Explore "The Wreck of the Leonora: a Memory of 'Bully' Hayes" by Louis Becke on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The brig _Leonora_, owned and commanded by the notorious Captain 'Bully' Hayes, has, perhaps, been more written and talked about than any other vessel, except the _Bounty_, that ever sailed the South Seas, and her career was as eventful as that of her captain. It was my fortune to fill the distinguished position of supercargo to that eminent gentleman for two years, and, as may be imagined by those who have read anything of Hayes's strange life and doings in the Pacific and the China Seas, I found the berth a remarkably curious one. How and why I became supercargo to the famous alleged pirate is another story; but, in justice to 'Bully's' memory, I may here at once say that the man was _not_ the remorseless ruffian that his enemies and many writers of tales of the South Seas have painted him; furthermore, he was one of the best sailor-men that ever trod a deck. Had he lived in the times of Drake or Dampier, he would have been a hero, for he was a man born to command and lead. _Inter alia_, he was also clever with his fists, and my soul was possessed of the deepest admiration for him in this respect from the very first day I stepped on board the _Leonora_, in Milli Lagoon, in the Marshall Islands, for it was my privilege to see him knock out three men, one after another, in twice as many minutes. These men were 'toughs' from a New Bedford whaler, and had been put ashore at Milli Lagoon by their captain as dangerous and useless characters. They came on board the _Leonora_ and asked 'Bully' to ship them. He refused in such unnecessary language that the leader of the three, in fatuous ignorance of the man to whom he was speaking, threatened to 'put a head on him'; whereupon Hayes at once had the deck cleared, and, taking them in turn, knocked each man out in the first round. Then he gave them a glass of grog all round, a bottle of arnica to cure the malformations he had caused on their countenances, and sent them ashore.
But this is not the story of the wreck of the _Leonora_.