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A Modern Pirate - Bully Hayes - Very like a Bishop - Steals a Barque and Cargo - A Coolie Spec - Bankok - A Trial Trip to Hong Kong - Diamond cut Diamond - Samoa - Tried and Acquitted - Strong's Island - Bailed-up- Hayes hunts himself - Under Arrest - Crafty Mr. Pease - Manilla Courtesies - Elopes with Yacht and Wife - Fatal Difference with the Cook.

To write an account of any part of the Western Pacific without some mention of its bold buccaneer and pet pirate 'Bully Hayes,' would be in the eyes of the old hands an unfriendly omission, tending to deprive that part of the world of the credit due to having been the scene of operations of their most cherished hero, whose doubtful praises are sung there to this day. Indeed, a failure to notice the misguided career of the above-named gentleman would be likely to go so far as to give rise to grave suspicions of the writer's never having been in the South-Western Pacific.

Samoa was quite a favourite place with 'Bully Hayes,' and one which used to see a great deal of him, and is where he chose to leave his legitimate wife and family during his protracted absences.

There are also residing there several people who formerly accompanied Hayes on his cruises, and who, whilst not excusing him from any of the undoubted rascalities he was guilty of, yet cannot be found to speak of him in any worse terms than as a reckless, devil-may-care sort of man of wonderful ingenuity and resource, to whom nothing came amiss in the way of business, which word with him meant a great deal more than is conveyed in its ordinary acceptation.

My informants told me that although more brutal than any beast when enraged, this pirate could, when he liked, assume a courteous behaviour and address positively fascinating, and calculated to deceive even - the greatest sceptic. Although self-educated, he could converse fluently and cleverly on all ordinary topics, and if he were judged from his handsome and gentlemanly personal appearance, the lie direct would be given to the multitudinous reports of his lawless habits.

To see in the year 1876 an elderly well-dressed man, in missionary black frock-coat and tall hat, with a flowing gray beard sweeping his expansive chest, above which smiled a handsome and benevolent countenance fit for a bishop, and be told that the entire person was that of an undoubted pirate who was far from being free from suspicion of having committed murder, would astonish any man in his sober senses; yet such was 'Bully Hayes' in his best rig on shore in the Colonies.

Where Hayes received his initial lessons in practical piracy is not known; but report says that the simple robbery part of the profession was commenced in the bosom of his own family, where he began life by robbing his father at his home somewhere on the Mississippi.

In the year 1868 he is found in command of a lumber barque in San Francisco, from whence one night, instead of going alongside the wharf and discharging, without troubling the Shipping Office for clearance or putting the Customs to any inconvenience, he slipped off to sea, cargo and all, which he sold somewhere in Mexico.

The next thing heard of him was at Macao, where he obtained a charter for the conveyance of two hundred and fifty Chinese coolies to Sydney. At that time the New South Wales Government, alarmed at the invasion of this species of labour, with the view of putting a cheek to it, had imposed a poll-tax of £5 per head for each immigrant Chinese.

Hayes, in addition to the passage-money, was supplied also with the amount of capitation demand to pay on landing. This was too much temptation for him, so he determined to secure all that extra for himself, even if he had to throw his cargo overboard and invent some expedient for the theft. His acute ingenuity soon supplied him with a means to the desired end.

Arrived of Sydney Heads, he started all his watercasks in the hold, and then hoisted his ensign jackdownwards in signal of distress. A tug soon came out to render what assistance might be required, and seeing the barque pumping perfectly clear water from her sides, was convinced that she had sprung a serious leak, and offered to tow her in. Hayes, however, apparently to save salvage expenses, which most likely would have been claimed, refused the offer, saying that he thought he could keep the leak under, and bring the ship in all right next morning if the captain of the tug would take charge of and land his cargo of coolies, for whose safety he seemed most humanely anxious.

It was arranged that the tug was to come out again after landing these men, when, if the leak was not thoroughly got under, the captain should have the job of towing the barque in. The too confiding man agreed, and having completed his mission, returned to the Heads, where there was no barque at all to be seen, and reported the disappearance.

Whether the ship had been overpowered by the leak and gone to the bottom or not was unknown for some time afterwards, when the lighthouse-keeper gave evidence of her having made all sail from shore as soon as the tug disappeared round the Heads, and by the time of her return being well below the horizon. To make the matter more complete, the tug-proprietors had to pay the capitation money which Hayes had omitted to hand over with the coolies.

He next appears at Bankok, where, taking a fancy to a smart British schooner lying in the harbour, he determined to possess her at his own price. Arranging with his mate, who was a fit and appropriate second for so talented a chief, to take charge of the barque and meet him at his favourite place of rendezvous, Strong's Island, he landed, and making himself agreeable to the schooner's owners, soon managed to gain their confidence, and made them proposals to buy the craft at a tempting figure but first of all demanded and was granted a short trial of her seagoing qualities outside the harbour. In the meantime the barque departed in charge of the mate to carry out his part of the programme.

Hayes now took out the schooner to put her through her paces, which he did so well that she never came back, but went straight on to Hong Kong, where our friend sold the cargo of rice and then cleared out in a most correct manner, although, no doubt, he did not furnish the authorities with his real destination, Strong's Island, where he duly found his precious mate and barque awaiting him.

Loading up the schooner with island produce, he despatched her in charge of his accomplice to Hong Kong, with orders to dispose of the cargo and to return immediately. The mate thought this an opportunity not to be lost, and exceeded his chiefs orders to the extent of selling the vessel as well as the cargo, pocketed the money, and cleared off - not, however, to Strong's Island.

Hayes next turned up in Apia, in Samoa, where he was found by an American man-of-war which had been searching for him all over the Pacific. He was arrested, and brought to trial for his misdeeds; but for some inconceivable reason was acquitted and set at liberty by the United States authorities, both naval and consular.

Soon after this he was made aware that a British man-of-war, the Pearl, was making impertinent inquiries as to his whereabouts, with awkward reference to the lengthened trial trip of the Bankok schooner, which caused him to confine his cruising ground to the more retired parts of the Pacific. He, however, was not idle during the whole of this semi-retirement from high-class business, occupying his time in collecting, by means of forged orders, the island produce he could find ready for shipment at the various island agencies for commercial firms, which, however, never reached their headquarters either in dollars or kind.

After a lengthened course of dodging, he found himself and barque blockaded at Strong's Island by H.M.S. Pearl, which, taking up a position right in front of the only opening in the reef, cut off all hope of escape with the ship. Hayes saw that at the very least he should lose her, "but was determined that no one else should benefit by his loss, so, cutting the cable, he let her go bodily on the reef, where she broke up and sank.

He then, with the greatest assurance in the world, although there was not the smallest necessity for this bravado, at the risk of being recognised and captured, took his boat, went off to the man-of-war, and impudently offered to pilot her under the reef, informing the captain that he thought Hayes was on shore, but had sunk his ship and intended leaving for another island as soon as possible-in fact, describing truthfully his own position.

His manner was so childlike and bland that no suspicion as to his real character was for a moment entertained, and Hayes, taking an affectionate farewell of his hunters, left coolly in his whale-boat, and with his crew passed over to an adjacent group.

How he got another vessel history does not relate. That always seemed to be a very easily solved question with him; the fact remains that he soon did get another, and put in an appearance at Pago-Pago, in the island of Tutuila, in Samoa, with a schooner, having on board a lot of Pacific islanders he had kidnapped from a neighbouring group, intending to sell them as labour to the German plantations in Upolu. 'Mauga,' the native chief of that district, ascertaining that these men had been forcibly taken away from their homes, and knowing that Hayes was wanted for various little things, seized him, and sent him over to Apia for disposal, where, for want of proper accommodation for detention, he remained for some time a prisoner at large, awaiting the arrival of a man-of-war to put him on his trial, for which Hayes, although loudly proclaiming his innocence, had no intention of stopping should he get the chance of escape.

An opportunity shortly did occur, when a schooner arrived, owned and sailed by as great a ruffian as himself, though very much meaner and inferior in method, named Pease; a man who afterwards got his throat cut, in payment for some native iniquity he had committed. It was suspected that Hayes would try to get away with his friend so a close watch was kept for some time, which, however, was somewhat relaxed one evening, when it was thought that from the darkness and stormy nature of the weather no vessel could ever find the reef-opening and get out; nevertheless, the next morning it was found that Pease had levanted in the night, and with him Hayes. It afterwards transpired that the formersome time during the day - had, unobserved, laid out a long line to the mouth of the entrance, and, feeling along that in the dark, was able to hit off the right spot, and clear out with his friend.

Pease was quite well aware that he and Hayes could not live together long in the same ship, without the latter getting the upper hand, so he inveigled him on shore one day in Fiji, to help steal a ship for him; but returning to his own on some excuse, set sail, and left his friend behind to his own resources. How he got away from Fiji is not generally known, but soon afterwards he was reported to the Spanish authorities as suspiciously cruising with a new schooner in the vicinity of the political convict depots in the Philippine Islands, and a man-of-war was sent to- look after him. She found him on shore at one of these depots, from whence some hundred convicts had escaped in his vessel. He immediately laid a formal complaint to the Spanish captain, claiming compensation for the loss of his schooner, which he averred had been stolen by the escaped prisoners, who, overpowering the crew, had sailed of, leaving him on shore, where he had gone to enjoy a bath. He was not believed, his story bearing ugly traces of collusion and accordingly was conveyed to Manilla, tried, and imprisoned; and, after having undergone a year of rigorous confinement he was released, apparently in a dying state, and left the group as a distressed American seaman. He soon, however, reaped the benefit of his unwilling sacrifice and reappeared at his old haunts with ten thousand dollars cash, three chests of clothes, and many valuable instruments, no doubt the price of the liberation of the Spanish convicts; but how and where he got paid, to this day remains a mystery.

His last exploit, which ended fatally for him, was on a par with his former ones. He had drifted back again to San Francisco, where the authorities appear to have been contented to let bygones be bygones, and not to visit him with their disapproval of former mistakes. Here he made the acquaintance of the owner of a yacht, who took a great fancy to him, returned by Hayes taking a still stronger fancy to his craft, to the extent of intended appropriation on the first favourable opportunity. He not only admired the yacht, but also the owner's wife, with whom, as soon as she was prepared, he levanted on his unauthorized cruise to the sunny South; and one fine morning the owner found himself minus both wife and yacht, in which the amorous pirate was enjoying his, perhaps, twentieth honeymoon, in peace with all the world except his own cook, with whom he violently quarrelled somewhere off the Marshalls. On jumping down the companion-ladder to fetch his revolver for the purpose of convincing the bad man of the error of his ways, he received from the aggressive cordon bleu - who had the bad taste not to give his master time to expostulate with him in his usually convincing manner-such a crack across the head with the iron tiller, as effectually put an end to this famous man's troubles and passion at one and the same time.

In spite of his many ruffianisms, some of which were of so gross a nature as to preclude mention, Hayes had many friends even amongst those whom he had swindled, at all events in Samoa. When discussing any of his rascalities in company, it was always thus: 'Oh, never mind that.' And then would follow instances of humanity, daring, and good-fellowship that in the eyes of the community completely overbalanced anything to his discredit; although these very people knew, right well that Hayes would have victimized any one of them if he had only had the chance.

The only persons safe with Hayes, friends or foes, were those who had nothing to be stolen or wheedled out of. Even members of the crews with whom he had sailed, in spite of the cruel treatment they one and all had received at his hands - as was instanced at his trial on board the U.S. warship Narraganset could not be induced to give evidence against or speak a bad word of him. This may perhaps have been from the danger of self-crimination, but still, although there is no danger from him now, the fact remains the same.

Hayes was commonly believed to have indulged somewhat in murder, and it is on all sides said of him that when in the mood, he would as soon kill a man as talk to him; yet I never heard in any conversation a positive statement of his having done so.

Hayes was, according to report, very much married - not taking into consideration native wives, of whom he had at least one in every island he haunted-and has left all over the Pacific a numerous progeny of half-castes. His legitimate wife, a New Zealand lady, was residing in Apia with two lovely daughters - the belles of the South Pacific - and one son, when I arrived there, but about a year afterwards left for Fiji. Hayes, in one of his playful moods, is said to have attempted to obtain a divorce from the whole of this family after his own fashion by upsetting the boat in which he was rowing them outside the inner reef of Apia harbour; but to his disgust he did not obtain his decree, for they all got safely on shore.

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