"1789. Robt. Dobson for carriage of pork, £1 4 0
1792. Lads at Saltergate as they came home, 0 2 6
1793. A man coming to Pickering to bring news of
ship--be ashore, 0 8 0
This apparently means that a man was sent to Pickering to tell the owners that the Henrietta had arrived.
"1799. Piggs at Pickering, £125 9 8
1801. Do., 181 8 8
1802. Do., 208 4 6
1815. Old Tom's expenses, turnpikes at Pickering, 0 6 6
In 1785 when the Henrietta made her annual voyage to the northern seas she had on board William Scoresby who in five years' time was to become captain of the vessel. He was the son of a small farmer at Cropton and was born on the 3rd of May 1760. His parents wished him to keep to agricultural pursuits and after a very brief education at the village school he commenced this arduous form of labour at the age of nine. He kept to this work until he was twenty when he could no longer resist his longings for a broader sphere of work. To obtain this he went to Whitby and apprenticed himself to a ship-owner. He acquired a thorough knowledge of seamanship with great rapidity and in his second year of service at sea detected an error in the reckoning which would otherwise have caused the loss of the ship. For this, his only reward was the ill-will of the mate whose mistake he had exposed. He therefore joined the Speedwell an ordnance ship carrying stores to Gibraltar but falling in with the Spanish fleet the Speedwell was captured. Her men having been taken to Cadiz they were sent inland to San Lucar de Mayor. From that place, through being somewhat carelessly guarded, Scoresby and one of his companions were successful in making their escape. They reached England after various adventures and Scoresby having endured many hardships at sea settled down again to farm work at Cropton for two years. Although having only the very smallest means he was married at this time to Lady Mary Smith (she was born on Lady-day), the eldest daughter of Mr John Smith, a landed proprietor in a small way and a native of Cropton.
Having reached the position of skipper of the famous Henrietta, in 1790, when only thirty years of age, Scoresby was saved from the financial extremes to which he was likely to have been reduced, owing to his small income and the increasing expenses of his family. Having successfully commanded the Henrietta for seven seasons and having augmented in this way the incomes of the half-dozen Pickeronians interested in the success of the ship, Captain Scoresby's reputation stood high in the Greenland trade. In 1798 he accepted the more advantageous offers of a London firm to command the Dundee. It was on his third voyage in that ship that, having called at Whitby as usual to say good-bye to his wife and children, Scoresby allowed his third child, William, to go on board the ship as she lay in the roads. When the time came for him to go ashore he was nowhere to be found, for having taken into his head the idea of going the voyage with his father the little fellow had hidden himself. The shouts for "Master William," however, brought him to the top of the companion at the last moment, but his father, understanding the boy's great desire to stay in the ship, decided to take him.
The voyage was notable on account of a very exciting incident on meeting with a foreign privateer. The Dundee was armed with twelve guns and was manned by a crew of between fifty and sixty men, so that if brought to extremities the ship could have made a good defence. Scoresby, however, had every reason for avoiding a conflict, so keeping his ship in an apparently defenceless state, with all the ports closed, he sent the men to their quarters to prepare the guns for immediate action. No sign of excitement or commotion was allowed to appear on deck so that when the privateer came within shouting distance Scoresby walking the quarter deck and the helmsmen steering were the only living beings visible to the stranger. Suddenly, however, the six gun ports on each side of the Dundee are raised and a row of untompioned cannon are seen pointing towards the enemy's broadside. The stratagem, according to the account given by the younger Scoresby,[1] was such a huge surprise for the enemy that he suddenly hauled off under full sail and not a shot was fired on either side.
[1] Scoresby, the Rev. William, D.D., "My Father," p. 108.
After this voyage young Scoresby went back to school again until 1803 when he became an apprentice on board the Resolution, a new ship of Whitby, commanded and partly owned by his father. For several years he made the Greenland voyage in the Resolution and was chief officer when, in the year 1806, his father forced the ship through the pack ice, as far north as 81° 3O'. This was for long the highest point reached by any vessel and the ship's cargo was completed in thirty-two days with twenty-four whales, two seals, two walruses, two bears and a narwhal. The elder Scoresby who was about six feet in height was a man of extraordinary muscular power. His many successful voyages reveal his first-class qualities as a seaman and navigator and his good judgment in emergencies seems to have been almost instinctive. Although he is described[1] as an Arctic navigator, exploration was only incidental to whale-catching, but his inventions of the ice-drill and the crow's-nest did much to make Arctic voyages more feasible.
[1] "Dictionary of National Biography."
The versatility of his son William was remarkable, for he may be described as master mariner, author and divine and even then his varied scientific knowledge is overlooked. During his latter years he was particularly interested in magnetism and in 1856 made his last voyage in order to carry out a series of systematic observations.