Some persons thought that the Kannakas had risen in their demands, and put less value on a scrap of old iron, than had been their original way of thinking, now that so many of their countrymen had been back and forth a few times, between the group and other parts of the world; a circumstance that was very naturally to be expected.
As for the Kannakas, they did not know enough to be very dangerous, and could not, at all, give any accurate idea of the position of the islands, had they been better acquainted than they were with their relation to other communities, and desirous of betraying them.
This duty was confided to Bigelow, who was sent to the Reef without delay, taking with him all the Kannakas at Whaling Bight, with orders to put them on board the shipping at the Reef schooners, sloops, lighters, &c., of which there were now, ordinarily, some eight or ten to be found there and to carry them all to windward; using the inner channels of the group.
These young Kannakas were so many hostages for the good behaviour of their parents; while the parents, always within reach of the power of the colonists, were so many hostages for the good behaviour of the Kannakas. Touching the last, however, the governor had very few misgivings, since he believed it very possible so to treat, and so to train them, as to make them fast friends.
The strangers headed well up, as if disposed to pass to windward of the cliffs, from which he inferred that none on board them knew anything of the existence or position of the cove. So much care had been taken, indeed, to conceal this spot from, even the Kannakas, that no great apprehension existed of its being known to any beyond the circle of the regular colonists.
Here they had acorns in abundance, though their principal food was Indian corn, being regularly attended by Kannakas who had been trained to the business. At killing-time, each man either came himself, or sent some one to claim his hogs; all of which were slaughtered on the Peak, and carried away in the form of pork.
But a straggling body of a hundred and fifty of these Kannakas, left in the settlements, or on the Reef, or about the crater, while the troops were gone to meet the enemy, presented no very pleasing picture to the mind of the governor.
Indeed, the number of these Kannakas was a cause of serious embarrassment with the governor, when he came to reflect on his strength, and on the means, of employing it. Fully two hundred of the savages, or semi-savages, were at that moment either scattered about among the farm-houses; or working in the different places where shipping lay, or were out whaling to windward.
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