A commander may sometimes become distinguished in war by successes acquired at an unusual sacrifice of life. His resulting superiority may, in certain cases, be dearly purchased. But there was no such counteracting element in the pre-eminence, as an Arctic navigator, gained by my Father. His deeply ballasted ship might have struck heavier against the ice than others, but she rarely was allowed to strike heavily. Concussions not unfrequently fell to the lot of other ships, light enough, and free to rebound as they might be, by which, nevertheless, bows or sides were stove in, and heavy expenses in damages consequently incurred; but no such disasters were encountered by him. His ship was wont to be a-head in adventure, navigating the most difficult positions, braving most alarming threatenings of the ices and the wind. But his ship went gallantly amid, and passed safely through, all these dangers. He knew precisely what his ship, in difficulties or dangers, might do; and that, under his commanding management, was done, and safely done. If, by the hundred chances which might thwart a difficult operation,—in the perpetual movements of the ice, the varying winds, the mistakes or defects of his helmsman, or the unpromptness of the men in management of the yards and sails,—his intended object or manœuvre should happen to be defeated, he was always ready, in his inexhaustible and well-considered resources, to save his ship from the imminent danger which a failure or blunder, in such cases, frequently involved. His quick apprehension of almost every possible contingency, served at once to develop and to bring into timely operation the resources which his fertile talent supplied; whilst his keen discernment of the quality and measure of the various movements of detached pieces or bodies of ice, as unequally acted upon by wind or currents, enabled him so to anticipate any probable risks, as to be prepared, however he might be baulked in his principal design, for some other furthering project, or, at all events, for a safe retreat.
The reality of my Father’s superiority, as a navigator, now being described, admits, as to me it seems, of conclusive evidence in these two remarkable facts,—that, for the long series of voyages in which he held his first three or four commands, his ship, in all difficulties where talent could be availing, always took the lead; and that, for the whole time of his command, wherein he was wont to take the lead, equally in danger as in advanced position, he was always enabled, under the constantly recognised and sought-for blessing of Providence, to pursue his adventurous object safely, or without damage of any essential consideration, to his ship!
Within my own experience, whilst I accompanied him during nine voyages, from a mere child to adult age, I had perpetual opportunities of discerning his superiority over all the competitors we met with; and, during the same experience, I had repeated occasions for noticing with proud admiration, his wonderful skill in beating to windward amongst intricate ices, so as to leave every ship that we found near us in succession behind. In the morning, perhaps, at the commencement of a progress amid encumbering ices, I have seen around the Resolution, in various positions, to windward as well as to leeward, a considerable fleet of companion-whalers; and in the evening of the same day, after twelve or fourteen hours efforts in getting to windward, I have been able to see no ship whatever within the limits of vision from the level of the deck. On ascending then to the top-mast head, where the extent of vision became vastly increased; I have generally found the pursuing fleet, bent on the same course, to be far away from us; some ships being left so much behind, perhaps, as to have disappeared, not from fog, or darkness, but from mere distance to leeward!
This striking feat of skill—differing in degree of course, according to the nature and extent of the navigable interstices of the ice, and the force and direction of the wind, with the sailing qualities of the competing ships likewise, as well as the seamanship of their commanders—was, as I have intimated, repeatedly performed under my own observation. But the like triumph of superiority was also gained, and that on different occasions within my personal observation, when the competing progress was being made through a compact body of ice into the northern fishing stations, and where the penetration, in anticipation of the general fleet, gained its due reward in an early and superior success.
The voyage of 1806, described in Chapter IV. Section VII., exhibited a striking example of the successful application of this talent; and in that of 1809, the same result was interestingly realized.
We had taken the ice, in the latter case, with the view of penetrating the barrier betwixt the free northern ocean and the fishing stations in the seventy-ninth and eightieth degree of latitude, along with a large fleet of other whalers. For some days, whilst no material progress could be made, we remained in varying relative positions presenting but little decided advantage. At length, when circumstances gave room for the due exercise of talent and perseverance, we made a progress so much beyond that of our associates, that we gradually left them, farther and farther, behind us, until the whole of the fleet were out of sight. We thus gained the “northern water” considerably before the others, and, falling in with whales in abundance, soon commenced a most encouraging fishery. By and by, others of the fleet began to make their appearance; and I well remember the astonishment of the captains and men of three ships which came close up to us on the 5th of June, just as we had taken in our fourteenth whale, whilst they had only obtained six amongst them. One of these ships had been near us, or in company with us, on the 27th of May, the day on which we succeeded in surmounting the icy-barrier. She, however, had only made the same passage the day before this, and had made but trifling progress in the fishery.
As there is no portion of the navigable ocean throughout the globe, at all comparable, as a field for the exercise of superior talent in seamanship, with the ice-encumbered regions around the poles; so my Father’s capabilities in this beautiful practical science, had, at once, the requisite scope for their abundant exercises, and their admirable triumphs. No matter what the species of manœuvre or operation might be, he was equally superior in all. In “making fast” to the ice in gales of wind—an operation of singular difficulty and ofttimes of no small risk,—the manner in which he brought up his ship to the nearest possible proximity with the place of the ice-anchor, afforded time and opportunity for getting out and attaching the mooring hawser, and then, with progressively reduced sails, eased the ship’s action on the rope till fairly brought up, head to wind,—was in the highest degree masterly and beautiful. Repetitions of trial, and failure on failure, with much useless toil and re-setting of sails, and, not unfrequently, with very hard blows against the ice, were matters of such perpetual experience among the inferior navigators engaged in the service, as to render the operations we have just attempted to illustrate, the more conspicuously admirable.
Section II.—Natural Science.
To my Father’s natural science, or original, almost intuitive, perception and application of scientific principles, I have already made repeated allusion. But this characteristic of originality, as well as superiority of mind, deserves, I think, more special consideration.
Having to deal with circumstances perpetually varying, and frequently presenting features entirely new, the profession to which he had devoted himself afforded almost the best possible opportunities for the development and application of this quality of mind. And, in a greater or less degree, every voyage he undertook as commander served to elicit this admirable characteristic. Those who understood him not, very naturally ascribed many of his novel proceedings to eccentricity, and these might be liable to run into this very usual extreme; but, for the most part, the apparent eccentricity was, in reality, a sound result of reflective, philosophical consideration. I might adduce some incidents, perhaps, in which the originality of conception was pushed into an extreme: yet I could recal, possibly, hundreds of others in which such conceptions resulted in proceedings at once admirable, in their fitness, and, as such, worthy of imitation.