Brigs Hope and Hancock off the Kohala coast of Hawaii,
October 8, 1791

18 x 24 in. oil on canvas

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Kohala by Moonlight

Following a season of fur trading in the Northwest, the Brig Hope returned to the Hawaiian Islands where she encountered another New England merchant brig, the Hancock of Boston.

Both ships lay hove-to in calm waters close in to the Kohala coast of the Big Island of Hawaii. As dusk turned to night, Captain Ingraham of the Hope wrote in his log book:

"It was a calm, delightful evening. The moon shown with uncommon splendor, casting a silvered gleam on the bosom of the deep; the high lands threw a dark shade which was gradually lightened into a blue tint as the shade lost its effect - an elegant subject for a better pen.

However, as I profess to be neither a poet nor painter, all I could do was to admire. At the same time, conceiving it to be a good one to visit my friends on the Hancock, I ordered a boat hoisted and went on board [the Hancock], where I was introduced to Captain Crowell and the rest of the gentlemen."

The painting shows Captain Ingraham in his boat alongside the Hancock against the awesome backdrop of the Kohala cliffs made even more so by the illumination of moonlight. The conversation is of home, trade, and conditions in the islands.

War was being waged on Maui between the forces of King Kamehameha and King Kahekili, which prompted the two American ships for safety's sake to stay together in Hawaiian waters before venturing on to China.