156

The strange ordeal of William Valentine

by Mark Howard
One afternoon in October 1844, an Australian whaling ship was
cruising to the east of New Guinea when a native canoe was seen to
pull out from a nearby island and head out to sea. The canoe appeared
to be manned entirely by Melanesian islanders but as it came closer
it was seen also to contain,
. . . one white man adorned with the costume of the country, the
habiliments of which consist of little else except what nature herself
thinly bestowed. He announced himself as William Valentine, a
native of Sydney, who had been wrecked in the barque Mary of that
port, in the ever memorable typhoon of December 1840, and himself
to be the only survivor of that unfortunates ships company.
Valentine came aboard the whaler and proceeded to tell his rescuers
the story of his experiences over the previous four years.
The Sydney whaler Mary (250 tons) was a three-masted, ship-rigged
craft buih in Bermuda in 1827.^ She was brought to Australia about
1831 and sent out to hunt sperm whales soon after.' Although
thirteen years old at the start of her last voyage, this was not
particularly old for a Sydney whaler. Whaling was a trade where a
vessels age, speed and appearance mattered little and as a result
Australian whalers tended to be old former trading vessels that had
lost their Al rating." By 1840 the Mary was owned by Hughes &
Hosking of Sydney and commanded by Captain John Stein. Captain
Stein was an experienced mariner with at least ten years experience
in Australian waters, including six years as a whaling master.'
Preparations for the Mary's final voyage began in the second half
of 1840. The fitting-out went ahead but there was some difficulty in
finding enough men to make up a crew.* Rather than wait
indefinitely for seamen to come forward in the usual way it was
decided to employ the services of a Sydney crimp. It turned out to
be an unfortunate decision as a routine check by the Sydney Water
Police just before the Mary sailed revealed that five of the men
supplied by the crimp were escaped convicts.^ The vessel was delayed
in port another week and Captain Stein was probably lucky not to
find himself in court. Among those recruited for the cruise was a
currency lad on his first voyage named William Valentine.
The Mary left Port Jackson on 22 September 1840.* After clearing
Sydney Heads she sailed north in company with two other Sydney
whalers that left port about the same time. All three reached the waters
157
to the east of New Guinea in November and began tacking back and
forth in search of sperm whales.
By 1 December, the Mary had separated from the other two vessels
and was cruising alone when a strong breeze sprang up from the north-
west. The wind steadily strengthened in force till by evening it had
become a fully fledged typhoon bringing a huge sea that washed over
the deck. The Mary could raise no canvas and was driven helplessly
before a wind that blew,
. . . with such fury that before eight the next morning seven boats,
galley, try-works, pigs, bulwarks, etc., were swept away. At 10 o'clock,
fore-top-mast, fore-top-gallant-mast, and jib-boom were carried
away, and the hands were employed in clearing away the wreck. At
12, our main and mizen masts went by the board, carrying with them
the two remaining boats that were on the skids. We now tried the
pumps, and found five feet water in the hold, and which so rapidly
increased that all hands were kept constantly employed working
them. The breeze continuing to increase until three o'clock, the
barque was now drifted about entirely at the mercy of the huge
mountains of water, the captain not having the slightest idea where
we were.'
The storm continued to increase in strength and pushed the now
helpless ship before the gale. Suddenly, the Mary ran hard upon a
submerged coral reef. As she struck, five hands were instantly swept
overboard and another man was killed when he fell into the hold and
was crushed by the moving oil casks. As the vessel began to break
up under the pounding of the waves the remaining crewmen climbed
into the rigging.'"
After a time the storm eased and the exhausted survivors were able
to rest and take stock of their situation. Although the Mary was a
complete wreck she was at least still afloat. Better still, there were
islands in sight a httle to the north-east. Captain Stein rallied the crew
and got them to make a raft from ship timbers shaken loose by the
storm. The raft was then loaded with food casks and paddled ashore
to the nearest coral island. The isle proved to be inhabited and soon
after arrival the crew were approached by a man and a boy who gave
them some coconuts. They soon met other islanders who also proved
friendly and welcomed the visitors. During the day the survivors made
several more trips out to the Mary to bring off the remaining crewmen
and more supplies.
The island was part of the Nada or Laughlan atoll, a group of five
coral islands and a number of sandbanks and rocks grouped in an
arc around a central lagoon six kilometres wide and opening to the
west." The water in the lagoon is shallow, averaging between twelve
and twenty-one metres deep and at low tide it is possible to walk from
158
one island to the next over the reef. At the time of the wreck, the
atoll was inhabited by perhaps three hundred people of Melanesian
stock whose ancestors had migrated from nearby Murua or Woodlark
Island many years before.'^
The islanders had a sophisticated social organisation and culture
that was able to resist European influence till relatively late in the
I9th century. Central to their culture was the system of Kula, the ritual
exchange of prized ornaments, implements and foodstuffs between
islands in the region that helped to maintain peace and stability
between communities. This exchange of gifts took place each year
during expeditions in large sailing canoes in a circular path around
the region. Status depended on being able to give and receive items
such as Trochas shell armlets, necklaces made from drilled disks of
Spondylus shell and the highly prized polished greenstone axes from
Murua.
The survivors from the Mary may have fitted into this system of
mutual gift exchange. They had access to a large stock of highly
treasured hoop-iron, nails and trade goods routinely carried by whalers
that may, initially at least, have made them welcome arrivals. But it
is probable the visitors would have been treated with courtesy and
respect in any event as the islanders had a strong tradition of
hospitality toward guests. This included assigning a particular person
who, together with that person's clan, was under obligation to feed,
house and defend the visitor.'^
Soon after they landed, the crew from the Mary built a number
of huts to shelter themselves and the goods they had saved from the
wreck.''' They expected to be rescued fairly soon by another passing
whaler, but as the days went by no vessel came in sight. Due to the
long duration of whahng cruises, a year or so passed before the Mary
was missed in Sydney. When it eventually became clear she was
overdue, harbour officials at remote whaling out-ports were requested
to seek news of her from visiting vessels.'^ Her approximate position
at the time of the storm was known from information supplied by
the vessels she had been cruising with shortly before the storm. But
there is no indication that anyone went looking for her, presumably
as there was no government authority in existence at the time charged
with this responsibility. In any event, by the time Mary was known
to be missing, the fate of all but one of the crew had been sealed.
Rather than have the men just sit around waiting to be saved.
Captain Stein decided to try and do something to improve their chance
of rescue. From the low-lying atoll they could not see very far out
to sea so he ordered a six-oared whaleboat to be built out of timber
salvaged from the wreck. This was then sailed across the strait to
159
160
Murua Island in the hope a cruising whaleship might be seen from
its elevated coastline. With favorable winds the return voyage was
accomplished in just two days, but unfortunately no ships could be
seen from Murua either. The day after the whaleboat returned it was
agreed among the survivors to begin work on another vessel, a large
schooner big enough to carry them all to Australia.
REBUILDING ON THE ISLAND
The work on the new schooner began immediately. The Mary must
have run aground in shallow water as the crew seem to have had little
difficulty in salvaging what materials they needed from the wreck.
The foremast was removed to become the schooner's keel while the
anchor chains were taken for use as ballast. Six months went by and
the vessel was nearing completion when sickness appeared among the
crewmen. Seven men died and another five became seriously ill from
some sort of intermittent fever possibly malaria that affected
all the survivors. The work slowed but did not stop and after another
three months of hard labour under trying circumstances the vessel
was almost ready. As the time of departure approached, the food casks
saved from the wreck were gathered together and fresh water stored
in barrels, ready for the crossing to Australia. However, one morning
when most of the men were aboard the schooner helping to steep the
mast, the Melanesian islanders launched a sudden violent attack.
The motives for the attack are unclear. According to William
Valentine, relations with the islanders had been good and he knew
of no reason for the unexpected assault. However it seems unlikely
the attack was entirely without cause. One possible motive may have
been over the question of food. Due to occasional crop failures or
drought, the atoll was sometimes poorly supplied with food, a fact
the visitors may not have appreciated thus leading them to make
unreasonable demands on the hospitality of their hosts at a difficult
time. Although preserved food in casks had been saved from the
wreck, the whalemen wanted to save that for the voyage to Australia
and so they used the foodstuffs supplied by their hosts perhaps not
realising that in the eyes of the islanders they were incurring debts
that would have to be paid at a later date. When the natives realised
a large store of food about to leave on the schooner not to mention
the precious nails and other iron used in its construction they may
have resented this premature departure before their guests had paid
their "debts". Another event that may have contributed to the build
up of anger leading to the attack was a shooting incident some time
earlier. For some reason, a Muruan islander visiting the atoll was shot
by a crewman from the Mary.
161
When the attack came, twelve of the crewmen plus three native
women were able to reach the safety of the schooner.'* The five men
still ill with fever, including Captain Stein and the ship's doctor, were
too sick to flee and were killed on the beach. It is not clear if the
seamen were armed when the attack came, but even if they were, the
muzzle loading muskets and pistols in use at the time would have had
little effect against a much larger force armed with spears, axes and
the element of surprise.'^
After the initial assault had passed, the men on the schooner asked
their attackers on the beach if they could come ashore and finish their
preparations for the voyage to Australia a request the islanders
refused. The whalemen could not attempt the voyage in the unfinished
schooner without supplies and after consultation among themselves
decided that they had no option but to try and reach Murua Island
some fifty kilometres to the west in the hope of a better reception
there. Leaving the unfinished schooner behind, they divided
themselves into two groups and set off in the whaleboat and a small
dinghy that had been salvaged from the wreck.
Had the weather been kind they should have been able to make
the crossing in a day or so, however they encountered strong headwinds
that slowed their progress. The passage took eight days including a
stopover of several days on a bare rock thirty kilometres offshore
where they fished and managed to catch some birds. Eventually the
two boats arrived at Murua where the crewmen landed and made their
way to the nearest native settlement. They received a friendly welcome
and were invited into the villagers' huts. After their terrifying ordeal
on Nada they appeared at last to be safe.
Murua, or Woodlark, is a large island seventy-three kilometres long
and up to thirty kilometres wide. Its mainly geographic feature is a
succession of broken coral-based hills and valleys clothed in part by
a rich tropical jungle.'* Most of the Muruans lived on the fertile
plains on the central north coast beneath a hne of low hills." Here,
in the rich forest soils and watered by an average of over four metres
of rain a year, they grew taro, sweet potato and variety of other
vegetables and tropical fruits in their fertile gardens. Supplemented
by wild game, fish and coconuts they enjoyed what must have been
for the time a relatively high standard of living. Although the months
between May and September provide good clear weather, it rains an
average of 250 days a year and after the rain a thick mist rises from
the valleys creating a heavy humid atmosphere that europeans find
oppressive.^" The 3,000 or so Muruans lived in huts with woven grass
walls and thatched roofs, and grouped together into small hamlets
or villages. An important element in the islands social structure was
a system of communal labor that might see the whole population of
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a village turn out for labour intensive tasks such as gardening, canoe
building or defence.^'
As the survivors from the Mary rested in the village, one of the
native chiefs approached William Valentine and offered to show him
over his village on another part of the island.^^ The chief, whose
name Valentine pronounced as "Eton", was the kinsman of a man
whose hfe Valentine is supposed to have saved from drowning at some
stage possibly when he was a crewmen on the whaleboat that visited
the island some nine months before. Fortunately, he chose to accept
the invitation.
When Valentine returned the following day he could not find any
of his shipmates in the village where he had left them. But he did
not have long to wait to find out what had happened.
. . .next morning one of the Laughlan natives came to me and told
me the whites were all massacred. Soon after they came and
surrounded me as I sat, and were proceeding to kill me, when the
previously mentioned chief [Eton] prevented it.'^^
The attack on Valentine was halted but not before he suffered a
number of spear wounds to various parts of his body. The cause of
the massacre is uncertain although according to Valentine it was
prompted by the arrival of a canoe from Nada.
VALENTINE ESCAPES FROM MURUA
After the second massacre Valentine was permitted to live in the
village in which the attack had taken place. But he remained in daily
fear for his hfe and after two months had passed and he had recovered
from his wounds, he resolved to try to escape. He took a small canoe
and attempted to reach another part of the island but was recaptured
at once and speared again. He remained intent on escape and after
he recovered from the second set of wounds he fled the village again
and on this occasion was successful. He left the village undetected
and paddled a canoe out to a small isle off the coast. Here he was
again attacked by the inhabitants and suffered another four spear
wounds. None of the injuries were mortal and he stayed for a while
among the islanders until he was able to escape to yet another village
on a different part of the isle. There the people proved more friendly
and he hved among them the remainder of his time on the islands.
As his clothing rotted away he adopted the local mode of dress; he
ate as the islanders did and probably joined in their ritual drinking
sessions.^" Yet despite all his privations during his exile he kept alive
the hope of rescue, and at last his opportunity came.
164
In October 1844, the Sydney whaling ship Woodlark the same
vessel that had discovered and given the island its European name
some years earlier was cruising off Murua when a canoe containing
Valentine and some of the islanders set out from the coast. Valentine
said he tricked his way onto the canoe by using a "stratagem"
perhaps telling his captors he would interpret for them if the whaling
ship wished to trade. Once aboard the Woodlark he declared his
identity and sought help to escape. ^^
It seems that Valentine was in poor general health after his years
on Murua. While on the island he had fallen victim to two separate
bouts of "fever and ague" of six and three months duration
respectively. He also suffered severe rheumatic pains from his
numerous spear wounds; a hip wound giving him particular trouble.
Because of this he was transferred from the Woodlark to the Tigress,
another Sydney whaler that was sighted later the same day and that
had a doctor on board. The two whaling vessels parted company and
the Tigress, with Valentine aboard, continued on her whaling voyage
for another sk months. During this time Valentine recovered his health
to the point where he attempted to help with work around the ship
however so long had passed since his time on the Mary that he had
forgotten most of what he knew about whaling and this combined
with his arthritic condition meant he could be of little assistance to
his rescuers.
The Tigress returned to Port Jackson on 20 February 1845.^* In
Sydney the vessel's surgeon issued a doctor's certificate confirming
the details of Valentine's wounds and stating that in his opinion they
would prevent him from ever again earning his living as a seaman.
Shortly after this, Valentine is known to have left New South Wales
for the United Kingdom. He does not seem to have returned to
Australia and what subsequently became of him is unknown.^^
Late in 1845, the directors of the General Assurance Company came
to the decision that after investigation of the circumstances connected
with the loss of the Mary they could find no sufficient argument to
refuse to pay the owners the sum of 3,600 for which the vessel had
been insured.^* There the story might have ended but for an unusual
literary postscript that was to occur some fifty years later.
In 1896, a novella called The mystery of the Laughlan Islands was
published in London by the expatriate Australian writer Louis
Becke.^' Like most of Becke's writing, the book draws on the years
he spent working as an itinerant trader and supercargo among the
islands of the Western Pacific as a young man.'" It seems that at
some stage in his travels Becke visited the Nada (Laughlan) islands
where he was told a vague island legend about a group of white people
165
who at some time in the past had suddenly appeared on the atoll.
The white men had lived for a time among the islanders before
becoming involved in a fight in which a number of the europeans were
killed. The whites that remained then went away to live on another
nearby island.^'
Years later when Becke was hving in London and casting about for
inspiration he recalled the story and decided to use it as the basis for
a novella. In the book he set out to explain who the mysterious white
people might have been and how they came to be on the atoll. Using
an imaginative blend of legend, fact and speculative fiction, he came
up with the theory that the whites who so suddenly appeared on Nada
were a group of escaped convicts from the penal colony in New South
Wales who had been smuggled out of Sydney by sea and who had
been marooned on the atoll by the captain of the vessel when he had
suddenly feared detection.'^ The similarities between the Becke's
fictional story and real events are striking and sufficiently close to
suggest that the writer may have unknowingly based his story on a
garbled account of events surrounding the wreck of the Mary, and
the ordeal of Wilham Valentine.
ENDNOTES
1. Sydney Morning Herald (hereinafter SMH), 21 February 1845 p.2a.
2. Ronald Parsons, Ships of Australia and New Zealand before 1850, Volume
II, (the author, Magill, 1983), p.l7.
3. Ian Nicholson, Shipping arrivals and departures, Sydney, 1826 to 1840,
(Roebuck, Canberra, 1981), p.89.
4. A conclusion the writer has drawn from a project in progress on Austrahan
pelagic whalers in the 1840s.
5. Nicholson op.cit. p.52 and Ian Nicholson, Shipping arrivals and departures,
Tasmania, Volume II, 1834-1842, (Roebuck, Canberra, 1985), p.11. Captain
Stein was only 20 when given first command for a voyage to New Zealand.
See Robert McNab, The old whaling days: a history of Southern New
Zealand from 1830 to 1840 (Auckland, Golden Press, 1972, first pubUshed
1913), p.20.
6. The colonial economy was booming at the time and many whalers had
difficulty finding men wilhng to exchange the good wages and relative
security of work in other maritime trades, or ashore, for the low average
wages and hazards of a whaling voyage.
7. Sydney Monitor 19 September 1840 p.2g and SMH 21 September 1840 p.4f.
For comment on Sydney crimps, see SMH 22 July 1840 p.2c.
8. SMH 23 September 1840 p.2a.
9. SMH 25 March 1845 p.2a.
10. SMH 21 February 1845 p.2a.
11. The Nada (Laughlan) atoll was discovered in 1812 by Captain David
Laughlan of the British government storeship Mary en route from New South
Wales to India with a load of coal. (Andrew Sharp, The discovery of the
Pacific Islands, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1960 p.l92.)
12. C.G. SeUgmann, The Melanesians of British New Guinea, (CUP, Cambridge,
1910), p.43. Although a wide strait separated Nada from Murua, there was
166
regular contact between the two communities, weather permitting. The
people on the two islands still intermarried and because the soil on the atoll
was poor, the Nada islanders were allowed to maintain vegetable gardens
on Murua.
13. D.A. Affleck, 'Murua or Woodlark Island: a study of European-Muruan
contract to 1942', B.A. (Hons.) thesis, ANU, July 1971, p.xii.
14. Apart from William Valentine and Captain John Stein, the names of only
three other crewmen are known: Joseph Settle, the first mate and a native
of Sydney; third mate Thomas Welsh; and seaman John Cheers, also from
Sydney.
15. SMH 6 June 1842 p.2a.
16. The fact that some of the island women had sided with the seamen suggests
another possible motive for the attack.
17. For a discussion of the relative ineffectiveness of European muskets and
pistols against massed attackers using spears and axes, see Dorothy
Shineberg, They came for sandalwood: a study of the sandalwood trade
in the south-west Pacific 1830-1865, (MUP, Melbourne, 1967), pp.170-6.
18. Stuart Inder ed.. Pacific Islands Yearbook, (Pacific Publications, Sydney,
1978), p.349-50.
19. Affleck op.cit. p.ii.
20. Admiralty (British) Naval Intelligence Division, Geographical handbook.
Pacific Islands, Vol. IV, Western Pacific New Guinea Islands northward,
(London, 1945), p.290-4.
21. Affleck op.cit. p.viii.
22. R.G. Ward ed., American activities in the central Pacific, 1790-1870,
(Ridgewood, New Jersey, 1967), p.9.
23. SMH 25 March 1845 p.2a.
24. Valentine's body was covered in a layer of scaly skin thought by his rescuers
to have resulted from a poor diet but more likely to have been caused by
drinking kava or some local equivalent. (See Neil Gunson ed.. The Dalton
Journal, National Library of Australia, Canberra, 1990, p.72.)
25. Muruan-European relations remained strained over the next decade (see
Affleck op.cit. and, Hugh Laracy, Marists and Melanesians: a history of
Catholic missions in the Solomon Islands, (University of Hawaii Press,
Honolulu, 1974), pp.22-31 and Ralph M. Wiltgen, The founding of the
Roman Catholic Church in Oceania 1825 to 1850, (ANU Press, Canberra,
1979), pp.456-78.
26. SMH 14 February 1845 p.2a.
27. He may have gone to London to appear before an insurance company inquiry
into the wreck. Another possibility is that he went to seek a publisher for
his adventures or perhaps even to appear in English music halls to tell the
story of his 'Life Among The Savages'.
28. SMH 10 October 1845 p.2b and Australian 11 October 1845 p.2b.
29. The mystery of the Laughlan Islands, (London, Unwin, 1896), was a
collaborative effort between Louis Becke and Sydney journalist and historian
Walter Jeffery who worked with Becke on half a dozen books.
30. Australian Dictionary of Biography Volume 7 p.238-9 and A.Grove Day,
Lewis Becke, (Hill of Content, Melbourne, 1967), chapters 1 and 3
particularly.
31. The basic details of the legend are confirmed by Sir William McGregor,
the administrator and Lt. Governor of British New Guinea between 1888
and 1895, who visited the atoll (J.H.P., Murray, Papua or British New
Guinea, T.Fischer Unwin, London, 1912, p.l30).
32. The escaped convict theory may have been inspired by a book Becke and
Jeffery published in London earlier the same year called A First Fleet family,
(Unwin, 1896), that had a very similar theme.