Chapter X: Section III: Further Successes, with their comparative Relations, in the

Ship Henrietta._

Future results clearly indicated the source, under a favouring Providence, of my Father's prosperity. These first fruits of adventure were justified by the subsequent harvest, as the legitimate proceeds of superior management. Merely accidental circumstances may yield, for an occasion or two, or for several occasions, felicitous results; but where adventures involving mind and talent for their conduct, prove, through a long series of repetitions, under all the diversities of times and seasons, unusually successful, they give evidence of a master-mind directing the operations.

During the subsequent five years of my Father's enterprises in the same ship--from 1793 to 1797 inclusive,--the Henrietta's cargo stood generally, I believe, at the head of the list of successful voyages amongst the whole fleet of Greenland whalers. The least successful voyage was liberally remunerating to the owner--the most successful, unprecedentedly so. The total captures in whales, during the six successful years, including that of 1792, was no less than eighty; and the produce in oil, (considered as wonderful for that day,) 729 tuns.

Before the introduction of this species of energetic enterprise, the adventurers, as a class, were content with small things. We have the commendatory record concerning Captain Banks, of the Jenny, of Whitby, who was esteemed a talented and successful fisherman, that he brought home sixty-five whales in ten years, or six and a half per year; whereas the average captures by my Father, during the period referred to, was thirteen and one-third whales, or more than double the number of this successful predecessor.

The catch in his fifth year of command reached the then extraordinary amount of twenty-five whales; and in his last year, the proceeds in oil were greater, being 152 tuns, than had before entered the port of Whitby in any one ship.

Whilst giving the first detailed and authentic records of a Father's life and enterprises, it may be permitted, I trust, in the son, to dwell still further on these comparisons, whereby the enterprises referred to may obtain their just estimation in their bearing on the commercial prosperity of the nation.

The comparison of my Father's successes with those accustomed to be realized by the northern whale-fishers in general, will afford to him, as may have been anticipated, a highly commendatory result.

The most distinguished whale-fishers in the world, during a century and a half, or more, were the _Dutch_, with whose ordinary successes the comparison may, with propriety, first be made. Within the long interval of 107 years, ending with 1778, the produce of 57,590 whales was brought into Holland by 14,167 ships, (reckoning repeated voyages,) yielding an average of four and one-fifteenth whales per ship. During the ten years more immediately preceding my Father's commencement,--from 1769 to 1778, for instance,--the average produce of the Dutch _Greenland_ whale-fishery, per ship, a year, (ninety ships, on an average being employed,) was about three and a half "fish." In the ten years beginning with 1779, (sixty sail being regularly sent out,) the average was about three and three-quarters. And in the ten years, from 1785 to 1794, passing within the period of my Father's early enterprises, (sixty ships being then also annually engaged in the fisheries of Greenland and Davis' Strait), the catch was 2294 whales, giving an average of three and eight-tenths whales per ship for each year. Hence my Father's success, compared with these various averages of the Dutch fleet, rises, in respect of the number of whales captured, in the remarkable proportion of above three and a half to one.

But we turn to _home_ comparisons, which as to the object in view is of more importance to us,--though the materials for obtaining _general_ results are, I regret to find, but very scanty.

As to the whale-fishery of _Great Britain_, in 1787 and 1788, we find (_Arctic Regions_, ii. p. 112,) 505 cargoes were obtained in the two years, amounting to 15,894 tuns of oil, or 31·5 tuns per ship a year.

The records in hand of the Greenland fishery from _Scotland_, in the years just preceding my Father's commencement, relate only to the period from 1785 to 1788. In each of the two latter years, when thirty-one ships were employed in the trade, the average success per ship was only two and four-fifths whales. The general average for Scotland seems, indeed, at this period to have been low; but, soon after the commencement of the present century, the enterprise and perseverance of our northern sailors began, not only to assert their proper position, but to recompense for past inferiority,--their whale-fishery of these more recent times becoming second to none, either in the ability with which it was pursued, or the success with which it was rewarded.

With the port of Whitby, from whence the Henrietta sailed, we have already drawn certain comparisons. We only add the general result of the fishery of 1786, 1787, and 1788, when twenty ships sailed from this port yearly for Greenland. The catch per ship, for each of these years, was about three and a half whales; but, including the next three years, one of which was most disastrous, the average catch would hardly reach three fish per ship.

But the best comparisons of my Father's successes are with those of the Greenland whalers from _Hull_; these comparisons being rendered most satisfactory because of the ample records before me of the whale fishery of that port. The records referred to are comprised in an elaborate and carefully kept manuscript, kindly entrusted to me for the present object, belonging to Mr. James Simpson, painter, of Hull, in which an admirable abstract is preserved of the whale-fishing enterprise of the port during a consecutive period of fifty-nine years, from 1772 to 1830 inclusive.

From this document, for the comparison at present designed, we obtain the following information:--During the twenty years, from 1772 to 1791, reaching my Father's commencement, 266 ships (including repeated voyages) sailed from Hull to the Greenland whale-fishery, and obtained, altogether, an amount of produce of 9377 tuns of oil, averaging 35·25 tuns a voyage for each ship. In the six years _before_ my Father's commencement,--1786 to 1791,--158 ships (gross amount) obtained 4975 tuns of oil, or 31·5 on the average. And in the next six years, corresponding exactly with those of my Father's successful enterprise in the Henrietta,--1792 to 1797,--ninety-two Greenland whalers, from Hull, procured 5464 tuns of oil, or 59·4 tuns per ship a year.

My Father's average success, taken in comparison of these various _home_ results, we hence gather, was about _four times_ as great as the ordinary success (within the limited periods specified) of the British whalers generally. It was also _four times_ as great as the usual average of the _Whitby_ whalers; in like proportion above the average of the _Hull_ whalers during the previous twenty years; and more than double the Hull average for the same actual period!

But to institute the most _severe_ comparison with the successes of his competitors in this important field of commercial enterprise, we may notice that during the period of his command of the Henrietta (omitting, for reasons already assigned, the first year only), the amount of my Father's cargoes exceeded, by 151 tuns of oil, that of the most successful of the Hull ships of the time, amongst more than fifteen annual competitors; and was larger even than the amount attained by the six united cargoes of the most successful ship out of the whole of the whalers from the port, taken year by year! And, it is believed, could the comparison have been made with the entire fleet of whalers proceeding from Britain to the Greenland fishery, my Father, under this severest possible test of competition, with all the disadvantages of time and chance against him, would still be found at the head!

Among the captains of the Whitby fleet, no one, I believe, at all approached his successes; and among those commanding the Greenland whalers of Hull none came at all near him, except one--Captain Allan,--whose name I feel it but justice to record as the most successful fisherman of his port, and one of the first of his day. Captain Angus Sadler, whose remarkable successes we hereafter notice, did not commence until 1796. And Captain John Marshall, who afterwards became so celebrated among his compeers, was but, as yet, rising towards superiority; besides, his enterprises, after he became so signally successful, were conducted in Davis' Strait,--a branch of the fishery to which our comparison may not fairly extend.

The result of the enterprise of the other captains of this period was, in each case, so far below that of the subject of these memorials, as only, in two or three cases, to reach one-half his success. Captain Taylor, of the Fanny, brought home 400 tuns of oil within those six years, and Captain Wilson, of the Caroline, 318; but my Father's catch, as above stated, yielded no less an amount than 729 tuns! And when it is understood that the Henrietta was of but small tonnage, (254 tons,) whilst many of the Hull ships were from 50 to 100, or even 120, tons larger, the comparison instituted becomes the more remarkable.

In these successes of my Father, the people of Whitby felt an universal and exciting interest, for most of the principal inhabitants, as well as a large body of those in the middle and lower classes, were, more or less, directly or indirectly, participators in the gains of the whale-fishery. But whilst all were astonished at the results of enterprises so unquestionably due to an individual guidance, no small number were moved to feelings of jealousy in consequence of successes, to which the fruits of their personal ventures in other ships bore no reasonable proportion. The modes in which this baneful feeling towards my Father was evinced, were as various as they were sometimes annoying. At first, the extraordinary results were ascribed to "luck;" and, subsequently, when more than luck was too obvious to be denied, the waning phantom of superstition was resorted to in order to escape the commendation of a frank acknowledgment of superior merit. Some persons there were of an order of mind so simple, as actually to believe what was jocosely told, that he "knee-banded" a portion of fish in one year to facilitate the success of the next. Jeers and lampoons were made use of as outlets for the expression of narrow and jealous selfishness,--annoyances which the substantiality of my Father's advantages enabled him very well to bear, but which were often keenly felt when played off against the less stern materials of his amiable and tender-minded wife and susceptible young family.

The working of this principle, in envious manifestations of word and feeling, presents a painfully characteristic fruit of human degeneration from original perfectness. And the manner and sphere of its working yield very characteristic instruction on the nature of the deteriorated mind. Mankind can well bear, and be free to commend in generous frankness, successful enterprise in _other_ departments than that of their own sphere. Nay, by a strange concession of the secret mind, when under a disposition to withhold the meed of praise in the department which trenches on self-interest, or self-consequence, we find many disposed to bestow an utterly extravagant measure of adulation, where it may be popular to do so, on individuals and enterprises distinctly separate and remote from interferences with themselves. But let a man be "ploughing in the same field" of enterprise, or intelligent research; let the admired results of the labour of one but stand out on the sculptured tablet of fame in bold relief of the mere groundwork surface of the other explorers of like mysteries; or let the profitable fruits of the industry of one contrast with the sad failures or meagre successes of others engaged in the self-same species of enterprise, and then we shall find, more or less developed, among the many whose efforts have been overtopped and eclipsed, and among the multitudes, perhaps, associated relatively or interestedly with the mortified competitors, the feelings of envy and jealousy, sometimes of hatred and malice, most sadly conspicuous and dominant.

In my Father's case, where sometimes the owners, captains, and crews of near a dozen ships sailing from the same port had their most ardent enterprises, year by year, altogether eclipsed by his superior success,--and where, by reason of relative or interested association, the majority of a town's population became participators in the mortifying competition,--the measure in which the ungenerous feelings might possibly have their existence and impulses, may be well imagined to have been very extensive. That it was so in an extraordinary degree in the early progress of my Father's adventures, and during many years of his singular prosperity, every member of his family had too painful evidence.

But as to the observant and intelligent classes separate from this baneful prejudice, and as to some of more dignified minds amongst parties who were personally interested in whale-fishing concerns, the character and merits of the subject of these records were sufficiently appreciated and acknowledged.

The fame of his successes reached throughout the commercial ports of the realm, and applications of a very tempting nature came unsolicited upon him, for transferring his guidance and energies to other associates in Arctic enterprise, with encouraging promise of far more profitable results.

My Mother, who was much attached to Whitby, as a place of residence, viewed these repeated offers with much anxiety, feeling that my Father's taking a command elsewhere must involve her either in the trial of leaving Whitby, or in the great inconvenience of a much more considerable period of severance than the mere Greenland voyage required, of the family circle. For awhile her objections prevailed; but ultimately, as in another chapter we shall have to record, these objections sunk under the advantages elsewhere proffered.