Sea of Glory

his countenance.” Hudson conducted a council in his cabin, where he questioned Veidovi about his role in the killings. The chief freely admitted to the murders, recounting how in hopes of securing some firearms, he had pretended to greet the unsuspecting mate of the Charles Doggett in friendship, then grabbed and held him while his warriors clubbed him to death. “All that he had to say,” Reynolds wrote, “was ‘that he had only followed the Fegee customs & done what his people had often done before.’”
    Hudson announced Veidovi’s punishment: instead of being executed, he would be taken back to the United States; after several years in America, he would be returned to Fiji, having become “a better man, and with the Knowledge, that to kill a white person was the very worst thing a Feegee man could do.” Reynolds had his doubts about the efficacy of the sentence, especially when one of Veidovi’s brothers said that “he supposed all he would have to do was to kill white men and then the Men of War would come, carry him to America & bring him back, richer than when they had taken him away.”
    But for Veidovi, who only a few hours before had been a great chief with fifty-five wives and dozens of children, the sentence was a terrible blow. His brothers were also deeply affected, weeping and kissing him on the forehead. One of Veidovi’s attendants asked to remain with his master, but Hudson steadfastly refused. Only after Veidovi had placed both his manacled hands on the young man’s head did the attendant finally leave the ship.
     
    The capture of Veidovi had almost immediate repercussions. Word traveled fast in Fiji, and before the end of the day, natives arrived in Levuka with the news. Whippy, whom Wilkes had failed to consult about his decision to take Veidovi, was deeply disturbed. He explained that the chiefs of Rewa and Bau were related through intermarriage, and he thought it likely that Tanoa and Seru might launch a surprise attack and attempt to take Wilkes prisoner, “as it was their custom to retaliate by procuring the capture of the highest chief.” In less than a day, he warned, a fleet of canoes with more than a thousand warriors might arrive at Levuka.
    Wilkes, the Stormy Petrel, had impulsively, and needlessly, acted to heighten tensions in an island group where even in its most halcyon days the threat of violence was omnipresent. For the duration of their stay in Fiji, the officers and men of the Ex. Ex. would have to be doubly wary of attack.
    Wilkes thought it prudent to reposition the Vincennes so that the observatory at Levuka might be more easily defended with her guns. Once it had become clear that a strike by Tanoa was not imminent, Wilkes set out on a surveying trip aboard the Flying Fish.
    In addition to an armory’s worth of pistols, muskets, blunderbusses, and cutlasses, Wilkes brought along his own personal deterrent to native violence: his dog, Sydney. Everywhere Wilkes went, whether afloat or ashore, Sydney was never far away. The Newfoundland liked to stand at the gig’s bow, and as soon as the boat touched the beach, the dog leaped onto the sand and chased away any nearby natives. As Wilkes conducted his observations surrounded by an armed guard, Sydney prowled about the area, growling menacingly if anyone dared approach. “I think I owe my life to him . . . ,” Wilkes later recalled. “The natives were all very much afraid of him, and a word from me would have caused him to seize any of them. . . . It may easily be conceived the attachment I had for him and his love for his master.”
    In the middle of June, Wilkes received word that they were not the only exploring expedition in Fiji. A British squadron led by Captain Edward Belcher had recently arrived at Rewa. One of Belcher’s vessels had lost its rudder on a reef, and Wilkes offered to provide some spare gudgeons. The British had spent the previous summer in the Pacific Northwest, and since this was one of the intended destinations of the U.S. Ex. Ex., Wilkes was eager to learn as much as he could about the region. But when Wilkes arrived at Rewa, Belcher appeared less than pleased to see him.
    Belcher had just been forced to pay the port charges required by Wilkes’s newly instituted trade regulations, and he wasn’t happy about it. He was also reluctant to reveal anything about his experience on the west coast of North America. He did say, however, that summer was the only suitable time to visit the