The Costa Rica Packet affair: colonial entanglements and tests of empire in pre-federation New South Wales

On 1 November 1891 the Burns Philp & Co. whaling barque, Costa Rica Packet, three months out from Sydney, sailed into the old spice port of Ternate in what was then the Moluccas, Netherlands East Indies. As soon as the ship had been tied up the master, John Bolton Carpenter, was summoned to the office of the Dutch Resident and arrested on an order from the Court of Justice in Macassar. Although no formal charge was laid Carpenter was told that he had been taken into custody as a result of an incident in January 1888, nearly four years before, when his crew had salvaged some cases of spirits and kerosene from a deserted prau off the coast of Burn, a few days' sail from Ambon. The owner of the prau alleged that Carpenter had stolen the goods. Carpenter tried to convince the Resident to allow him to continue his voyage, offering to pay a 100,000 guilders (£8000) bond and report at Macassar at the end of the season, but the Resident could not be persuaded: he was immediately incarcerated. Carpenter was well known in Temate and his relations with local officials generally had been good. They made him as comfortable as possible in the circumstances and provided him with the legal forms required to make a formal protest, one copy of which he managed to send to the nearest British authorities in the Straits Settlements. After four days he was taken in custody aboard the steamer Coen, and with three of his officers as supporting witnesses he arrived in Macassar on 16 November. There he was imprisoned to await trial, sharing a cell with a sick soldier. The cell had no artificial light, no proper mattress, and only a pine bucket served the 'necessities of nature'. Carpenter refused to eat for two days until the authorities arranged for food to be sent to him from outside. He was questioned by a magistrate a number of times without recourse to legal advice, until finally being released from gaol on 28 November 1891.