July 19 Thursday – Sam’s fifteenth letter to the Union, dated “Honolulu, June 25, 1866: BURNING OF THE CLIPPER SHIP HORNET AT SEA”:
In the postscript to a letter which I wrote two or three days ago, and sent by the ship Live Yankee, I gave you the substance of a letter received here from Hilo by Walker, Allen & Co. informing them that a boat containing fifteen men, in a helpless and starving condition, had drifted ashore at Laupahoehoe, Island of Hawaii, and that they had belonged to the clipper ship Hornet, [Josiah] Mitchell master, and had been afloat on the ocean since the burning of that vessel, about one hundred miles north of the equator, on the 3d of May — forty-three days. The third mate and ten of the seamen have arrived here and are now in the hospital. Captain Mitchell, one seaman named Antonio Passene, and two passengers (Samuel and Henry Ferguson, of New York city, young gentlemen, aged respectively 18 and 28) are still at Hilo, but are expected here within the week.
In the Captain’s modest epitome of this terrible romance, which you have probably published, you detect the fine old hero through it. It reads like Grant [Day 137]. Sam left the Sandwich Islands aboard the sailing ship Smyrniote at 4:30 in the afternoon. He chose that vessel over the afternoon ship Comet, because Josiah Mitchell, the Hornet’s captain, and two of the Hornet’s passengers, had all kept logs of the ordeal of the vessel and the aftermath. Sam had permission to copy their logs and to talk with the men and to write up the events for Harper’s Monthly [Sanborn 292-3]. Before Sam departed Honolulu he wrote to Samuel C. Damon, pastor of the Oahu Bethel Church. Sam claimed he returned a book he had borrowed, History of the Hawaiian Islands [MTL 1: 349].
In Sam’s letter of this date to Rev. Samuel Chenery Damon (1815-1885), pastor of the Oahu Bethel Church, he confessed taking History of the Hawaiian or Sandwich Islands (2 nd ed. 1844) by James Jackson Jarves (1818-1888). He did not return Jarves’ book, as originally reported; the title of the returned book has yet to be identified. (See Gribben p. 352.)
REV. MR. Damon:—Dear Sir— / return herewith the last book I borrowed, with many thanks for its use and for all your kindness. I take your Jarves’ History with me, because I may not be able to get it at home. I “cabbage” it by the strong arm, for fear you might refuse to part with it if I asked you. This is a case of military necessity, and is therefore [admissible]. The honesty of the transaction may be doubtful, but the policy of it is sound—sound as the foundation upon which the imperial greatness of America rests. So just hold on a bit. I will send the book back within a month, or soon after I arrive.
Note: Frear on Sam’s leaving the islands:
Mark Twain expected to be over his illness from the hard trip in a few days and then spend three weeks on the fourth largest island, Kauai, the “Garden Island,” –and especially in order to fill in the time while waiting for the arrival of the new American minister, General Edward M. McCook (1833- 1909), whose views on Hawaiian politics he wished to obtain. Then he planned to visit China at the invitation of Anson Burlingame and after that the Paris World’s Fair, but first he would go to the “States” to see his folks. But, as so often, his plans did not pan out…The time of General McCook’s arrival was so uncertain that Twain finally sailed three days before that event—after remaining in Honolulu a month and three days [80].