Monday

Having arrived 45 minutes late into Singapore, at 1:40 AM, I had the good luck of knowing that my hotel was just this side of Singapore Customs. The transit hotel rents for S$56.63 a hotel room with a shower for a whole six hours. Not bad, but then I remembered I was supposed to make a reservation.

This is pretty important, since many flights arrive into Singapore from the other side of the globe at such ungodly hours – and the hotel was looking to be filled up. They were already telling one gentleman he had to wait for 1/2 an hour or so because he had no reservation, when I arrived. So, when I spoke to the desk clerk, I simply claimed that my reservation had been faxed while I was in transit. She couldn’t find it, of course, but for some reason, she put me ahead of the first guy waiting when there was a cancellation. I heard that the place was sold out for the night.

NOW, for the history.

In December of 1794, Captain John Kendrick of Wareham had arrived at Honolulu Harbor, Oahu, in his brigantine, Lady Washington. Seven years before, he had left Boston in command of Columbia expedition, with Lady Washington, then a single masted sloop of 60 feet) as tender to his flagship Columbia.

Two years later off Clayoquot Sound, Vancouver Island, BC, he would trade vessels with his subcommander, Captain Robert Gray of Tiverton, RI, with the remaining to gather a full cargo of sea otter furs while the larger vessel under Gray’s command, would make haste to the Chinese merchants in Guangzhou (Canton). In short, Kendrick arrived in China in January of 1790, but Gray, having completed his business, simply sailed on by his Commander, in direct disobedience of orders.

Gray continued back to Boston, received a hero’s welcome for guiding the first American vessel around the world, but with the vessel not even being able to turn a profit for its long trek and cargo of inferior green tea. Gray blamed Kendrick’s lack of initiative, and said, if only he had command of another expedition, things would be different. The Owners, led by Boston merchant Joseph Barrell, agreed, and Gray had Columbia out of the shipyards in a month. One has to wonder if he was worried about old Captain K showing up and clouding the issue with facts.

Unable to safely return to Boston, Kendrick remained in China, in the Portuguese enclave of Macau, harassed by the Portuguese governor for byzantine events on the Northwest Coast the year before — suffice it to say, the governor had lost a lot of money and since Kendrick was present during said event and hadn’t been ruined too, he blamed the old Yankee.

So, after years of plying back and forth between China and the NW Coast, and converting LW into a brigantine (another mast added), Captain Kendrick had gotten an iron grip on the sea otter market through a sophisticated trading system with the suppliers — the natives of the NW Coast. The English, who had almost gone to war with Spain over trading rights on the Coast, were none-too-happy with the upstart Americans’ success.

On 12 December 1794, Captain Kendrick was eating breakfast at his table on the quarterdeck of the Lady Washington when a round of grape and shot fired from the rival English trader, Jackal, blew through his window and killed him and two members of the crew.

In December of 1794, Thomas Pitt joined the HMS Resistance at Malacca. In common was a man they had both met at Hawaii year before. Reverend John Howel. The English Clergyman would bury Captain John Kendrick under Christian rites, the first such ceremony in the Hawaiian Isles. And then he would take possession of Lady Washington and sail out of Hawaii a week before the Jackal was taken by the Oahu natives.

This afternoon, I will head north, up the coast, to Melaka.