CHAPTER I

THE TOWN OF NANTUCKET, IN the State of Massachusetts, contains about eight thousand inhabitants; nearly a third part of the population are quakers, and they are, taken together, a very industrious and enterprising people. On this island are owned about one hundred vessels, of all descriptions, engaged in the whale trade, giving constant employment and support to upwards of sixteen hundred hardy seaman, a class of people proverbial for their intrepidity. This fishery is not carried on to any extent from any other part of the United States, except from the town of New Bedford, directly opposite to Nantucket, where are owned probably twenty sail. A voyage generally lasts about two years and a half, and with an entire uncertainty of success. Sometimes they are repaid with speedy voyages and profitable cargoes, and at others they drag out a listless and disheartening cruise, without scarcely making the expenses of an outfit. The business is considered a very hazardous one, arising from unavoidable accidents, in carrying on an exterminating warfare against those great leviathans of the deep; and indeed a Nantucket man is on all occasions fully sensible of the honour and merit of his profession; no doubt because he knows that his laurels, like the soldier’s, are plucked from the brink of danger. Numerous anecdotes are related of the whalemen of Nantucket; and stories of hair-breadth ‘scapes, and sudden and wonderful preservation, are handed down amongst them, with the fidelity, and no doubt many of them with the characteristic fictions of the ancient legendary tales. A spirit of adventure amongst the sons of other relatives of these immediately concerned in it, takes possession of their minds at an early age; captivated with the tough stories of the elder seamen, and seduced, as well as the natural desire of seeing foreign countries, as by the hopes of gain, they launch forth six or eight thousand miles from home, into an almost untraversed ocean and spend from two to three years of their lives in scenes of constant peril, labour, and watchfulness. The profession is one of great ambition, and full of honourableexcitement: a tame man is never known amongst them; and the coward is marked with that peculiar aversion, that distinguishes our public naval service. There are perhaps no people of superior corporeal powers; and it has been truly said of them, that they possess a natural aptitude, which seems rather the lineal spirit of their fathers, than the effects of any experience. The town itself, during the war, was (naturally to have been expected) on the decline; but with the return of peace it took a fresh start, and a spirit for carrying on the fishery received a renewed and very conside