The ship-rigged, sloop-of-war Vincennes was the first United States Naval vessel to circumnavigate the globe.
Even if she had done nothing more than be the flagship of Lieutenant Charles Wilkes’ famous exploring expedition to the Antarctic in 1839-1840; or to have entered Tokyo Bay in the futile attempt to open Japan to foreign trade eight years before Commodore Matthew C. Perry succeeded; or to have participated as flagship in the Ringgold-Rodgers expedition to the North Pacific; or to have stubbornly refused to blow up after having a slow match touched to her powder magazine while fast on a sand bar in the Mississippi River during the Civil War—that first world encircling voyage still would make the Vincennes one of the most historic United States Naval vessels ever to fire a broadside.
That first-around-the-world trip began September 3, 1826, when the Vincennes sailed out of New York harbor on her combined shake-down cruise and maiden voyage. Only the month before she had been launched at the New York Navy Yard.
For three weeks the Vincennes steered southeast, then tacked straight south, passed the Cape Verde islands, crossed the equator October 14 at a point half way between the shores of Africa and South America, swung southwest, and came to in the harbor of Rio de Janeiro, October 28.
When she was ready to resume her historic voyage, the land guns of Dom Pedro, Emperor of Brazil, halted her.
Her captain, William Bolton Finch, Master Commandant, U. S. Navy, prepared to shoot it out with Dom Pedro or anyone else who interfered with the progress of the Vincennes. In a duel in Boston harbor Captain Finch had killed his man. Now, faced with a duel on larger scale, Finch was confident he could depend on every one of his 190-man crew to back him until the Vincennes either was at sea again or was blown to splinters.
Brazil was in the midst of her wars for independence. The officers and men of the Vincennes naturally sympathized with the revolutionists. Their ship’s name was a symbol of liberty. Back at Vincennes (Indiana), in 1779, George Rogers Clark and his little army of ragged, half-starved frontiersmen had defeated the British and forced “Hair- buyer” General Hamilton to surrender the fort unconditionally.
On this November 18, 1826, just as the sloops-of-war Vincennes and Brandywine were preparing to leave Rio de Janeiro, Emperor Dom Pedro had laid an embargo on all shipping in the harbor. Captain Finch and his officers knew they could expect no help from the French and British fleets anchored nearby. In his journal, kept aboard the Vincennes, Midshipman Stephan C. Rowan notes that the Admirals of those two fleets “looked on us with a suspicious eye.”
Commodore Jacob Jones, Commander of the United States Squadron, notified the captain of the fort that the Vincennes and the Brandywine, as vessels of a neutral and friendly nation, intended to pass out to sea at once. If refused passage they would blow up the Emperor’s forts or fight until sunk.
Dom Pedro replied, through his Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, that as one friendly nation to another “the Squadron may sail as soon as said Commander wishes.”
The Squadron remained an extra day, then stood out of the harbor for Valparaiso by way of Cape Horn.
Outside, the fresh breezes quickly increased to a heavy gale. The Vincennes was obliged to run under storm staysails for three days. Great albatrosses passed over the ship. Some landed on deck, bit savagely when sailors tried to catch them.
The sloop-of-war Vincennes was the latest, trimmest ship in the United States Navy. She was still so new her paint glistened and her rigging smelled of the original tar. She had cost $119,175.00. Between perpendiculars, at bow and stern, she was 127 feet; beam moulded 33 feet, 9 inches; depth of hold 15 feet, 6 inches. From deck to flagpole her mainmast measured 167 feet. She carried four 8-inch guns and sixteen 30-pounders. Her tonnage was 700. As for sea-worthiness, Captain Finch reports “Excellent under reduced sail on a wind. In a head sea, and with a strong breeze, can compete with any vessel. Lies to, steers and works well, and is easy on her spars and cables.”
Heavy seas rose as the ship neared Cape Horn. At South Latitude 41, the sailors saw the Magellan clouds. The temperature dropped to 40. Incessant rain forced officers and men to work in wet clothing. Seas broke over the ship. The heavy guns, forward and aft, had to be sent below. “A great relief and advantage to the ship,” says Captain Finch.
December 7 to 11 the Vincennes fought her way around the Horn. She ran well west, caught the southeast trade winds, and tacked northward. On Christmas Day, 1826, Midshipman Rowan notes, “We made the harbor of Valparaiso after a very unpleasant passage of 37 days from Rio de Janeiro.”
Part of the crew went ashore. With reluctance they returned, bearing the startling news: all the women in town were beautiful, many of them willing to seduce sailors.
As soon as fresh supplies of meat, vegetables, and firewood had been stowed on board, the Vincennes again put to sea. When all sails were drawing, Captain Finch ordered three sailors to be trussed up and given six lashes for drinking, fighting, and misconduct while on shore. Two others, feeling that the town ladies were more congenial than the crew of the Vincennes, had deserted ship, had been caught, and brought back on board. They were given a choice of thirty lashes or a court-martial. They chose thirty lashes.
March 5,1827, the Vincennes made Callao, Peru, where she took on board 114 gallons of rum. In a little while it was discovered that the government of Peru was even more unsettled than had been the government of Brazil. Simon Bolivar, whose battle cry was “War to the death on all Spaniards!” had recently gone to Colombia. He had left affairs of Peru in the hands of Santa Cruz. But the local Spanish adherents had risen and clapped Bolivar’s officers in Castle Manta.
After a brief inspection of the harbor and fortifications, the Vincennes cleared for Guayaquil, Eucador. Here were American whaleships recently in from the North Pacific, Japan, and China whaling grounds. Their casks filled with oil, they were fitting out for the journey to their New England home ports.
While the whaleships outfitted in the harbor, the revolution ashore boiled along and the Alspidi brothers took time out to settle a family quarrel. Both were generals in Bolivar’s army. Suspecting one another of having secret communication with Bolivar, the brothers decided to divide the revolutionary forces as equally as possible and fight it out.
Fortunately the Vincennes lay opposite the proposed battleground. To the great delight of her crew the two armies arrived at daylight, April 29, and drew up in bristling array. Crowding every vantage point on the Vincennes, the sailors impatiently waited for the roar of cannon and the clang of swords. They were disappointed when they saw the town fathers dash in and veto the battle.
Captain Finch weighed anchor and got out of there. He never stopped until he made the Islands of San Fernandez, 1500 miles straight south. It was there that Robinson Crusoe and his man Friday had lived. “We went ashore for the purpose of exercise,” noted Rowan. “We found one man who calls himself an American.”
The next fifteen months were spent by the Vincennes doing routine duty of patrolling the west coast of South America. From December, 1828, to April, 1829, she was engaged in gunnery practice. Floating targets were fired on while the ship was underway. Captain Finch says, “The great guns at 600 yards threw double round shot remarkably well; grape at same distance would have done execution. On firing the guns elevated as much as the ports would allow (and aiding them by careening the ship), they threw the single shot nearly to the top of San Lorenzo, whose elevation is about 600 feet, and which is more than a mile distant.” In the logbook about this time we find the following entry:
May 18, 1829—In fishing the anchor, the eye of the lower pendant parted and the fish tackle block struck Midshipman J. W. Larkin and fractured his skull. Three days later—Committed the body of Midshipman Larkin to the deep after the usual ceremonies.
In June, Captain Finch received a letter from the Secretary of the Navy which gave the Vincennes the final order to circle the globe. “You will proceed,” the letter read, “after supplying your ship with required funds in specie, provisions and repairs, to the Society Islands, touching at ports in them where it is probable you will find our whaling vessels.” Not only was Captain Finch ordered to render all possible assistance to the vessels, but he was to cultivate the best possible feelings for our government with the island chieftains. At the same time he was asked to do whatever he could to discourage American sailors from deserting ship for life among the South Pacific islanders.
On July 4 the Vincennes was back in Callao harbor. “At meridian fired a salute in honor of the day,” says the logbook, and the next day’s entry is this:
July 5, 1829—At 530 got underway and stood out of the harbor. Set courses, skysails, flying jib and spanker. Was cheered by the Guerrier, St. Louis, and Dolphin. At 11 read prayers and mustered the crew. Light airs & cloudy weather.
The ship sailed almost due west, catching the light southerly breezes. Under full sail she boomed along over a smooth sea. The wind freshened. Strong currents set in and heaved the vessel to the northward. The weather grew warm and serene. The Vincennes was now running before the full strength of the southeast tradewinds. Lieutenant Thomas A. Dornin wrote in his journal, “Several flying fish in sight with ends of their wings and tails tipped with red. Saw a large spermaceti whale.”
Slowly the Pacific ocean took hold of the sloop-of-war. A swell increased with no perceptible increase of the wind.
“It’s due to the full moon,” said old sailors.
July 16, Lieutenant Dornin wrote, “Fresh breezes, flying clouds, heavy seas.” The next day, “Heavy swell continues, the ship rolls uneasy and deep.” And again, “Fine weather, much swell, ship rolls but does not strain.”
The Vincennes had run about 3500 miles and was due soon to raise the Marquesas Islands. It was Sunday. As the ship’s bell struck the time, the band solemnly played “O Come Let Us Worship.” Officers and men assembled on deck. Chaplain C. S. Stewart stepped upon a shot box, and using the capstan spread with a flag for a desk, read prayers and preached.
The First Officer, First Lieutenant C. K. Stribling, followed Chaplain Stewart with a reading of Captain Finch’s instructions to the ship’s company. They were to deal honestly and frankly with the South Sea islanders, and “Abstain from sensual indulgences and treat them as a sovereign people.”
On the evening of July 27 the Vincennes hauled in close to the Island of Hauhuka, the most easterly of the Marquesas group. The wildness of the land formation and the apparent loneliness of the island fascinated the crew. Sharp cliffs overhung coves. Dense jungle covered the hills.
Disappointed at finding Hauhuka uninhabited, Captain Finch was going to bring the ship about and steer westward to the next island when suddenly, abreast the ship, there was shouting from a high bluff. Naked, brown-skinned people leaped and yelled. Down on the shore appeared more naked people. They ran. They yelled. They waved spears. They tossed white mantles into the air.
Because she had too much sail set, the vessel shot past the excited islanders. Captain Finch quickly reduced sail and got under the lee of the land. That gave the crew a better view of the naked savages running up and down the beach.
Finch ordered the band on deck. The instant the first note reached the shore, the people ceased their shouting and running. They crouched to the ground and sat as if under a spell. Probably nothing like this had ever before broken upon their ears.
“The crew in Sunday dress uniforms of whiteness,” wrote Chaplain Stewart, “and the full toned band must have seemed like a vision from a brighter, better world.”
As the ship, all sails again drawing, moved westward, officers and men stood gazing back at the island growing smaller in the gathering darkness. They could see its wild people still crouching on the ground, still listening in silent wonder.
The ship ran only part of the night, then lay to until morning. When daylight came she moved in close to the shore of Nukuhiva, largest of the Marquesas group. She entered Taiohae bay, a circular basin of water nine miles in circumference. Sloping inland for a mile was a valley of velvety greenness. Mountains of basalt rose seemingly straight up. Cascades of broad streams glittered in the morning light.
Quietly the Vincennes rounded a tower-like bluff and came upon a fleet of canoes filled with naked, brown-skinned fishermen. The second the natives spied the ship they hauled in their fishing tackle and made ready to board. “There was no little excitement on our decks,” says Chaplain Stewart. “As we came among them we caught the wild sounds of their joyous chatter. Everyone of us was ready to throw a line to those who leapt from their canoes into the sea to get hold on some part of the ship.”
In spite of the ship being under considerable sail, about half a dozen natives succeeded in climbing on board. From these Chaplain Stewart, who spoke Hawaiian which these Polynesians of eight degrees further south understood, learned that they were Happas and that they were at war with the Typees who lived just across the valley.
The Happas wanted the Americans to join in the war at once. They said the Typees were very bad because they ate people any old time. The Happas admitted they, too, ate human flesh but only on special occasions.
The Vincennes hove to near the Teiis tribe. This pleased the Happas because the Teiis were their friends. Before the ship had let go her anchor, more canoes came darting from the shore. The savages reached the ship, ran up the ropes, leaped on deck.
And then to the amazement of the sailors there moved through the water toward the ship scores of naked girls. The nearer the girls came, their nude brown bodies glistening in the water and the tropical sun, the more excited became the sailors. Eagerly the men dropped lines over the ship’s side. Every man hooked a mermaid.
Chattering and giggling, the girls swarmed the lines. Although stark naked when they came on board, they were modest. They refused to jump down on deck until they had dressed. One hundred and fifty of them clung in the rigging and faced the Americans.
While the sailors gaped, each girl took from a tiny roll of leaves a kihei or mantle. Swaying gently with the ship, she wrapped the kihei around her hips. Then the alluring, dark-eyed, human-flesh eaters jumped to the deck and got acquainted with the sailors.
In the midst of the resultant noise and confusion King Moana, a boy of eight, his guardian, Prince Haape, and Chief Piaroro, the King’s companion, came alongside in the royal canoe. With great ceremony Captain Finch and his officers welcomed the royal party on board. All wore hip clouts of tappa cloth. Piaroro, who was very tall, was so completely tatooed that his body had the appearance of being entirely clothed.
Prince Haape, fat and middle aged, renewed the invitation to Captain Finch to join the Haapas’ war on the Typees. He would pay forty hogs for America’s help.
Captain Finch, with Chaplain Stewart as interpreter, replied that the Vincennes came to Nukuhiva not to make war, not to trade, but as a mark of kindness and friendship only. He then ordered refreshments of bread, raisins, and apples. When the band assembled and began to play, the royal party went to the poop deck and listened with childish delight.
Toward evening Captain Finch pointed to a white flag flying at the fore topmast. He told the king that when that flag flew, it meant the Vincennes was free to all visitors. But when it was down, the ship was tabu. He said the flag was now going to be lowered and all natives must leave the ship at once.
Haape and Piaruro, in leisurely Polynesian manner, called to their subjects to get for home.
No attention was paid to the order.
Very tersely Captain Finch repeated his demand to the King.
Instantly the chiefs, assuming regal attitudes, spoke sharply. Greater confusion than ever broke out. Native men in the rigging, on the yard arms, everywhere about the ship, yelled and plunged into the sea.
But not the girls.' They liked the sloop-of- war Vincennes. They liked the sailors. In spite of Captain Finch and all his orders, these girls did not intend to get off. Whalers and merchantmen, while in the harbor, often had allowed them to remain on board many an amorous night.
After all, these girls had spent most of their lives preparing for just such an adventure as this. They bathed every morning in the juice of the papa vine. They wrapped themselves in tappa and remained in the shade all day so as to make their brown skins smooth and fair, their hands, with tapering fingers, more tempting to hold.
Captain Finch, determined to clear the ship, ordered “Beat to quarters.” That deprived the girls of their lovers. Finch drew his sword and ordered his officers to do the same. Pointing to the gangway, he told those Nukuhivan beauties to go jump into the sea. They were excellent swimmers; they had to be if they wanted to go places. Any woman caught in a native boat displeased the gods. The penalty? Death.
The girls looked at Captain Finch, swayed rhythmically to the ship’s rail, hesitated.
Finch pointed to the gamgway.
Screaming “Tahal Tahal," the girls leaped over the side and swam away.
The King and his party stepped into their canoe. Haape looked up and said, “This is a strange ship.”
The next day, in order to establish friendly relations with the islanders, Captain Finch took ashore a number of presents. Unaware of the seriousness of the tabu system, Finch tossed a piece of cotton cloth over a tabu man’s head to a woman chief. The man cried, “Tabu!,” seized the cloth and kept it. Had the woman caught the cloth she would have been put to death for humiliating the gods.
While natives helped the crew supply his ship with fresh water and food, Captain Finch conferred with the chiefs. The chiefs said war generally was caused by the Typees stealing war conchs from the Happas’ tabued or consecrated places where stone idols were kept. Only a few nights before, they said, Typees had crept into Happas huts and kidnapped three women, a child, and three men. They said that the Typees had sacrificed those people because one of the great Typee chiefs had died. They explained that no dead chief could find rest in the paganistic future state unless several human lives were sacrificed.
Inasmuch as the Vincennes was a peace ship as well as a war vessel, Captain Finch suggested that King Moana and the Happas chiefs go with him to visit the Typees and talk over their troubles.
The Typees were treacherous, said the Happas. They ate people just anytime.
Finch said, “That is bad, but after all you are one people.” He explained that in the United States “If differences arise, we talk it over.”
The Happas were favorably impressed.
With King Moana, Haape, and the other Happas chiefs on board, Captain Finch sailed the Vincennes on a peace mission across the narrow bay to the land of the Typees. Captain Finch went ashore, greeted the Typee chiefs, gave them presents, called a conference. He asked them why they molested the Happas.
“They are bad neighbors,” said a chief.
“I can’t think so,” said Finch. He pointed to the neutral ground separating the two warring tribes. “It is the best watered, the most extensive and fertile. It ought to be cultivated.”
The chiefs nodded.
Captain Finch went on, “It would be better if you were at peace. You might then avail yourselves of trade and traffic.”
The chiefs exclaimed, “Good! good!”
One chief asked, “Why haven’t we been told these things before? No one has ever talked to us like this before.”
Finch replied, “Those who spoke differently were not your true friends.” He asked them to stop stealing Happas to be used for sacrifices. The Typees promised to stop. They even vowed they never would eat human flesh again except in aggravated cases.
At Captain Finch’s invitation the Typee chiefs came on board the Vincennes and met the Happas. Chiefs of the two tribes sat down and talked together. In fact, the atmosphere of the sloop-of-war was so charged with peace, thanks to Captain Finch and his crew, that the Happas and the Typees slept together that night, on the poop deck, in a common tent.
The next day was Sunday. Chiefs of both tribes, pagans all, willingly attended divine services conducted by Chaplain Stewart at the flag-draped capstan. The services ended, the Typees went ashore and the ship got underway to return the Happas to their home.
But a strong wind delayed the ship until Monday. Although a near gale whipped the ocean to a froth outside, an unusual calm held the ship in the mountain-locked harbor. Presently a heavy groundswell set in and carried the vessel toward a steep, rocky cliff. There the water was thirty fathoms deep, and foaming.
Naked Typee cannibals looked down from the top of the cliff and appeared, some sailors thought, strangely excited.
A kedge was run out. It checked the ship’s drifting only momentarily. Sailors in boats, with lines made fast to the ship, fought to check the drifting. They were helpless. Stern foremost, the Vincennes was drifting into the breakers under the barefaced cliff.
From above the Typees looked down with more excitement. Lieutenant Dornin notes, “We began to be aware of the prospect of shipwreck and murder, for we were almost in reach of the cannibals.”
Teppu, a Happas warrior on board the Vincennes, picked up young King Moana and wailed, “Mate! Mate ao!” (“utterly destroyed!”) He added the doleful prediction, “We will all be eaten by the Typees!”
Captain Finch ordered officers and crew to seize spars, run them out over the stern, plant them against the cliff. With the unbelievable strength of frightened men, the sailors braced their feet on the deck, held doggedly to the spars, hoped for the best.
Men in the little boats got out another kedge. The ship kept right on drifting.
A great swell rolled the Vincennes within twelve feet of the cliff. Pale faced, the sailors strained harder at the spars. Some prayed selfish prayers. Seconds seemed to wear into hours. Above the sailors, flesh-eating cannibals jumped and yelled.
A breath of air from the land gently bellied the topsails. Imperceptibly, the ship moved seaward and away from the cliff. Wind from the gale outside the harbor caught the lower lower sails. The Vincennes came to life, stood for the open sea.
Dornin says every soul on board gratefully thanked God for deliverance.
A great welcome was given the Vincennes when she returned to the land of the Happas. That night, while Nukuhivans lined the shore, Captain Finch entertained them with fireworks, blue lights, and skyrockets. Next morning he weighed anchor and stood to the southwest.
Within a week the favorable tradewinds carried the Vincennes to Tahiti, 800 miles away. Chaplain Stewart writes, “Here is nothing of the wild shouting and nakedness so annoying at Nukuhiva.”
The Tahitians (Polynesians like the Nukuhivans) lived in clean, well-built houses. Men and women wore clothes. Under the influence of the missionaries, almost all the natives had forsaken idols. Many had learned to read the Bible.
Because of the general cleanliness there was little disease there except elephantiasis. The worst scourge was venereal disease, brought in by white whalemen. Natives found guilty of adultery were sentenced to pay a fine of four hogs or work out their value on the public roads. The crew of the Vincennes was astounded to see the Tahitian turnpike lined with beautiful women swinging pickaxes.
Captain Finch called upon seventeen-year- old Queen Pomare in her palace. He explained that too many sailors were deserting American whaleships and taking refuge in Tahiti. He said the Queen’s government should severely punish any Tahitian who enticed and harbored deserters. He invited her to visit the Vincennes.
Queen Pomare, King Tomatoo of Raeteo, and other royal chieftains officially accepted the invitation and came on board. The Queen had prepared a letter for Captain Finch to deliver to President Jackson. She wrote, “I am a female. I am young and inexperienced. We have cast away the worship of idols and have embraced the word of our common Lord.” She asked President Jack- son to send more merchant vessels to Tahiti. “We will treat them well,” she promised. She said her people needed printed cottons, ribbons, shawls, and pickaxes.
Following the royal visit, the Vincennes fired a salute of 15 guns and stood northward for Hawaii, or Owyhee as the logbook designates the group known then as the Sandwich Islands.
The uneventful voyage of 2500 miles was made in twenty days.
Prominent among the well-clothed Hawaiians crowding the beach was the Reverend Mr. Goodrich, resident missionary, waving at Chaplain Stewart and indicating the best spot for landing.
Three years before this, Chaplain Stewart had served as missionary among the islanders. When he stepped on Hawaiian soil with the crew of the Vincennes he says the natives “shed tears as they embraced and kissed my hands, or sank at my feet.” His old friend, Blind Bartimeus, was the first to greet him.
Hawaii seemed to the Vincennes' crew as far advanced over Tahiti in civilization as Tahiti had seemed ahead of Nukuhiva. King Kauikeaouli received Captain Finch and his officers in a glittering throne room. The young monarch, seated on a chair covered with yellow feathers, wore a Windsor uniform with epaulets of gold. At his right, on a sofa, sat ex-Queens Kinau and Kekaurvuhe. Both wore white-ruffed, black dresses.
Shortly after the reception at the palace, Captain Finch received the King and Princess Nahienana on board the Vincennes. The logbook notes:
Manned the yards and cheered as they came on board. At 5 royal party left ship. Saluted them with 21 guns which was returned by the fort.
A story was laid before Captain Finch of a wealthy British official of the island who decided to shoot any pig, goat, cow, or fowl, belonging to his neighbors, which might trespass on his grounds. However, when a very fine milch cow, belonging to the official, wandered onto the nearby farm of a native and was confined by him, the enraged Britisher demanded his cow and threatened the native with bodily injury. A few days later the cow again got loose and went back to the native’s farm. This time the Hawaiian shot her. Badly hurt, the cow ran away and dramatically fell dead as she reached home.
Without reporting the incident to the Hawaiian King, the British official, with his close friend, an American of equally high official position and wealth, seized the native and tied a rope around him. With the rope between them, they rode away on their horses. They dragged the man to Honolulu. There they had thrown him into the fort, where he still remained.
The King and his chiefs also accused the officials of initiating “the false and lying report concerning the Princess that she is a lewd and incestuous woman. We deny the allegation. It is not so. Our hearts are broken by the scandal and we can bear it no longer.”
The King and his sister, the Princess, were accused of “living in a state of incest.” Scandal-mouthing Americans told Captain Finch that it was a fact.
Captain Finch told the King, “When you and these my countrymen who live in youi islands become better acquainted, then all grounds of complaint may cease on both sides. ... I have not the power to give you such satisfaction as you may think is deserved; but I will receive, and deliver to the President (Andrew Jackson) such demand? or representations as you may choose to make; and they will be effectually attended to.”
The King wrote to the President: “Look ye on us with charity. We have formerly been dark minded and ignorant of the usages of enlightened countries.” Very frankly he explained his troubles to the President.
Just as the Vincennes was ready to weigh anchor, the masters of the merchant ships in Honolulu harbor charged, in a memorial to Captain Finch, that the “inhabitants have carried out systematic series of enticements to induce our crews to desert from the ships and thus bring them (the ships) into distress and damage,”
Captain Finch received the memorial and said he would report the incident to Washington, but, from the letter he sent along with the memorial to the Secretary of the Navy, it was quite evident he was becoming a bit weary of foreign faultfinders in Hawaii. He wrote to the Secretary: “The gentlemen now at the Sandwich Islands forget that the natives are not the same naked, uninstructed creatures they were when they first went among them. I am at a loss to decide wherein the foreign residents have just cause to complain of the government of the Sandwich Islands.” Following this, the logbook records:
November 24, 1829—Got underway and stood out of the harbor of Honolulu. Squally. Single reefed the topsails. . . . November 25—moderate breezes and cloudy weather.
The Vincennes steered a westward course. She was bound for Canton, China. Ahead of the ship lay more than 3000 miles of Pacific ocean. Never before had any American vessel of war attempted to span the Pacific. On December 3 the ship crossed the international date line. Squally weather, rain, and wind dogged her. A few days later she was becalmed. Sometimes she didn’t make a mile an hour. Her sails flapped uselessly against the masts. The intense heat of the tropical sun roasted the sailors above and below deck. The men were listless, depressed. December 11, John Taylor, quartermaster, died.
Chaplain Stewart read the burial service. “I gave one word of admonition and exhortation,” he said, “a word to which under the circumstances no ear could be stopped. And then came the slide and dull plunge of the body which committed it to the bosom of the Pacific.”
December 20, the Vincennes passed north of Guam and Saipan, the first American war vessel ever to approach those islands.
Christmas Eve, 1829, the sailors saw an unnatural light along the western horizon. The Pacific rose astoundingly high, foamed, roared. Sails clapped, cracked in reefing. Almost rolled on her beam ends, the Vincennes held to her course and fought westward.
Private John Beaty, a Marine, while helping take in sail New Years Day, got his foot entangled in the end of the main topmast downhaul. Halyards slipped off the belaying pin, jumped out of hand. Due to the great speed of the ship and the raging storm, the sail, gear, and boom went by at a run into the sea. And Beaty’s foot, still entangled in the downhaul, was clipped off and carried overboard. Captain Finch and Ship’s Surgeon Malone recommended the Marine for a full pension.
The ship sailed past Formosa and entered the China Sea. And although the Vincennes had just become the first American naval vessel to span the Pacific, not an officer or man seemed impressed with the historic event. All were thankful they were out of the moody ocean. Captain Finch declared, “Truly I never saw rougher seas and stronger blows anywhere.”
Officers, standing about, looked back at the Pacific and happily said, “Adiosl”
Chaplain Stewart intoned, “Aroha ino."
The band played “Auld Lang Syne.”
The ship sailed on westward. During the dark, miserable night, somewhere off Hong Kong, those below heard Captain Finch shout, “Hard aport! Hard aport! Quick! Quick!”
The ship lost speed.
A midshipman from the forecastle cried, “She will strike, sir! She will strike!”
There came a grinding crash.
The quartermaster called below, “We have just run afoul of Chinese junks!”
The Vincennes hove to and hoisted lights. When daylight broke, there were no signs of the junks. It was assumed that the Chinese fishermen had been asleep, but that the crash had awakened them. Quietly repairing their vessels, they had set out early for the fishing grounds.
Everywhere the costal waters were dotted with fishing craft, lashed together in pairs. On the sides of each junk were painted large eyes to keep a lookout at night for moving ships. Among the logbook entries for the next few days are these:
December 30,1829—Set the time one day forward for East Longitude. . . . January 2, 1830—Committed the body of William Wilkes to the deep. . . . January 3—Working up the Santou passage for Macao Roads. At 12 came to in 3 ½ fathoms water. Muddy bottom. Furled sails.
Hardly had the ship finished firing a 17- gun salute to Macao, a city under the Portuguese flag, when numerous small Chinese water craft swarmed about her on all sides. The Chinese wanted to sell food, anything, to the Americans. They came from their village on the water. Along the shore they had floating butchershops, vegetable stores, poultry yards. Behind these, on land, could be seen pagodas and rice fields.
One month later the Vincennes had crossed the China Sea and had anchored in Manila Bay.
Manila was not very inviting. “The streets are narrow and neglected,” Lieutenant Dornin notes in his journal. “The place shows no signs of activity.” Universal apathy around the place was in sharp contrast to the energy and activity of neighboring China. “Trade with Spain is limited and of little value, and carried on by an annual ship,” says Dornin. According to the logbook, the ship remained at Manila only a short while:
February 10—Standing out of Manila Bay. Cloudy with sharp lightning. At 830 passed to north of Corregidor. Squared the yards and set the starboard studding sails.
The ship steered due west into the South China Sea, dropped southwestward and then south, passing along the Malay Peninsula, tacked southward, and anchored at the island of Lumaterall for fresh water. On February 23 the Vincennes began beating through the Straits of Sunda which separate Sumatra and Java. Here winds were described in the logbook as S. E., S. W., variable, N. W., and westerly. February 24, the logbook reads: “Frequent squalls of wind with light rain. Taken aback braced about on starboard tack. Double reefed and hoisted topsails.” Ten days later, while the Vincennes was becalmed in the Indian ocean, another sad entry occurs in the log:
March 12—At 1030 furled the main royal. At 1145 committed the body of John Tryon to the deep with usual ceremonies. Winds ESE.
Scudding past the southern end of Madagascar, the Vincennes rounded Cape of Good Hope and, on April 8, dropped anchor in the harbor of Cape Town, South Africa.
Several visitors came aboard, most of whom were Dutch. According to Lieutenant Dornin they “evinced great pleasure at seeing the first American man of war that had anchored voluntarily in their harbor.” The townspeople were so hospitable that officers and crew were reluctant to depart. But on April 20 the Vincennes caught the southeast breeze and stood to the northward.
May 2, she made the rocks off the south of St. Helena Island. She let fall her topsails and, with 17 guns, saluted the Commander of the British naval forces on the African station. The salute was returned. Some of the officers went ashore and visited Napoleon’s tomb, far back at the head of a secluded glen.
After filling up with water the Vincennes got underway, May 6, and steered northwestward, and a week later the log records: May 13—At 15 PM hauled up and chased hermaphrodite brig under French colors. Fired a gun to leeward.
The strange vessel hove to, and the Vincennes crew boarded her. She proved to be the French brig Eliza. Her commander reported that he had fallen in with the English schooner St. Helena, which had recently been boarded by the crew of a 10-gun piratical schooner near the African ivory coast. The pirates had tied the captain and the surgeon and had thrown them, alive, into the sea. After plundering the schooner, the pirates had set her adrift, carrying a few surviving sailors.
As the Vincennes filled away, Captain Finch ordered a sharp lookout for any strange sail which might prove to be the piratical schooner.
Rain and heavy northeast swells greeted the Vincennes when she crossed the Line and entered the North Atlantic. Wind increased. A great deal of the rigging parted, says Dornin. The sails, now about worn out, were badly torn.
June 9, 1830, with the band on deck playing “Hail Columbia, Happy Land,” the United States sloop-of-war Vincennes worked up New York harbor. At 4 p.m. she came to off Brooklyn Navy Yard.
After an absence of nearly four years the Vincennes had returned home. She had become the first American Naval vessel to circle the earth.