Chapter III - "Mad Jack" Disguised as Uncle Sam Draws First Blood

    In Viet Nam, the first mortal aggressors from the West flew the Stars and Stripes. The most famous ship in the history of the U.S. Navy, "Old Ironsides" herself, bombarded the Empire's chief port and sailed off, leaving a few dozen Vietnamese dead. Innocent victims of a quarrel they knew nothing about, this modest mass murder did alter the whole pattern of relations between Viet Nam and the West. The villain here was a penitent and senile ruffian, so much the man of his time hew was held up long after as the gruff, but lovable model of a Yankee sea captain.* Disavowal of his assault by the United States government was not followed by the kind of punishment which the American public would have demanded if some foreign vessel had fatally bombarded Boston and seized a few of its magistrates as hostages.

    Known in the service as "Mad Jack" **, John Percival was born * during the American Revolution, son of a Massachusetts sea captain. Another Percival, great-grandfather of "Mad Jack," had come from France, a fact of later pertinence, to settle in Barnstable in 1685.

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* Biographical dictionaries give as a principal reference for details on Captain Percival the book by Harry Gringo, Tales for the Marines. Phillips, Samson & Co. Boston. 1855. Harry Gringo was the nom de plume of Henry Augustus Wise. Wise was an American naval officer who entered the service before Captain Percival sailed on this adventure. He undoubtedly knew some of Percival's intimate contemporaries. The National Cyclopedia of American Biography, J.T. Whit & Co., N.Y. 1920. Vol. XX has an article on Percival, p. 437. Unfortunately, this contains several inaccuracies including the following: (An obvious paraphrase of Gringo, p. 26) "Although a strict disciplinarian, he was idolized by his crew." The passage in Gringo: "Notwithstanding his very severe and often harsh conduct towards his crew, they fairly worshipped him." That is debatable. The reader should be warned that flogging was still legal in the Navy, and used freely by Percival. ** Wise, op. cit. p. 26.

(Handwritten note: N.B. Additional Documents confirming the thesis of this chapter are clipped on. cf. Also Geo. The???? vol. 1(?) of La Geste Frararge (sp) cn Indochine pp. 368-369 for letter Msgr. Lefevre on Thieu Tri TERRIFIED APPREHENSION OF A REPETITION OF MAD JACK'S AGGRESSION.)

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At thirteen, Jack, perhaps not yet mad, wet to sea. Four years later, he was kidnapped in Lisbon, and impressed into the navy of George III. That was the year the red flag of revolution went up at every English naval base. * In 1797, aggressively touching an officer of the Royal Navy, disobeying his repeated command, or flinching in battle, were all equally punishable by, and often punished by, hanging. ** Sometime during his second year as a Jack Tar, Percival slipped away at Madeira, and made for America. He got his revenge on the British during the War of 1812. Concealing thirty two volunteers under the hatches of a fishing smack off New York, he lured H.M.S. Eagle *** into an ambush. After killing her two British officers with relish, he towed the prize past the Battery, while thousands cheered. The Congress voted him a sword for this and other wartime services.

    In 1826, Lieutenant Percival commanded the schooner Dolphin, first American warship to visit the Hawaiian Islands. This "visit" revealed another side of the Lieutenant's character. In the U.S. Navy, it was an age "when oaths and flogging were the approved means of enforcing obedience." ****

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* James Dugan, The Great Mutiny. G.P. Putnam's Sons. N.Y. 1965. p. 81,459.
** Ibid. p. 375. Homosexual acts were also capital offenses.
*** Not the H.M.S. Eagle defeated by Macdonough on Lake Champlain.
**** Captain Earle, J.S.N. & C.S. Alden, Makers of Naval Tradition. Ginn & Co. Boston. 1925. p. 63.

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The whisky ration was still a half pint daily as sailors simply refused either wine or beer. * Although Spherical Trigonometry was an enigma even to Boards of Examiners, midshipmen required to learn Spanish. ** Ten thousand miles from the nearest American territory lay the islands then called Sandwich. American missionaries had been, for seven years, exerting "efforts to raise that people (the Hawaiian) from their degradation and barbarism, convert them from their idols, their cruel superstitions and their unbridled lusts... the union of a brother and a sister in the highest ranks became fashionable and continued to till the revealed will of God was made known to them by our mission...polygamy, fornication, adultery, incest, infant murder,...,sorcery,... prevailed and seem hardly to have been forbidden or rebuked by their religion." *** Thus Hiram Bingham, "late missionary of the American Board," explains the dire need for his presence on heathen strand in mid-Pacific. He continues, **** "In the first month of 1826, while the Christian chiefs and missionaries were pressing on, with brightening prospects, and many thousands were, from week to week, receiving instructions

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* C.O. Paullin, Naval Administration 1842-1861, Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute. Vol. XXXIII, no. 4. Paullin discusses the period prior to 1842 in some detail.
** Earle, op. cit. p. 112, 113. The requirement for Spanish was not only due to a concentration of interest in the Western Hemisphere. The only U.S. base in European waters throughout the Nineteenth Century was that leased at Port Mahon in the Baleares. A pedagogue might note that even thought there was no Naval Academy then, monolingual midshipmen were not allowed to pass, as one instructor at Annapolis recently asserted they many nowadays.
*** Hiram Bingham, A Residence of Twenty One Years in the Sandwich Islands. Hartford. Hezekiah Huntington. 1849. Introduction, p. 18, 20.
**** Ibid. pp. 283 et seq.

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"While other thousands remained in their stupid and degraded state, the anti-tabu party * on shore and in the whaling and merchant service were strengthened by the arrival of a vessel of war. The crew of the whale ship Globe, Captain Worth, of our acquaintance, having mutinied in the Pacific, and with unprovoked madness, killed their captain... the U.S. schooner Dolphin, Lt. John Percival, was dispatched to look after them... Hawaiians had heard of the power and greatness of the United States. Although Russia, France and great Britain had sent their naval vessels to these islands, yet the inhabitants knew little or nothing of American ships of war, or of the urbanity, intelligence and elevated character of U.S. naval officers. How exceedingly desirable that a naval commander from the United States, arriving so soon after Lord Byron's agreeable visit, and especially at a time when hostility was showing itself among both English and Americans against the efforts of the best rulers of the Islands to restrain crime, ** should exert a high moral influence for good, or at least not interfere with the municipal or civil regulations of the place, or counteract our mission... Returning to Honolulu, he (Percival) soon mad known his views of the restraint on vile women, and asked and audience with the chief rulers on that subject

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* The tabu referred to was against prostitution. In the fall of 1825, "chiefs were induced to forbid traffic in lewdness;" in October, the Daniel, a British whaler came to Mauai. With their Captain's consent, the crew attacked missionary Richards' house. James Jackson Jarvis, History of the Hawaiian or Sandwich Islands. London. Moxon. 1843. p. 240 etc.
** See footnote above. A paramount chief had been converted in December, 1825, barely two months before the showdown. Bingham, op. cit. p. 277.

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" of grievance, which his crew, by a committee, had presented to him. Kaahumanu*, and Kalanimoku proposed to him to write to them. (She) prepared a...conciliatory statement to meet the strange pretence that an embargo on lewd women... was an insult to the American flag. In this statement she maintained, "She had a right to control her own subjects in this matter, that in enforcing this tabu she had not sought for money, that in apprehending and punishing the offending subjects, she had done no injustice to other nations...". Boki, the Hawaiian governor, being charged to deliver this...(reported) : 'The man-of -war chief (Percival)
says he will not write, but will come and have a talk, and if Mr. Bingham comes, he will shoot him. That he was ready to fight for though his vessel was small, she was just like fire.' Seeing Boki wavering, Kaahumanu said: ' Let us be firm on the side of the Lord, and follow the word of God.' Then Boki answered: 'If we meet the man-of -war chief and then yield not to his demands, what will be the consequence ?'.
Kaahumanu: 'You are a servant of God and must maintain his cause.' Both wept. On 22 February, Lieutenant Percival obtained an audience at the house of Kaahumanu. She called the royal pupil from his studies under my instruction...as Lt. P had previously requested me not to be present ...Kaahumanu' s narrative follows:

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* She was regent while the King was still underage. ""In the days of her heathenism she had been haughtiest, the most imperious, the most cruel of her sex...no subject...dared face her frown." Manley Hopkins, Hawaii. Longmans Green & Co. London. 1866. p. 213.

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'Percival came to the council and asked, " Who is the King of the country?" I pointed to the boy. "Who is the guardian?".
K.: "I and my brother, he being under me."
P.: "You are the King. I also am a Chief... by whom are the women tabu? Is it by you?
K. "It is by me."
P.: "Who is your teacher that has told you that the women must be tabu?"
K.: "It is God." He (Percival) laughed with contempt.
P.: "It was not by you; it was by Bingham."
K.: "It was by me. By Bingham the Word of God is made known to us."
P.: "Why tabu the women? Take heed my people will come; if the women are not forthcoming, they "my men) ...will come to get women. If they do not get them they will fight, my vessel is just like fire...
K.: "Why make war upon us without a fault of ours...? We love the Word of God, and therefore hold back our women."
P.: "Formerly, with Kamehameha, you attended properly to ships, both American and English."
K.: "In former times before the Word of God had arrived here, we were dark minded, lewd and murderous; at the present time we are seeking a better way."
P.: "It's not good. It's not so in America. Why did you give women to Lord Byron's ship, and deny them to mine? Kamehameha didn't show such partiality between English and American vessels."*

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*Percival, with his Anglophobia, could hardly bear the thought that the British had gotten anything denied to Americans. His crew felt much the same. Religious conviction as a motive for the sudden change was not credible to the likes of Percival.

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Later on P.: "Send and liberate the women, if you still hold them.If not, I will myself liberate them...why do you do evil to the women?"
K.: "It is for us to give directions respecting our women-it is for us to establish tabus -it is for us to bind, to liberate,..."
P.: " The missionaries are not good. They are a company of liars.The women are not tabu in America." (He sapped his fingers in rage and clenched his fist). "Tomorrow I will give my men rum. Watch out! They will come for women. If they do not get them, they will fight."...My vessel is just like fire. Tell me the man who told you that women must be tabu, and after that my men will pull down his house... If the women are not released tomorrow, my people will come and pull down the houses of the missionaries."
(That is the end of Kaahumanu's narrative). Bingham continues,
" As we were assembling for warship*,... several seamen rushed in and with menacing gesture and tone made their demands and threats.
'Where are the women?'/...'Take off this tabu and let us have women on board our vessels, or we will pull down your houses. There are a hundred and fifty of us... the tabu must come off.'
Thus commenced a riot which occupied the time and place of the expected divine service,,, I fell into their hands. One seized me by the shoulder and exclaimed, 'What does this tabu mean? Here he is; I've got him. Come on!' One said: 'We are sent here by our Captain.' ( At this point Mr. Bingham observes in a note that Lieutenant Paulding, being called and sworn at the request of the Percival at the latter's Court Martial in Charlestown, S.C., testified, 'that he heard Lt. Percival say in the cabin of the Dolphin THAT sailors would serve the missionaries right if they should pull down their houses.**

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*It was 26 February, 1826, and the 'Dolphin' men had gotten together with crews from other ships.
**Bingham, p. 286.

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" I called out to the natives for help...followed by one (sailor) who pressed me on my retreat, and asked to speak with me. Putting my hand into his club, I said, 'Put down your club if you wish to have me talk with you.'* One of the 'Dolfin' men, who appeared like an Irishman, brandishing his knife near my face, said with malignant emphasis, 'You are the man every day'...Finally, I said (to the Hawaiians), 'Do you not take care of me?' (They) 'We do...
Suddenly one of the 'Dolfin' men struck a spiteful blow with a club at my head, warded off partly by the arm of Lydia Namahana, and partly by my umbrella. It was the signal for resistance ...I entreated the natives not to kill the foreigners. ( Mr. Bingham's family was rather upset as) a company of sailors approached my premises, broke my gate and rushed through... one broke in a window...Lt. Percival, who...came upon the spot about an hour after the riot commenced, used his cane on...that evening Governor Boki yielded...Percival put in irons the two men who had assailed me with knife and club...After a visit of three months**,
' Dolphin' sailed...Those citizens and subjects of other countries, and leading natives, who had been looking for something not less friendly, vise and honorable in a naval "chief" from the U.S. than...Lord Byron were disappointed."

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*Lest any reader think of comparing the missionary's refusal to parley while a club was swinging around close to his head with DRVN ( Ho Chi Minh's) refusal to negotiate with the Johnson administration while bombs were falling in Hanoi, he should try to recall that these rough sailors, unlike Mr. Johnson, had failed to reassure their target, Mr. Bingham, that they meant only to chastise not to bradin him.
**His vessel remained at Honolulu ten weeks in full enjoyment of the immorality for which he had so successfully intervened. " Jarvis, op.cit. p. 240. Thus, until the May heat, the crew kept assorted favorite prostitutes on board Dolphin.

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The only outward effect of Percival's court martial was a long wait promotion. Captain at sixty two, he was also chosen same year to supervise refitting of the U.S.S. CONSTITUTION.* Little more than a decade had passed since the stanzas starting
Ay! pull her tattered ensign down
Long has it waved on high,
And many a heart has danced to see
That banner in the sky,
Beneath it rung the battle shout,
And burst the cannon's roar;
The meteor of the ocean air
Shall sweep the clouds no more.
...
...
had saved 'Old Ironsides', the "eagle of the sea" from the "harpies of the shore" and transformed their author form an unknown Bostonian law clerk into a famous young American.** Percival insisted the job on the frigate could be done for "10,000, even though official estimates ran up toward $70,000. He managed to finish all repair by 1844, and at a cost snug by that he had promised.***CONSTITUTION was about to take a cruise around the world, and Percival would be her skipper. As she was refitting at Norfolk, Daniel Webster was appointed Secretary of State, mainly because both Henry Clay and the 'solid men of Boston'

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*Decatur was Captain at twenty five, Matthew C. Perry Commodore at fifty. Oliver Wendell Holmes changed 'pull' to 'tear' in 1836. He was studying law with Judge Story at the new Harvard Law School until this poetic fame made him realize his distaste for that profession. See C.D. Bowen Yankee form Olympus. Little Brown & Co. Boston. 1945. pp.55-58.
**The Norfolk Navy Yard got the contract through the patronage of Henry A. Wise of Virginia, later President Tyler's favorite advisor. Wise was chairman of the House Committee on Naval Affairs and a gentleman as ready for a duel as for a toast.

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were seriously worried avoiding a war with Great Britain.* The British Empire had just added Hong Kong, a yet to ripen fruit, to the imperial domain. The Tartar dynasty in Peking would never regenerate its cracked sceptre of prestige and authority. "China was not opened; but five gates were set ajar against her will."** Americans, however, had long been enjoying much profitable trade under the old restrictions. From the first cargo of Ginseng in 1784 until Russell &Co., a half century later, gor a clipper specially designed to smuggle in opium***, American trade had become big business. Now that the treaty of Nanking restored peace and enforced commerce, Aamericans expected to derive all of its benefits without incurring the handicap of Empire. As Percivalcharted a route to East Asia by way of the Indian Ocean, Caleb Cushing awaited final instructions from Webster before setting out as the first American Commissioner to China. One of the American merchants! in the orientak trade answered the Secretary of State's request for suggesstions by affirming, "Our countryman have now all the privieleges granted to the British."**** Commodore Lawrence Kearny had seen to that year before (1842).

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*Ben. Perley Poore, Perley's Reminiscences...Hubbard Bross. Philadelphia, 1886. Vol. I, p. 224.
**Martin, op. cit. p. 155. Dr. Martin, well acquainted with the Anglo-American principals, insists the real cause of the war was not the opium trade, but a pin: "The Chinese tossed back a letter form Lord Napier because it was not headed with the character pin (or ping) meaning 'humble petition'. ...John Quincy Adams...declared its cause was not opium but a pin i.e. an insolent assumtion of the superiority on the part of China ." p.152-153.
***Daniel Henderson. Yankee Ships in China Seas. N.Y. 1946. p. 18,140. Ginseng was the first American import; it was considered an aphrodisiac by Chines!e who could afford concubines.
****Te-kong Tong, U.S. Diplomacy in China, 1840-1860. Univer. of Washington Press. Seattle, 1964. p. 21,23.

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* Paullin, op. cit.
** Ibid.
*** All references in this section, unless otherwise indicated, are either from the Log or from the Journal of the USS Constitution for the month of May, 1845, or from the Letters and Annexed Documents from Captain Percival to the Secretary of the Navy. All of these documents are in the National Archives, Washington, D.C., the former in the original bound volumes in the handwriting and so forth of the principals, the last named in microfilm. Log, Journal and Letters will be abbreviated as L., J., and Let.
**** Let. Macao, 9 June 1845.

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To be continued......

Letters to and from Captain John Percival, Captain, USS Constitution

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