6 lllTOi;V AM) METHODS OF THE FISHERIES. 



"The length of voyages increased from two years for a cargo of sperm and from nine to fifteen 

 mouths for a cargo of whale oil to four years to till the latter, while the former was practically 

 abandoned as a separate business* after it became necessary to make voyages of four, five, and 

 even six years, and then seldom return \\ith a full cargo. As a matter of necessity the fitting of 

 ships became far more expensive, a rivalry in the furnishing adding perhaps considerably to the 

 outlay. Vessels were obliged to refit each season at the various islands in the Pacific, usually at 

 the port of Honolulu when passing in its vicinity, and the bills drawn upon the owners on these 

 occasions were so enormous as to call forth loud and frequent complaints; and in later years the 

 only available western fishery was in the North Pacific and Arctic Oceans, where, disasters were 

 the rule and immunity from them the exception, thereby incurring, when the vessels were not lost, 

 heavy bill for repairs, besides the ordinary ones of refitting. 



Again, during the later days of whaling, more particularly immediately after the discovery 

 of the gold mines in California, desertions from the ships were numerous and often causeless, 

 generally in such numbers as to seriously cripple the efficiency of the ship. In this way large 

 numbers of voyages were broken up and hundreds of thousands of dollars were sunk by the owners. 

 During a portion of the time many ships were fired by their refractory and mutinous crews, some 

 of them completely destroyed, others damaged in amounts varying from a few hundred to several 

 thousand dollars. Crews would apparently ship simply as a cheap manner of reaching the gold 

 mines, and a ship's company often embraced among its number desperadoes from various nations, 

 fit for any rascality which might best serve them to attain their end. They took no interest in 

 the voyage, nor cared aught for the profit or loss that might accrue to the owners. In order to 

 recruit, it became necessary, particularly during the ten years next succeeding the opening of the 

 gold mines, to offer heavy advance-wages, and too often these were paid to a set of bounty -jumpers, 

 as such men were termed in the Army during the late war, who only waited the time when the ship 

 made another port to clandestinely dissolve connection with her and hold themselves in readiness 

 for the next ship. Unquestionably there were times when men were forced to desert to save their 

 lives from the impositions and severity of brutal captains, but such cases were undoubtedly very 

 rare. Formerly the crews were composed almost wholly of Americans, but latterly they were 

 largely made up of Portuguese shipped at the Azores, a mongrel set shipped anywhere along the 

 western coast of South America, and Kanakas shipped at the Pacific islands. There were times, 

 when the California fever was at its highest, that the desertions did not stop with the men, but 

 officers and even captains seemed to vie with the crew in defrauding the men from whose hands 

 they had received the property to hold in charge and increase in value. 



"Another source of loss was, strangely enough, to be found in the course of the consular agents 

 sent out by our Government to protect the interests of our whalemen. Many and bitter were the 

 complaints at the extortionate charges and percentages demanded by many of these men.t 



"As another important source of the decline in this business must be regarded the scarcity and 

 shyness of whales. Prior to the year 1830 a ship with a capacity for 2,000 barrels would cruise 

 in the Pacific Ocean and return in two years with a cargo of sperm -oil. The same ship might go 

 to Delago or Woolwich Bay and fill with whale-oil in about fifteen mouths, or to the coast of 



* Always excepting, of course, Atlantic whalers. Sperm-whaling in th'e Atlantic has always been pursued by the 

 bulk of the Provincetowu vessels and by quite a ileet of schooners ami brigs from other ports. There isan occasional 

 revival of this pursuit in larger vessels at intervals of a few years, at present some of the most successful voyages 

 being made by ships and barks cruising for sperm whales in this oc< 



tin many cases justice (f) semis to U:i\ v been meted more in accordance -with the requirements of the income of 

 our representatives than witb ihose of ab^traet. right, and it lias happened that the case of an arbitrary, cruel cap- 

 tain against, Mime unfortunately weak and impecunious sailor has l>rm decided on the time-honored (among barba- 

 rians) maxims that "might makes right," and "the king can do no wrong." 



