Both the incident and the circumstance referred to were clearly and strikingly marked in my Father’s history. The incident appears in what occasioned the disgust which he took in early life at farming occupations, whereby he was stimulated to enter upon a seafaring life. The circumstance, or chain of circumstances, we find in the important preferment which unexpectedly, as to the occasion, was given to him when, over the heads of many associates, he was appointed to his first command.
Crispin Bean, the captain under whom my Father had had his training and experience in Arctic adventure, was, for his time, a successful whale-fisher. For, in the course of from seventeen to twenty years in which he followed this commerce, he realized a small fortune, sufficient, at least, with a little patrimony, to satisfy his very moderate desires and requirements, and to induce him to retire, whilst in fulness of vigour, from his arduous profession. He was a man of excellent character, and one for whom my Father always retained a sincere regard, and towards whom he was ever ready to show kindly consideration, when his means for subsistence and comfort were less sufficient in after-life. A vivid remembrance of Mr. Bean’s regard and preference for him, on the turning point of his temporal destiny, was observably retained, and was elicited, as I had myself not unfrequent opportunities of noticing, both in his manner of speaking of his former commander, and in his readiness to minister to him in acts of kindness.
It was after his voyage in the year 1790, that Mr. Bean announced to his owner, Nicholas Piper, Esq., of Pickering, his intention of relinquishing his command, and retiring from the sea. Himself entirely unprepared for appointing a successor, Mr. Piper enquired whether there was any one, among the officers of the Henrietta, whom he (Mr. Bean) could recommend for a Master? Mr. Bean, well observant of my Father’s persevering energy, seamanlike talent, and general superiority, replied,—“There is Scoresby, the specksioneer, who, I think, is the man for the duty.” And to him, with but little delay in further investigation, the command, to the agreeable surprise of my Father, and the jealous vexation of some of his brother officers, was transferred.
Mr. Piper, however, whilst so promptly exercising this generous confidence in his appointment, failed, in consistency, when proceeding with the measures for carrying it into effect. Considering his limited measure of experience, when contrasted with the much longer engagement in the fishery of the then chief officer, and some of the leading harponeers, he, unfortunately, took upon himself to re-engage these men for the ensuing voyage,—a proceeding which, however prudential, my Father felt to be at once uncourteous and unwise, though a measure which he was by no means in a position either to contravene or satisfactorily to resist. Every ground of hope, however, which he might have indulged in respect to any favourable views of such a principle, in its working, failed, whilst his very worst apprehensions were more than realized.
This result, indeed, came out the more characteristically, because of the singular unfavourableness of the season, wherein he made his first trial, for the objects of the adventure. The fishery, in general, proved unprecedentedly unsuccessful. Of seven ships which set out from Whitby, (the port from whence the Henrietta sailed,) one, the Marlborough, was lost; four returned “clean,”—that is, without any cargo; and two had but one fish each—one of them very small. Tradition has it—and the tradition I can well believe to be a historical fact—that the cargoes of the whole Whitby fleet of Greenland whalers (except one) from the fishery of 1791, were carried overland to Pickering, a distance of 21 miles, in one wagon!
It was in the worst class, that of “clean ships,” in which the Henrietta stood at the conclusion of this unpropitious season. But she so stood, not by any means deservedly, as regarded either the talent and perseverance of her new Captain, or the opportunities which his enterprise had afforded to his officers and crew for a position of, at least, leading prosperity. My Father, indeed, whilst often speaking in after-times of this trying, mortifying, and, as to his prospects in life, perilous failure, was known to remark, that such were the opportunities which his own people had, of doing as well as the most successful of his competitors, that there was scarcely a “fish” caught by the whole Greenland fleet, but whilst the Henrietta was in company, or during the capture of which he was not within view!
It was not the wish of the leading officers of the Henrietta, however, that their position should be different. A strong feeling of jealousy was injuriously cherished by certain officers over whom my Father had been preferred; and so far was this carried, and so variously indicated, that it became evident that their wish and design was, that their commander should be found in the most humiliating position amongst his fellow fishermen. The reality of the existence of this feeling was manifested in various ways. Among the early indications of a conspiracy which my Father clearly detected, was the positive and wilful inattention of some principal officers to the objects of their enterprise, when he was in bed, with the substitution of idle, if not venomous, converse, for officer-like diligence and watchfulness. For on one occasion, when being on very promising fishing-ground, he had sent a boat “on bran,”—the term used for designating the condition of a whale-boat when stationed afloat, with the crew ready for instant action, watching for the incidental appearance of a whale,—he heard, whilst lying anxiously awake in his bed, the subdued creaking of the “tackles,” as of a cautious and surreptitious hoisting up of the boat; and, on afterwards going unexpectedly on deck, he found the “watch,” both officers and men, engaged as we have just stated.
Attempts on the part of the officers to direct or dictate, not unfrequently made, failed, as was right they should do, except in one instance (judging from the case being often alluded to by my Father with regret), where the yielding to a proposition against his better judgment met with its consistent rebuke. A number of whales had been fallen in with, and the greater part of the boats had been sent out in pursuit. Reckless and ill-conditioned they pulled about hither and thither, frightening many, but harpooning none, of the objects of chase. For a considerable period the same folly or inefficiency was being enacted, and yet “fish” in encouraging numbers were still to be seen. The chief mate, one Matthew Smith, came to my Father to remonstrate with him for keeping the boats so long abroad without something to exhilarate the men,—urging, that spirits, as he said was usual, should be sent to them, or it could not be expected that they could either succeed or persevere. Though more than doubtful of the wisdom of employing stimulants in an adventure requiring the greatest coolness and self-possession, my Father unfortunately yielded, and ordered the steward to supply a quantity of brandy for being carried out to the absent sailors. But the mate’s boat, which was sent with this refreshment (?) was seen, after it had proceeded a mile or so from the ship, to cease rowing, and “lie to on its oars;” and there, as my Father’s sure telescope told him, they remained, till the crew had “drank themselves drunk.” Then, in their mad folly, they proceeded to the field of fishing enterprise, and effectually marred any chance of success, if a single honest harpooner were there, and gave a new and additional impulse to the existing recklessness and disaffection.
But private resistance of orders, as well as apparent neglect of opportunities frequently afforded them of advancing the grand object of the voyage, ultimately grew into the most aggravated form of insubordination—mutiny.
On one occasion, when the Henrietta had been pushed into an unwonted position of imagined peril among the ice by her commander’s adventurous spirit, the alarm of her crew urged their disaffection into open mutiny. They gathered themselves together, and proceeded to the quarter-deck, to demand (as I have understood the incident) their being released from so perilous a situation. My Father’s disregard of their remonstrances, and expressed determination to persevere, were at length met by brute force and open violence. One of the men, excited by his companions’ clamours, and his own dastardly rage, seized a hand-spike, and aimed a desperate blow, which might have been fatal, on the head of his Captain. But, now roused to the exertion of his heretofore unimagined strength and tact, he, whilst warding the blow with his hand, disarmed the assailant, and seizing him, as I have been told, in his athletic arms, actually flung him headlong among his associates, like a quoit from the hands of the player, filling the whole party with amazement at his strength and power, and for the moment arresting, under the influence of the feeling, the unmanly pursuance of their mutinous purposes.