In a pamphlet written about the middle of the last century to recommend the prosecution of this trade, it was stated that the whale-fishery is of the nature of a lottery, where tho' the adventurers are certain losers on the whole, some are very great gainers; and this, it was argued, instead of being a discouragement was in fact the most powerful motive by which men were induced to engage in it.
If indeed the pleasure of gambling be in proportion to the stake, as those miserable and despicable persons who are addicted to that vice seem to think it is; and if the pleasure which men take in field sports, be in proportion to the excitement which the pursuit calls forth, whaling must be in both respects the most stimulating of all maritime adventures. One day's sport in which Captain Scoresby took three whales, produced a return of £2,100. and several years before he retired from this calling he had been personally concerned in the capture of three hundred, and twenty-two. And his father in twenty-eight voyages, in which he commanded a ship brought home 498 whales, producing 4246 tons of oil, the value of which, with that of the whale-bone, exceeded £150,000. “all fished for under his own direction out of the sea.”
The whale fishery is even of more importance as a nursery for seamen, for of all naval services it is the most severe; and this thorough seaman describes the excitement and the enjoyment of a whaler's life as being in proportion to the danger. “The difficulties and intricacies of the situation, when the vessel is to be forced through masses of drift ice, afford exercise,” he says, “for the highest possible exertion of nautical skill, and are capable of yielding to the person who has the management of a ship, a degree of enjoyment, which it would be difficult for navigators accustomed to mere common place operations duly to appreciate. The ordinary management of a ship, under a strong gale, and with great velocity, exhibits evolutions of considerable elegance; but these cannot be compared with the navigation in the intricacies of floating ice, where the evolutions are frequent, and perpetually varying; where manœuvres are to be accomplished, that extend to the very limits of possibility; and where a degree of hazard attaches to some of the operations, which would render a mistake of the helm,—or a miscalculation of the powers of a ship, irremediate and destructive.”—How wonderful a creature is man, that the sense of power should thus seem to constitute his highest animal enjoyment!
In proportion to the excitement of such a life, Captain Scoresby describes its religious tendency upon a well disposed mind, and this certainly has been exemplified in his own person. “Perhaps there is no situation in life,” he says, “in which an habitual reliance upon Providence, and a well founded dependance on the Divine protection and support, is of such sensible value as it is found to be by those employed in seafaring occupations, and especially in the fishery for whales. These are exposed to a great variety of dangers, many of which they must voluntarily face; and the success of their exertions depends on a variety of causes, over many of which they have no controul. The anxiety arising from both these causes is greatly repressed, and often altogether subdued, when, convinced of the infallibility and universality of Providence by the internal power of religion, we are enabled to commit all our ways unto God, and to look for his blessing as essential to our safety, and as necessary for our success.”
John Newton of Olney has in his narrative of his own remarkable life, a passage that entirely accords with these remarks of Captain Scoresby, and which is in like manner the result of experience. “A sea-faring life,” he says, “is necessarily excluded from the benefit of public ordinances, and christian communion.—In other respects, I know not any calling that seems more favourable, or affords greater advantages to an awakened mind, for promoting the life of God in the soul, especially to a person who has the command of a ship, and thereby has it in his power to restrain gross irregularities in others, and to dispose of his own time.—To be at sea in these circumstances, withdrawn out of the reach of innumerable temptations, with opportunity and a turn of mind disposed to observe the wonders of God, in the great deep, with the two noblest objects of sight the expanded heavens and the expanded ocean, continually in view; and where evident interpositions of Divine Providence in answer to prayer occur almost every day; these are helps to quicken and confirm the life of faith, which in a good measure supply to a religious sailor the want of those advantages which can be only enjoyed upon the shore. And indeed though my knowledge of spiritual things (as knowledge is usually estimated) was at this time very small, yet I sometimes look back with regret upon those scenes. I never knew sweeter or more frequent hours of divine communion than in my two last voyages to Guinea, when I was either almost secluded from society on ship-board, or when on shore among the natives.”
What follows is so beautiful (except the extravagant condemnation of a passionate tenderness which he, of all men, should have been the last to condemn) that the passage though it has set us ashore, must be continued a little farther. “I have wandered,” he proceeds, “thro' the woods, reflecting on the singular goodness of the Lord to me in a place where, perhaps, there was not a person who knew him, for some thousand miles round me. Many a time upon these occasions I have restored the beautiful lines of Tibullus,1 to the right owner; lines full of blasphemy and madness, when addressed to a creature, but full of comfort and propriety in the mouth of a believer.
Sic ego desertis possum bene vivere sylvis,
Quà nulla humano sit via trita pede.
Tu mihi curarum requies, in nocte vel atra
Lumen, et in solis tu mihì turba locis.”
1 Mr. Newton by an easy slip of the memory, has ascribed the lines to Propertius.