Scarcely had the mate ordered the boy at the helm to put it hard up, when the whale, with greatly accelerated speed, struck the ship with his head just forward of the forechains.
The ship brought up suddenly and violently and trembled like a leaf. The whale passed under the vessel, scraping her keel as he went, came up on the leeward side, and lay apparently stunned for a moment.
The vessel began to settle at the head with the whale 100 yards off thrashing the water violently with his tail and opening and closing his jaws with great fury.
While the mate was thinking of getting the two extra boats clear, as the vessel had begun to settle rapidly, the cry was started by a sailor: "Here he is; he is making for us again!"
The whale came down for the ship with twice his ordinary speed and a line of foam about a rod in width, made with his tail, which he continually thrashed from side to side, marked his coming.
The whale crashed into the bows of the Essex, staving them completely in directly under the cathead. The whale after the second assault passed under the ship and out of sight to the leeward.
The crew were in a fix, in mid-ocean, a thousand miles from the nearest land and nothing but the frail whaleboat to save them.
The lashings of the spare boat were cut and she was launched with the ship falling on her beam ends. The ship hung together for three days. Provisions were taken from her and the whaleboats strengthened.
The boats started for the coast of Chile or Peru and after a hard time they landed at Ducies island. Unable to find subsistence there they again started, Dec. 27th, after leaving three of their number, of their own desire, and commenced to make the perilous voyage to the island of Juan Fernandez.
Many of the boats' crew died and the recital states that the flesh of a dead comrade was eaten by members of the mate's boat.