Books: Life of John Coleridge Patteson

C >> Charlotte M. Yonge >> Life of John Coleridge Patteson

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That island Nukapu lay with the blue waves breaking over the circling
reef, the white line of coral sand, the trees coming down to it; and
in the glowing sun of September 20, the equatorial midsummer eve,
four canoes were seen hovering about the reef, as the 'Southern
Cross' tried to make for the islet.

Mr. Brooke says that this lingering had seemed to intensify the
Bishop's prayer and anxiety for these poor people; and, thinking that
the unusual movements of the vessel puzzled the people in the canoes,
and that they might be afraid to approach, he desired that at 11.30
A.M. the boat should be lowered, and entered it with Mr. Atkin,
Stephen Taroniara, James Minipa, and John Nonono. He sat in the
stern sheets, and called back to Mr. Brooke: 'Tell the captain I may
have to go ashore.' Then he waited to collect more things as
presents to take on shore, and pulled towards the canoes; But they
did not come to meet the boat, and seemed undecided whether to pull
away or not. The people recognized the Bishop; and when he offered
to go on shore they assented, and the boat went on to a part of the
reef about two miles from the island, and there met two more canoes,
making six in all. The natives were very anxious that they should
haul the boat up on the reef, the tide being too low for her to cross
it, but, when this was not consented to, two men proposed to take the
Bishop into their boat.

It will be remembered that he had always found the entering one of
their canoes a sure way of disarming suspicion, and he at once
complied. Mr. Atkin afterwards said he thought he caught the word
'Tabu,' as if in warning, and saw a basket with yams and other fruits
presented; and those acquainted with the customs of the Polynesians -
-the race to which these islanders belonged--say that this is
sometimes done that an intended victim may unconsciously touch
something tabu, and thus may become a lawful subject for a blow, and
someone may have tried to warn him.

There was a delay of about twenty minutes; and then two canoes went
with the one containing the Bishop, the two chiefs, Moto and Taula,
who had before been so friendly to him, being in them. The tide was
so low that it was necessary to wade over the reef, and drag the
canoes across to the deeper lagoon within. The boat's crew could not
follow; but they could see the Bishop land on the beach, and there
lost sight of him.

The boat had been about half-an-hour drifting about in company with
the canoes, and there had been some attempt at talk, when suddenly,
at about ten yards off, without any warning, a man stood up in one of
them, and calling out, 'Have you anything like this?' shot off one of
the yard-long arrows, and his companions in the other two canoes
began shooting as quickly as possible, calling out, as they aimed,
'This for New Zealand man! This for Bauro man! This for Mota man!'
The boat was pulled back rapidly, and was soon out of range, but not
before three out of the four had been struck; James only escaped by
throwing himself back on the seat, while an arrow had nailed John's
cap to his head, Mr. Atkin had one in his left shoulder, and poor
Stephen lay in the bottom of the boat, 'trussed,' as Mr. Brooke
described it, with six arrows in the chest and shoulders.

It was about two hours since they had left the ship when they reached
it again: and Mr. Atkin said, 'We are all hurt? as they were helped
on board; but no sooner had the arrow-head, formed of human bone, and
acutely sharp, been extracted, than he insisted on going back to find
his Bishop. He alone knew the way by which the reef could be crossed
in the now rising tide, so that his presence was necessary. Meantime
Mr. Brooke extracted as best he might the arrows from poor Stephen.

'We two Bisope,' said the poor fellow, meaning that he shared the
same fate as the Bishop.

As Joseph Wate, a lad of fifteen, Mr. Atkin's Malanta godson and
pupil, wrote afterwards, 'Joe said to me and Sapi, "We are going to
look for the Bishop, are you two afraid?"

'"No, why should I be afraid?"

'"Very well, you two go and get food for yourselves, and bring a
beaker full of water for us all, for we shall have to lie on our oars
a long time to-day."'

The others who pulled the boat were Charles Sapinamba, a sailor, and
Mr. Bongarde, the mate, who carried a pistol, for the first time in
the records of the 'Southern Cross.'

They had long to wait till the tide was high enough to carry them
across the reef, and they could see people on shore, at whom they
gazed anxiously with a glass.

About half-past four it became possible to cross the reef, and then
two canoes rowed towards them: one cast off the other and went back;
the other, with a heap in the middle, drifted towards them, and they
rowed towards it.

'But' (says Wate), 'when we came near we two were afraid, and I said
to Joe, "If there is a man inside to attack us, when he rises up, we
shall see him."'

Then the mate took up his pistol, but the sailor said, 'Those are the
Bishop's shoes.'

As they came up with it, and lifted the bundle wrapped in matting
into the boat, a shout or yell arose from the shore. Wate says four
canoes put off in pursuit; but the others think their only object was
to secure the now empty canoe as it drifted away. The boat came
alongside, and two words passed, 'The body!' Then it was lifted up,
and laid across the skylight, rolled in the native mat, which was
secured at the head and feet. The placid smile was still on the
face; there was a palm leaf fastened over the breast, and when the
mat was opened there were five wounds, no more.

The strange mysterious beauty, as it may be called, of these
circumstances almost makes one feel as if this were the legend of a
martyr of the Primitive Church; but the fact is literally true, and
can be interpreted, though probably no account will ever be obtained
from the actors in the scene.

The wounds were, one evidently given with a club, which had shattered
the right side of the skull at the back, and probably was the first,
and had destroyed life instantly, and almost painlessly; another
stroke of some sharp weapon had cloven the top of the head; the body
was also pierced in one place; and there were two arrow wounds in the
legs, but apparently not shot at the living man, but stuck in after
his fall, and after he had been stripped, for the clothing was gone,
all but the boots and socks. In the front of the cocoa-nut palm,
there were five knots made in the long leaflets. All this is an
almost certain indication that his death was the vengeance for five
of the natives. 'Blood for blood' is a sacred law, almost of nature,
wherever Christianity has not prevailed, and a whole tribe is held
responsible for the crime of one. Five men in Fiji are known to have
been stolen from Nukapu; and probably their families believed them to
have been killed, and believed themselves to be performing a sacred
duty when they dipped their weapons in the blood of the Bisope, whom
they did not know well enough to understand that he was their
protector. Nay, it is likely that there had been some such
discussion as had saved him before at Mai from suffering for Petere's
death; and, indeed, one party seem to have wished to keep him from
landing, and to have thus solemnly and reverently treated his body.

Even when the tidings came in the brief uncircumstantial telegram,
there were none of those who loved and revered him who did not feel
that such was the death he always looked for, and that he had
willingly given his life. There was peace in the thought even while
hearts trembled with dread of hearing of accompanying horrors; and
when the full story arrived, showing how far more painless his death
had been than had he lived on to suffer from his broken health, and
how wonderfully the unconscious heathen had marked him with emblems
so sacred in our eyes, there was thankfulness and joy even to the
bereaved at home.

The sweet calm smile preached peace to the mourners who had lost his
guiding spirit, but they could not look on it long. The next
morning, St. Matthew's Day, the body of John Coleridge Patteson was
committed to the waters of the Pacific, his 'son after the faith,'
Joseph Atkin, reading the Burial Service.

Mr. Atkin afterwards wrote to his mother. He had written to his
father the day before; but the substance of his letter has been given
in the narrative:--

'September 21, 1871.

'My dear Mother,--We have had a terrible loss, such a blow that we
cannot at all realise it. Our Bishop is dead; killed by the natives
at Nukapu yesterday. We got the body, and buried it this morning.
He was alone on shore, and none of us saw it done. We were attacked
in the boat too, and Stephen so badly wounded that I am afraid there
is small hope of his recovery. John and I have arrow wounds, but not
severe. Our poor boys seem quite awe-stricken. Captain Jacobs is
very much cut up. Brooke, although not at all well, has quite
devoted himself to the wounded, and so has less time to think about
it all.

'It would only be selfish to wish him back. He has gone to his rest,
dying, as he lived, in his Master's service.

It seems a shocking way to die; but I can say from experience that it
is far more to hear of than to suffer. In whatever way so peaceful a
life as his is ended, his end is peace. There was no sign of fear or
pain on his face--just the look that he used to have when asleep,
patient and a little wearied. "What a stroke his death will be to
hundreds!" What his Mission will do without him, God only knows Who
has taken him away. His ways are not as our ways. Seeing people
taken away, when, as we think, they are almost necessary to do God's
work on earth, makes one think that we often think and talk too much
about Christian work. What God requires is Christian men. He does
not need the work, only gives it to form or perfect the character of
the men whom He sends to do it.

'Stephen is in great pain at times to-night; one of the arrows seems
to have entered his lungs, and it is broken in, too deep to be got
out. John is wounded in the right shoulder, I in the left. We are
both maimed for the time; but, if it were not for the fear of poison,
the wounds would not be worth noticing. I do not expect any bad
consequences, but they are possible. What would make me cling to
life more than anything else is the thought of you at home; but if it
be God's will that I am to die, I know He will enable you to bear it,
and bring good for you out of it.

'Saturday, 23rd.--We are all doing well. Stephen keeps up his
strength, sleeps well, and has no long attacks of pain. We have had
good breezes yesterday and to-day--very welcome it is, but the motion
makes writing too much labour. Brooke and Edward Wogale are both
unwell--ague, I believe, with both of them; and Brooke's nerves are
upset. He has slept most of to-day, and will probably be the better
for it.'....

His private journal adds:--

'September 21st.--Buried the Bishop in the morning. The wounded all
doing well, but Stephen in pain occasionally. Calm day, passed over
a reef in the morning, about eighteen miles north of Nukapu, nine
fathoms on it. Thermometer ninety-one degrees yesterday and to-day.
Began writing home at night. Began reading Miss Yonge's "Chaplet of
Pearls."

'Friday, 22nd.--A light breeze came up in the evening, which
freshened through the night, and carried us past Tenakulu. Stephen
doing very well, had a good night, and has very little pain to-day.
A breeze through the day, much cooler. I am dressing my shoulder
with brine. Read some sermons of Vaughan's, preached at Doncaster
during Passion Week.

'Saturday, 23rd.--Breeze through the day. A few showers of rain.
Brooke and Wogale down with ague; gave Wogale ipecacuanha and quinine
afterwards. Read Mota prayers in evening. All wounds going on well.
Finished "Chaplet of Pearls," and wrote a little.

'Sunday, 24th.--This morning the wind went round to N.E. and N. and
then died away. We were 55 miles W. of the Torres Islands at noon.
Brooke took English and Mota morning Prayers. I celebrated Holy
Communion afterwards. John came into cabin; I went out to Stephen.

'Brooke and Wogale both better, but B---- quite weak.'

During that Celebration, while administering the Sacred Elements, Mr.
Atkin's tongue stumbled and hesitated over some of the words.

Then the Mota men looked at one another, and knew what would follow.

He knew it himself too, and called to Joseph Wate, his own special
pupil, saying (as the lad wrote to Mr. Atkin the elder), 'Stephen and
I again are going to follow the Bishop, and they of your country--!
Who is to speak to them?'

'I do not know.'

Then he said again, 'It is all right. Don't grieve about it, because
they did not do this thing of themselves, but God allowed them to do
it. It is very good, because God would have it so, because He only
looks after us, and He understands about us, and now He wills to take
away us two, and it is well.'

There was much more for that strong young frame to undergo before the
vigorous life could depart. The loss was to be borne. The head of
the Mission, who had gone through long sickness, and lain at the
gates of the grave so long, died almost painlessly: his followers had
deeply to drink of the cup of agony. The night between the 26th and
27th was terrible, the whole nervous system being jerked and strained
to pieces, and he wandered too much to send any message home; 'I lost
my wits since they shot me,' he said. Towards morning he almost
leapt from his berth on the floor, crying 'Good-bye.'

Mr. Brooke asked if he would have a little Sal volatile.

'No.'

'A little brandy?'

'No.'

'Do you want anything?'

'I want nothing but to die.'

Those were his last words. He lay convulsed on a mattress on the
floor for about an hour longer, and was released on the morning of
the 29th.

Stephen, with an arrow wound in the lungs, and several more of these
wounds in the chest, could hardly have lived, even without the
terrible tetanus. He had spent his time in reading his Mota Gospel
and Prayer-book, praying and speaking earnestly to the other men on
board, before the full agony came on. He was a tall, large,
powerfully framed man; and the struggles were violent before he too
sank into rest on the morning of the 28th, all the time most
assiduously nursed by Joseph Wate. On St. Michael's Day, these two
teachers of poor Bauro received at the same time their funeral at
sea.

John Coleridge Patteson was forty-four years and a half old.

Joseph Atkin, twenty-nine.

Stephen Taroniara probably twenty-five--as he was about eighteen when
he joined the Mission in 1864. His little girl will be brought up at
Norfolk Island; his wife Tara, to whom he had been married only just
before his voyage, became consumptive, and died January, 1873, only
twenty minutes after her Baptism. As one of the scholars said, "Had
the songs of the angels for joy of her being made a child of God
finished before they were again singing to welcome her an inheritor
of the kingdom of heaven?'

John Nonono showed no symptoms of tetanus, but was landed at Mota to
recover under more favourable circumstances than the crowded cabin
could afford.

Calms and baffling winds made the return to this island trying and
difficult, and Mota was not reached till the 4th of October. George
Sarawia was still perfectly satisfactory; and his community, on the
whole, going on hopefully. Want of provisions, which Mota could not
supply, made the stay very brief; and after obtaining the necessary
supplies at Aurora, the 'Southern Cross' brought her sad tidings to
Norfolk Island on the 17th. That day Mrs. Palmer wrote:--

'On Monday afternoon, 15th, Mr. Codrington went for a ride to the
other side of the island, and there espied the schooner, eight miles
off. He rode home quickly, and soon the shouting and racing of the
boys told us that the vessel had come. They were all at arrowroot-
making. Never, I think, had the whole party, English and natives,
seemed in higher spirits. Mr. Bice walked to the settlement, to see
if she was far in enough to land that night; we asked him to call and
tell us on his way home.

'Next morning Mr. Bice rode down to see if it really was the
schooner, and was back to breakfast, all thinking we should soon see
them come up.

'Mr. Codrington and Mr. Bice got their horses ready to ride down, and
I got the rooms ready, when, in an hour, a Norfolk Island boy rode up
to say the flag was half-mast high.'

'We told the boys and girls something was wrong, to stop their joyous
shouting and laughing; and then I waited till Mr. Jackson returned,
and all he could say was, "Only Brooke has come!"'

What more shall I tell? Comments on such a life and such a death are
superfluous; and to repeat the testimonies of friends, outpourings of
grief, and utterances in sermons is but to weaken the impression of
the reality!

There is pain too in telling the further fate of Nukapu. H.M.S.
'Rosario,' Commander Markham, then cruising in the Southern Pacific,
touched at Norfolk Island, and Captain Markham undertook at once to
go to the island and make enquiries.

A protest was drawn up and signed by all the members of the Mission
against any attempt to punish the natives for the murder; and Captain
Markham, a kind, humane, and conscientious man, as no one can doubt,
promised that nothing of the kind should be attempted.

But the natives could not but expect retaliation for what they had
done. There was no interpreter. They knew nothing of flags of
truce; and when they saw a boat approaching, full of white men,
armed, what could they apprehend but vengeance for 'Bisope'? So they
discharged a volley of arrows, and a sergeant of marines was killed.
This was an attack on the British flag, and it was severely chastised
with British firearms. It is very much to be doubted whether Nukapu
will ever understand that her natives were shot, not for killing the
Bishop, but for firing on the British flag. For the present the way
is closed, and we can only echo Fisher Young's sigh, 'Poor Santa Cruz
people!'

Bishop Patteson's will bequeathed his whole inheritance to the
Melanesian Mission, and appointed that the senior Priest should take
charge of it until another Bishop should be chosen.

The Rev. Robert Codrington, therefore, took the management, though
refusing the Episcopate; and considering the peculiar qualifications
needful for a Melanesian Bishop, which can only be tested by actual
experiment on physical as well as moral and spiritual abilities, it
has, up to the present moment (May 1873), been thought better to
leave the See vacant, obtaining episcopal aid from the Bishop of
Auckland.

But this implies no slackness nor falling off in the Mission. By
God's good providence, Coleridge Patteson had so matured his system
that it could work without him. Mr. Codrington and the other clergy
make their periodic voyages in the 'Southern Cross.' Kohimarama
flourishes under George Sarawia, who was ordained Priest at Auckland
on St. Barnabas Day, 1873. Bishop Cowie has paid a visit to Norfolk
Island, and ordained as Deacons, Edward Wogale, Robert Pantatun,
Henry Tagalana, to work in Mota, Santa Maria, and Ara. Joseph Wate
remains the chief teacher of the lads from Bauro; but there is much
to be done before the work in that island can be carried on. The
people there seem peculiarly devoid of earnestness; and it is
remarkable that though they were among the first visited, and their
scholars the very earliest favourites, Stephen has been the only one
whose Christianity seems to have been substantial. But the sight of
his patient endurance had the same effect on those who were with him
in the ship as Walter Hotaswol's exhortations had had on himself, and
several of them began in earnest to prepare for Baptism.

The English staff of the Mission has been recruited by the Rev. John
R. Selwyn, and the Rev. John Still, as well as by Mr. Kenny from New
Zealand. And there is good hope that 'He who hath begun a good work
will perform it unto the day of the Lord.'

As to the crimes connected with the murder, the Queen herself
directed the attention of Parliament to it in her Speech at the
commencement of the Session of 1872. The Admiralty do what in them
lies to keep watch over the labour vessels by means of Queen's ships;
and in Queensland, regulations are made; in Fiji, the British Consul
endeavours to examine the newly arrived, whether they have been taken
away by force. But it may be feared that it will not be possible
entirely to prevent atrocities over so wide a range; though if, as
Bishop Patteson suggested, all vessels unregistered, and not
committed to trustworthy masters, were liable to be seized and
confiscated, much of the shameless deceit and horrible skull-hunting
would be prevented.

Perhaps the fittest conclusion to the Bishop's history will be the
words written by Henry Tagalana, translated literally by Mr.
Codrington:--

'As he taught, he confirmed his word with his good life among us, as
we all know; and also that he perfectly well helped anyone who might
be unhappy about anything, and spoke comfort to him about it; and
about his character and conduct, they are consistent with the law of
God. He gave the evidence of it in his practice, for he did nothing
carelessly, lest he should make anyone stumble and turn from the good
way; and again he did nothing to gain anything for himself alone, but
he sought what he might keep others with, and then he worked with it:
and the reason was his pitifulness and his love. And again, he did
not despise anyone, nor reject anyone with scorn; whether it were a
white or a black person he thought them all as one, and he loved them
all alike.'

'He loved them all alike!' That was the secret of John Coleridge
Patteson's history and his labours.

Need more be said of him? Surely the simple islander's summary of
his character is the honour he would prefer.