The Cruise of the Cachalot | Page 3

Independence, this flourishing trade was the first to suffer, and many of the daring fishermen became our fiercest foes on board their own men-of-war.
The total stoppage of the importation of sperm oil and spermaceti was naturally severely felt in England, for time had not permitted the invention of substitutes. In consequence of this, ten ships were equipped and sent out to the sperm whale fishery from England in 1776, most of them owned by one London firm, the Messrs. Enderby. The next year, in order to encourage the infant enterprise, a Government bounty, graduated from L500 to L1000 per ship, was granted. Under this fostering care the number of ships engaged in the sperm whale fishery progressively increased until 1791, when it attained its maximum.
This method of whaling being quite new to our whalemen, it was necessary, at great cost, to hire American officers and harpooners to instruct them in the ways of dealing with these highly active and dangerous cetacea. Naturally, it was by-and- by found possible to dispense with the services of these auxiliaries; but it must be confessed that the business never seems to have found such favour, or to have been prosecuted with such smartness, among our whalemen as it has by the Americans.
Something of an exotic the trade always was among us, although it did attain considerable proportions at one time. At first the fishing was confined to the Atlantic Ocean; nor for many years was it necessary to go farther afield, as abundance of whales could easily be found.
As, however, the number of ships engaged increased, it was inevitable that the known grounds should become exhausted, and in 1788 Messrs. Enderby's ship, the EMILIA, first ventured round Cape Horn, as the pioneer of a greater trade than ever. The way once pointed out, other ships were not slow to follow, until, in 1819, the British whale-ship SYREN opened up the till then unexplored tract of ocean in the western part of the North Pacific, afterwards familiarly known as the "Coast of Japan." From these teeming waters alone, for many years an average annual catch of 40,000 barrels of oil was taken, which, at the average price of L8 per barrel, will give some idea of the value of the trade generally.
The Australian colonists, early in their career, found the sperm whale fishery easy of access from all their coasts, and especially lucrative. At one time they bade fair to establish a whale fishery that should rival the splendid trade of the Americans; but, like the mother country, they permitted the fishery to decline, so that even bounties could not keep it alive.
Meanwhile, the Americans added to their fleet continually, prospering amazingly. But suddenly the advent of the civil war let loose among those peaceable cruisers the devastating ALABAMA, whose course was marked in some parts of the world by the fires of blazing whale-ships. A great part, of the Geneva award was on this account, although it must be acknowledged that many pseudo-owners were enriched who never owned aught but brazen impudence and influential friends to push their fictitious claims. The real sufferers, seamen especially, in most cases never received any redress whatever.
From this crushing blow the American sperm whale fishery has never fully recovered. When the writer was in the trade, some twenty-two years ago, it was credited with a fleet of between three and four hundred sail; now it may be doubted whether the numbers reach an eighth of that amount. A rigid conservatism of method hinders any revival of the industry, which is practically conducted to-day as it was fifty, or even a hundred years ago; and it is probable that another decade will witness the final extinction of what was once one of the most important maritime industries in the world.
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THE CRUISE OF THE "CACHALOT"
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CHAPTER I
OUTWARD BOUND
At the age of eighteen, after a sea-experience of six years from the time when I dodged about London streets, a ragged Arab, with wits sharpened by the constant fight for food, I found myself roaming the streets of New Bedford, Massachusetts. How I came to be there, of all places in the world, does not concern this story at all, so I am not going to trouble my readers with it; enough to say that I WAS there, and mighty anxious to get away. Sailor Jack is always hankering for shore when he is at sea, but when he is "outward bound"--that is, when his money is all gone --he is like a cat in the rain there.
So as MY money was all gone, I was hungry for a ship; and when a long, keen-looking man with a goat-like beard, and mouth stained with dry tobacco-juice, hailed me one afternoon at the street- corner, I answered very promptly, scenting a berth. "Lookin' fer