Bully Hayes - The Final Voyage On The Lotus

The Final Voyage On The Lotus

Hayes reached Guam. He purchased the schooner Arabia on credit in April 1875 and accepted a commission to help convicts escape from prison. He was arrested and ended up in prison in Manila, Philippines, which was under the control of Spain until the Spanish–American War. Hayes was eventually freed and lands in San Francisco without funds in early 1876. He persuaded a Mr and Mrs Moody, to fund the purchase of a schooner the Lotus. Hayes tricked Mr Moody into going ashore and sailed off with Jenny Ford Moody still on board. After arriving in Apia, Samoa, on 2 January 1877 the Lotus sailed to Kosrae, the atoll on which Leonora was wrecked, where Hayes intended to collect coconuts left at the time of the wreck. When leaving Kosrae on 31 March 1877, the ship’s cook Peter Radeck, or "Dutch Pete", responding to threats from Hayes, killed him. While the events are unclear, it is understood that Hayes was shot with a revolver, struck on the skull with an iron implement and thrown overboard. Charles Elson, the mate, and the remaining crew sailed the Lotus to Jaluit in the Marshall Islands and gave an account of the death of Bully Hayes. No one was concerned at his death – indeed Peter Radeck was treated as a hero.

While Bully Hayes may not have ever taken a ship by force in the tradition of a pirate or privateer - acts of fraud being his practice to gain command of a ship. However if the suspicion is true, that he disposed of Ben Pease to gain command of the Pioneer, then that may qualify him to be a pirate; perhaps his life as a blackbirder, is what establishes his credentials as a pirate - such was the depths to which piracy had descended in the second half of the 19th century.