JOHN ELLIOT DE CASTRO

In 1816 the doctor was a passenger on the "Rurik" returning from San Francisco to Hawaii and his family. The following description is taken from "Chamisso's Account of the Voyage Around the World on the Rurik 1815-1818".

Mr. John Elliot de Castro of mixed English and Portugese [sic] blood, was so small, that I can only compare him to the little John Paul, one of the story book dwarfs, since he himself barely reached up to our knees, not to make a comparison with taller persons. He was a devoted catholic, and pinned all his faith on a ribbon of the brotherhood of St. Francis, that he wore, and whose virtues promised him plenary absolution. He had been married in Rio de Janeiro, and had there been appointed Surgeon of a hospital. He had also another love, an unlucky love, for this passion had driven him out into the world and brought him much misfortune. He was in love with money, a sum of twenty thousand piastres (Spanish dollars), the possession of which he could not encompass, of which he spoke with a passionate yearning, a semblance of truth and depth of feeling, with a rapturousness which was at least equal to that of the poetry of a calendar muse. This love was truly poetical; it was touching to see him, as he bent over bulwarks of the Rurik searching the far distant horizon where in his imagination he saw a sail, an American ship laden with piastres the result of trade on the Spanish coast. We have more guns than he. We could easily capture him, but never was there a real ship in the offing. Once he tried to smuggle tobacco into Buenos Aires, and was thrown into prison. Once also, he had tried his luck under Baranoff, which only led to another imprisonment by the Spaniards. He had spent two years in the Sandwich Islands, where he sought to carry on a trade in the Pearl River pearls, which did not however come up to his expectations.

After that he became personal surgeon to King Tameiameia (Kamehameha), who gave him lands, and, now as he was returning to his native family he hoped to find his estates in good order, and believed his former arrangements still held good.

On arrival of the "Rurik" at Hawaii, it was de Castro who accompanied the captain ashore and vouched for the entire company.

Klaus Mehnert in "The Russians in Hawaii" states that after de Castro's first two years in Hawaii he resumed his wandering life and in 1813 was in Sitka, Alaska, "recommending himself to Baranov as an expert on Spanish affairs". [The Baranoff of Chamisso's account and the manager of the Russian American Company as well as virtual governor of the Russian holdings in Alaska.] In December 1813 Baranov sent him to Ft. Ross with a hunting party. When the expedition got as far afield as southern California, de Castro and some others were captured and held prisoners by the Spaniards. It was not until the fall of 1816 that they were rescued by Kotzebue and put aboard the "Rurik" when she sailed for Hawaii.

Mehnert says that on his return to Hawaii de Castro was again taken into the king's service and that in 1818 the Russians found him the owner of valuable land and receiving the yearly salary of 88 Spanish piastres paid in sandalwood. The Russians believed him to be Kamehameha's foreign minister, and in a letter to the commander of the Russian frigate he signed himself Secretary of State to His Majesty.

What became of de Castro after Kamehameha's death we do not know.

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