But subsequent voyages—the next three especially—proved regularly and increasingly prosperous; the cargoes of the years 1804, 1805, and 1806, yielding a produce of rather more than 600 tuns of oil, derived from the capture of eighty-seven whales. The entire proceeds of my Father’s enterprises in eight voyages, in this successful ship, amounted to 194 whales, yielding 1617 tuns of oil, or an average of twenty-four whales and one-fourth, with 202 tuns of oil per voyage!
His competitors from the same port, during the whole of this particular period, comprising 7·8 ships a year, obtained, on the eight years’ average, only sixty-eight fish, yielding 646·4 tuns of oil; whilst the united cargoes of the most successful ship of each year, amounted but to 138 whales, 1228 tuns of oil; this select amount being exceeded by nearly a third part, by my Father’s individual catch; and the general average being exceeded in the proportion of two and a half to one!
But it was hardly to be expected that, whatever might be my Father’s peculiar superiority, as compared with the general body of competitors, no one, out of many hundreds of different commanders, should be found successfully to emulate, within a long series of years, even his extraordinary enterprise.
Yet, closely as two or three individuals commanding in the Greenland fishery might approximate, or occasionally exceed, his successes, it is remarkable that no one, within any of the periods of the Henrietta, the Dundee, or the Resolution, or within the whole period of nineteen years, ever went beyond him!
My Father’s most successful competitor, within the longest period of cotemporary enterprise, ending with the year 1810, was Mr. Angus Sadler, of Hull. From 1796 to 1810 (fifteen voyages) they fished in the same region, the Greenland Seas, my Father obtaining 2693 tuns of oil, and Mr. Sadler 2539. In the eight voyages of the Resolution, however, the competition was singularly close; Mr. Sadler bringing home the produce of only two whales in number less, and the exact same quantity (1617 tuns) of oil. But, in this comparison, my Father was at great disadvantage from the inferior size of his ship,—the Aurora, of Hull, which Mr. Sadler commanded in several of his most prosperous voyages, being of the burden of 366 tons, and the Resolution only of 291. This difference of capacity was very important, enabling Mr. Sadler, in two or three different voyages, to bring home a quantity of produce exceeding by some sixty or seventy tuns, altogether, the capabilities of stowage of the Resolution,—which ship, five years out of eight, having been what was called “a full ship,” might, no doubt, have obtained some greater cargoes, and, by consequence, a better position in the competition, had her capacity been larger.
It falls not within my present province, nor within the scope of my materials, to set forth the considerable successes of some other leading fishermen at the time of the Resolution’s enterprises. I may merely notice, that Mr. Kearsley, of the Henrietta (trained under my Father), was the most successful of the other Whitby captains; and that some enterprising men, commanding ships out of Scotland, began now, or soon after this, to take a high position in the prosperous class.
The only other general competitor of my Father’s yet to be named, whose enterprises were cotemporary during the whole or greater part of his career, from 1792 to 1810, was Captain John Marshall, of Hull. Within the western field of Arctic enterprise—the whale-fishery of Davis’ Strait—Captain Marshall stood pre-eminent. His successes there corresponded very much with those of my Father in the fishery of Greenland; and the total results did not materially differ. Whilst my Father’s successes yielded, within the period referred to 2728 tuns of oil, Captain Marshall’s, though deprived of the chance of one year’s adventure in which he remained on shore, amounted to 2691 tuns. Had the full nineteen years been completed, his successes would, probably, have been the greatest. But the services, and the qualities required for them, differ so materially, as not to permit, in fairness, of an arithmetical comparison of the mere quantities of produce. For success in the fishery of Davis’ Strait, at the time under consideration, was a far more easy undertaking than in that of Greenland. This fact is satisfactorily derived from a comparison of the average success in the two fisheries. In seventeen years out of the nineteen under review, (there being no ship from Hull to Davis’ Strait during 1792 and 1793,) the average success of 313 Greenland whalers from Hull was a produce in oil of 84·4 tuns, whilst the mean success of the Davis’ Strait fishery, 190 ships, was for the same period 124·3,—indicating, most clearly, that the latter fishery then afforded a better chance of a cargo than the fishery of Greenland, in the ratio of very nearly three to two![H]
Hence, my Father’s success, when taken on the most extensive comparison with the fishermen of his day, stands decidedly conspicuous and pre-eminent. And this pre-eminence, it should be noted, was not only in the amount of the cargoes he obtained, but also in the shortness of the time occupied in his voyages; for whilst the general average of Greenland voyages of this period (as indicated, at least, by the extensive enterprise from the port of Hull,) comprised four months and nineteen days, the average of my Father’s absence from sailing to his return was, in the Resolution’s eight voyages, only three months and twenty-eight days!
It may not be uninteresting to some of our readers to be informed, before we conclude this section of results, of the actual realization in gross amount of value, and in profits divided amongst the partners, in this prosperous whale-fishing adventure. This, by reason of a complete abstract of the payments and receipts during the greater part of the Resolution’s career, I am enabled to give with perfect accuracy:—
PAYMENTS.