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Macao
Kendrick arrived in Macao on January 27, 1789. He had quite a few skins with him, as well as 137
that he was to sell for commandant Martinez. True to his style, he did indeed sell the fine skins,
and used the profit not to give to the Spanish commandant but rather to convert the sloop into a brig.
Before selling his furs in Macao he sent a note to Captain Gray who was in Canton to see if prices were
better there, "inform me what the Current Price is," (Scofield 178).
Gray continued to avoid him and begged him not to come to Canton,
"by all means remain" (Scofield 179). Kendrick over 300 skins in all. Desperate for cash, he also
sold Lady Washington herself. Meanwhile, Gray had returned to Boston and the overall feeling towards
Kendrick was that of "egregious knavery and of unpardonable stupidity" (Scofield 186) as John Quincy
Adams wrote in a letter. As for Kendrick, he did not mind what was said of him in Boston for at last his
dream was coming true. The Lady was finally refit as a brig.
What exactly Kendrick meant by a brig is something of a difficulty. Lady Washington historian Robert
Kennedy explains that, "you must be careful about nomenclature when it comes to rigging of sailing ships.
It has changed over time, at one moment in time a brig would be rigged the same as a brigantine of another
time." Another historian, Richard L. Miles, says, "it...wasn't so cut and dried to the seamen of the
eighteenth century. This confusion, from what we consider the source, makes it extremely difficult to be
totally accurate," (Miles 31).
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 Photo by Alexa Chipman
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