The Americans in the South Seas

by Louis Becke

In March, 1805, a general order set forth that American ships, after receiving assistance and relief at Sydney Cove, were continually returning this hospitality by secreting on board and carrying off runaway convicts, and so it was ordered that every English or foreign vessel entering the ports of the settlement should give security for themselves in £500, and two freeholders in the sum of £50 each, not to carry off any person without the Governor's certificate that such person was free to go. This order had some effect in putting a stop to the practice, but not a few persons managed to leave the colony and reach American shores without there being evidence enough to show how they got away. Muir, one of the "Scotch Martyrs," escaped in the American Ship Otter as far back as 1795; and although his story has been told before in detail, we may here briefly mention that the Otter was hired expressly to affect his escape. Muir got on board safely enough, and the ship sailed, but was wrecked off the west coast of America. After sufferings and privations enough to satisfy even the sternest justice, Muir managed to reach Mexico, and embarked in a Spanish frigate for Europe. The vessel was taken by an English man-of-war after a sharp engagement, in which Muir was severely wounded. His identity was concealed from the English commander, and he managed to reach Paris, only to die of his wound.

In October, 1804, there was serious trouble in Bass's Straits between English and American sealers. Messrs. Kable and Underwood, Sydney shipowners, had a sealing establishment in Kent's Bay, and among the men employed were some "assigned" convicts. One Joseph Murrell, master of the sealing schooner Endeavour, wrote to his owners a letter in which he stated he was too ill to write coherently, in consequence of the usage he had received from one Delano, master of the American schooner Pilgrim. Delano's name was familiar to Governor King, inasmuch as he had taken a part in the 1803 attempt to colonise Port Philip, as follows: One of the officers, Lieutenant Bowen, on his way across Bass's Straits in a small boat, had the misfortune to carry away his rudder, and when in danger was rescued by Delano. Bowen, anxious to deliver some despatches, hired the Pilgrim's tender from Delano to carry them, omitting to make a bargain beforehand; and for this paltry service the American charged £400! The British Government growled, but paid.

But let Captain Murrell tell his story: "At four in the morning on the 17th I was suddenly seized by the chief mate of the Pilgrim, and three other American ruffians" (they were really Chilenos), "two of whom caught me by the hair, the other two by the arms. They dragged me out of bed and trailed me in this fashion along the ground till they came to the sea beach. Here they beat me with clubs, then kept me three-quarters of an hour naked whilst they were searching for the rest of my people." Murrell goes on to detail as to how he threatened them with the wrath of the Governor, to which they replied that the Governor was not there to protect him. He was then taken to a tree and lashed to it, stripped, and all the Americans took a hand in flogging him into insensibility. When he recovered, he says, he asked for death rather than torture, and was answered savagely that he and his men were the means of depriving the Americans of 3,000 dollars' worth of skins by their operations, and that Englishmen had better keep away from Cape Barren and leave the field open to Americans.

"Then," he wrote, "they began to sport away with their bloody cruelties, until some few Englishmen belonging to other [sealing] gangs out of Port Jackson, stung to the quick to see the cruelties exercised upon me without humanity, law, or justice, determined not to suffer it, and began to assemble. This occasioned the Americans to face about, at which instant I got my hands loose and ran into the sea, determined to be drowned rather than be tortured to death. I was followed by a number of Americans to the seaside, who stoned me, and sent into the water after me a Sandwich Island savage, who gave me desperate blows with a club. I put up my arm to save my head and he broke my arm in three places. I was then dragged on shore and left lying on the beach, the men remarking that they supposed I had had enough, but that there were more of their country's ships expected, who would not let me off so lightly. Then they took away some of my people, rescuing from my custody a King's prisoner."

In all a dozen men—convicts and others—were taken away by Delano and his ruffianly crowd of Chilenos and Portuguese, and this particular sealing station was practically destroyed.

Captain Moody, of the colonial schooner Governor King had recorded a similar instance a few months earlier, and there is no doubt that the colonials had just cause for complaint; as there is equally no doubt that they themselves were not altogether innocent of provocation. Nothing, however, came of these quarrels, for although the Governor wrote to England on the matter, the authorities "remembered to forget" to answer, and the rival sealing parties continued to fight without bringing about a serious battle, and the whaling and sealing industry continued to grow in such fashion as is here indicated. What it had become little more than a generation later is shown in the remainder of this article, mentioning incidentally that an American whaler, the Topaz, Captain Folger, was the first discoverer of the descendants of the Bounty mutineers on Pitcairn Island in 1808; and that Wilkes' United States Exploring Expedition of 1836-42 was in a large measure suggested to America by the great increase in that half of the century of American South Sea trade. What this increase was can best be told in the words of the man—Mr. Charles Enderby—who was unquestionably the highest authority and whose house founded this very industry in the Southern Ocean. In April, 1849, Charles Enderby received a charter of incorporation for a proposed southern whale fishery, together with a grant of the Auckland Islands (but that is another story), and to celebrate the occasion a banquet was held at the London Tavern, Bishops-gate Street, London, presided over by the senior naval Lord of the Admiralty, who proposed the health of the guest of the evening, Charles Enderby. In replying to that toast Mr. Enderby quoted the whalemen's shipping list, in which it was shown that in March, 1849, "the United States, whose flag was to be found on every sea, had 596 whale-ships of 190,000 tons, and manned by 18,000 seamen, while the number of English ships engaged in the whale trade was only fourteen!"

During the next decade the English did something to improve this state of affairs, but their endeavour was made too late, and by the time they woke up to the situation the heyday of South Sea whaling was gone.

We are so accustomed to take it for granted that the English (the original brand thereof, not the American pattern) were fifty years ago in command of all sea commerce, that the old-fashioned English sailor was superior to all others, and that his ships beat every one else's in everything appertaining to the sea, that this fact of how thoroughly the Americans beat us in the great whaling industry is never remembered. And whaling was and is now a branch of sea service that needs men to successfully work in it, for it cannot be profitably pursued with the human paint-scrubbers who to-day make up such a large section of our mercantile marine; and the success of the American whaling seamen may supply a clue to the Nelson-like fashion in which American men-of-warsmen tackle the serious business of the American Navy.