In these successes of my Father, the people of Whitby felt an universal and exciting interest, for most of the principal inhabitants, as well as a large body of those in the middle and lower classes, were, more or less, directly or indirectly, participators in the gains of the whale-fishery. But whilst all were astonished at the results of enterprises so unquestionably due to an individual guidance, no small number were moved to feelings of jealousy in consequence of successes, to which the fruits of their personal ventures in other ships bore no reasonable proportion. The modes in which this baneful feeling towards my Father was evinced, were as various as they were sometimes annoying. At first, the extraordinary results were ascribed to “luck;” and, subsequently, when more than luck was too obvious to be denied, the waning phantom of superstition was resorted to in order to escape the commendation of a frank acknowledgment of superior merit. Some persons there were of an order of mind so simple, as actually to believe what was jocosely told, that he “knee-banded” a portion of fish in one year to facilitate the success of the next. Jeers and lampoons were made use of as outlets for the expression of narrow and jealous selfishness,—annoyances which the substantiality of my Father’s advantages enabled him very well to bear, but which were often keenly felt when played off against the less stern materials of his amiable and tender-minded wife and susceptible young family.
The working of this principle, in envious manifestations of word and feeling, presents a painfully characteristic fruit of human degeneration from original perfectness. And the manner and sphere of its working yield very characteristic instruction on the nature of the deteriorated mind. Mankind can well bear, and be free to commend in generous frankness, successful enterprise in other departments than that of their own sphere. Nay, by a strange concession of the secret mind, when under a disposition to withhold the meed of praise in the department which trenches on self-interest, or self-consequence, we find many disposed to bestow an utterly extravagant measure of adulation, where it may be popular to do so, on individuals and enterprises distinctly separate and remote from interferences with themselves. But let a man be “ploughing in the same field” of enterprise, or intelligent research; let the admired results of the labour of one but stand out on the sculptured tablet of fame in bold relief of the mere groundwork surface of the other explorers of like mysteries; or let the profitable fruits of the industry of one contrast with the sad failures or meagre successes of others engaged in the self-same species of enterprise, and then we shall find, more or less developed, among the many whose efforts have been overtopped and eclipsed, and among the multitudes, perhaps, associated relatively or interestedly with the mortified competitors, the feelings of envy and jealousy, sometimes of hatred and malice, most sadly conspicuous and dominant.
In my Father’s case, where sometimes the owners, captains, and crews of near a dozen ships sailing from the same port had their most ardent enterprises, year by year, altogether eclipsed by his superior success,—and where, by reason of relative or interested association, the majority of a town’s population became participators in the mortifying competition,—the measure in which the ungenerous feelings might possibly have their existence and impulses, may be well imagined to have been very extensive. That it was so in an extraordinary degree in the early progress of my Father’s adventures, and during many years of his singular prosperity, every member of his family had too painful evidence.
But as to the observant and intelligent classes separate from this baneful prejudice, and as to some of more dignified minds amongst parties who were personally interested in whale-fishing concerns, the character and merits of the subject of these records were sufficiently appreciated and acknowledged.
The fame of his successes reached throughout the commercial ports of the realm, and applications of a very tempting nature came unsolicited upon him, for transferring his guidance and energies to other associates in Arctic enterprise, with encouraging promise of far more profitable results.
My Mother, who was much attached to Whitby, as a place of residence, viewed these repeated offers with much anxiety, feeling that my Father’s taking a command elsewhere must involve her either in the trial of leaving Whitby, or in the great inconvenience of a much more considerable period of severance than the mere Greenland voyage required, of the family circle. For awhile her objections prevailed; but ultimately, as in another chapter we shall have to record, these objections sunk under the advantages elsewhere proffered.
Section IV.—Episodical Incident—the Rescue of endangered Pleasurers.
Before carrying forward the records of my Father’s new adventures in a more promising field for his personal prosperity, I shall introduce an incident of a very peculiar and interesting description, belonging to the period, though not to the business of the fishery, whilst he still held his command of the “good ship” Henrietta. It occurred whilst the ship lay at anchor, incidentally, in the river Tees, on one of her most successful voyages, homeward bound, when I was myself on board. Though I was but a child, I remember the time well. The novelty of my position in being taken on shipboard by my Father, when, a few days before, he had been on shore at Whitby, and the interesting circumstance, to me, of the capture of a small sand-bird, which I anxiously fed and endeavoured to keep alive, made an indelible impression on my youthful recollection. The incident, however, constituting the present story, I did not well understand till long afterward, but which I now record with much confidence of being substantially correct in every detail, from hearing it repeatedly related in after-life.
The incident consisted in the interesting and gratifying circumstance of the saving of the lives of two individuals moving in an upper sphere in society, by my Father’s habitual facility and accuracy in the use of the pocket telescope, and by the information derived therefrom being made use of with his characteristic forethought and energetic promptness of action.
The success of the voyage had been such that the largest amount of whales yet captured in the then progress of the fishery, being twenty-five in number, had enriched by their produce this single adventure. Beyond the capacity of the casks taken out for the reception of the cargo, a large quantity of blubber “in bulk,” or in massive flitches, had been stowed on the top. The draught of water of the ship, thus unusually loaded, was found on their arrival in Whitby Roads, which was just after the spring-tides had passed off, to be too great for the flow in the harbour. Whilst waiting the advance of the succeeding spring-tides, therefore, the ship was taken northward to the river Tees, the nearest accessible port, and a supply of empty casks sent thither by a small coaster, whereby the men were usefully and savingly occupied throughout the interval in chopping up the loose blubber, from which its valuable contents in oil were perpetually oozing out, and securing it from further waste in the auxiliary casks.