My Father, meanwhile, whose spirit of enterprise, if not wearied, had become somewhat less constraining in furtherance of fresh undertakings, was content, for the first time during a period of above thirty years service, to remain for a season (that of the year 1815) unemployed. But, ill at ease in a condition of entire idleness, he undertook, for a couple of voyages, to sail out of Whitby (without engagement of property in the adventure) in charge of the Mars, a new ship of 343 tons, belonging to his old and steady friends, Messrs. Fishburn and Brodrick. The cargoes, in this instance obtained, did not correspond with those which had hitherto claimed for him an unrivalled superiority. They were still characterised, when compared with the results of the fishery in general, as superior; but superior only to an extent of one-fourth or one-fifth beyond the common average.
Another year of retirement from the sea-service, as a commander, succeeded his engagement in the command of the Mars; but the time was not spent, as before, without any professional object; my Father, in the autumn of 1817, having purchased, solely on his own account, another teak-built ship, the Fame, of 370 tons burden, originally brought into England as a prize from the French.
The fitting out of the Fame was deferred until a period very inconveniently late, under the idea, perhaps, of her being employed by the Government for Arctic researches,—just at this time proposed to be renewed; and this idea he might well be supposed to entertain, because of the knowledge of the fact,—that it was in consequence of information communicated by myself to the President of the Royal Society, Sir Joseph Banks, that the attention of the Council of the Royal Society and the Government had been directed to the long dormant enterprise, and that that distinguished patron of science, with whom we both had frequent intercourse, was very desirous that I should be employed (having requested me to be sent for to London with this view) in the proposed adventure.[M]
Our expectations herein, however, I need hardly add, were altogether disappointed, and, so far as expense, at least, was concerned, much to the national disadvantage, as we could have accomplished one of those enterprises (the Polar research of 1818) at one-tenth of the cost of the appointed expedition, and, at all events, with as much effectiveness; for, on that unfortunate occasion, less could not have been accomplished.
In consequence of the delay by this and other causes induced, it was not without very great efforts that the Fame was got ready for the fishery of the ensuing season, 1818. The requisite preparations however, were completed, whilst there was yet time for the adventure, and the ship, for the first attempt, being put under my command, sailed from Liverpool on the 2nd April. Having obtained, for the season, which was not a prosperous one, a good cargo, we returned, August the 18th, (as had been arranged) to Whitby.
In the following spring my Father re-assumed his habitual occupation in command of the Fame; but the great draught of water and somewhat sharp build of the ship, rendering the tide-harbour, to which, in this first instance, she had resorted, both inconvenient and unsafe, her port was again changed for Hull, to which, with but a moderate cargo, she returned. The next voyage, that of 1820, was, for the somewhat unfavourable season, a very successful one; that of 1821 was moderately good; that of 1822 returned only an average cargo; and the attempt of 1823 was prematurely arrested by the unfortunate destruction of the ship by fire.
The Fame had been fitted out for this contemplated voyage with unusual care and expense,—considerable alterations and improvements, independent of repairs, having been made; she had proceeded northward as far as the Orkneys, where she had taken up an anchorage for the completion of her crew with boatmen, when the catastrophe, which summarily frustrated the undertaking, brought my Father’s Arctic adventures at the same time to a sudden termination; for after so long a pursuance of his arduous enterprises, and the acquisition of a handsome and ample competency, there were much stronger motives for inducing him now to remain on shore, “for the enjoyment of the fruits of his labours,” than to stimulate to further efforts in any new undertaking.
The summary of these two latter enterprises, it will naturally have been anticipated, does not correspond with that of the three-and-twenty years of all but continuous successes. For though the cargoes obtained in his six last voyages were, on the whole, considerably above the ordinary average, yet they by no means maintained the claim to superiority.
This change, however, in my Father’s position as a fisherman, admits of a satisfactory explanation. The circumstances on which success was now dependent had, in some most essential particulars, changed. Superior knowledge of the Arctic ices, and consummate skill in penetrating and navigating the compact or tortuous interruptions to the usual retreats of the whales, which with him were so characteristic, were now no longer available. So greatly had the whales been reduced in number, apparently, by the enormous slaughter of their species during the last quarter of a century; and so much scattered had the residue been by the perpetual harass and attacks to which they had been subjected, that the positions, wherein the opportunity for making a successful voyage used to be constantly afforded, were now almost entirely deserted. Hence the enterprise and skill, enabling the fisherman to take the lead in penetrating the ice, which had been wont to be eminently rewarded, had now become of little avail. No one could calculate on the positions in which fish might be found. In places apparently most likely, not a fish, perhaps, was to be seen; whilst in circumstances least expected success might be met with. And although a few active, enterprising, and clever men, were now and then found taking a lead in respect to proportionate success, yet the fishery altogether had become very precarious; so increasingly precarious, indeed, that within about half-a-dozen years of this time the whale-fishery of the Greenland seas proved so utterly unremunerative, as to be all but abandoned as a distinct commercial enterprise. The port of Hull, for example, which during the whole period of my Father’s command of a whaler had, on an average, sent out twenty-two ships annually to the Greenland fishery,—in 1828, only five years after he discontinued the pursuit, had only one Greenlandman, and the year following none.
His retirement from so active and enterprising a pursuit as had engaged the subject of these records during a period, altogether, of six-and-thirty years of his life, was by no means an event of unmixed benefit. It was far otherwise. For the effect of wear and tear on the constitution, whilst for this long period subjected to circumstances of peculiar anxiety and excitement of adventure, soon became apparent under the trial of absolute leisure and the deprivation of ordinary stimulus. It is, indeed, a well-ascertained characteristic of the human system, strikingly indicative of the wisdom and goodness of the Creator, to derive temporary energy from the very stimulus of the demands for energy. Thus strength, beyond all previous imagination, is often yielded for special occasions, whilst the capability of action is wonderfully maintained for the period of protracted necessity or duty. But the trial comes when the tension of the mysterious fabric of the human system has to be relaxed. The strength, for the occasion, being beyond the ordinary powers of renovation, is maintained by the nervous stimulant at the expense of a wear and tear which not only becomes apparent on the cessation of the undue exercise, but in aggravated proportion by reason of the natural reaction.