S6 THE AMERICAN WHALEMAN 



quarreled with his employers j Charley Clifford, the most 

 capable man on board, who was all that a real sailor should 

 be J John Blair, a New York stone-cutter and the bully of the 

 crew — coarse, brutish, and ruffianly, boasting of a long list 

 of rascalities which had finally driven him to sea 5 four Portu- 

 guese, ignorant and bestial; two Irishmen; and a well-educated 

 young Kentuckian who had just left a position as reporter in 

 the United States Senate in order to "see the world," 



The steerage of the same vessel housed the cooper, a tall, 

 gaunt, lame Mormon who was constantly attempting to make 

 converts through interminable religious arguments; a boat- 

 steerer named Tabor, scion of a well-known Yankee whaling 

 family, but also a heavy drinker and the loosest of Metho- 

 dists; and other less colorful individuals. The cabin was 

 dominated by the mate, an infidel who deemed all forms of 

 religion to be mere humbug; and by the captain, "a mean, 

 cunning, stingy Yankee," unmarried, who kept apart from the 

 others and spent his time in the cabin or in walking the quarter- 

 deck. During these appearances he was commonly clad in 

 slip-shod shoes, a pair of soiled duck pantaloons, a green 

 roundabout, and a broad-brimmed Panama hat.^ 



Another crew-list reflected the same fantastic jumble of 

 races, nationalities, and social strata. Eighteen foremast 

 hands included two boys who had escaped from a House of 

 Correction in Pennsylvania; two dissipated youths whose mili- 

 tary school training had been a complete failure and whose 

 wealthy parents had chosen the sea as a more rigorous school 

 of reform; a young orphan who was without a single known 

 relative; two "down-easters" from the Maine coast; an Irish- 

 man who had just reached the United States; an English 

 printer who had been shanghaied in New York; a Dutchman 

 from Pennsylvania; and eight Portuguese. The boatsteerers, 

 with the exception of one huge Maori from New Zealand, 

 were Portuguese from the Azores and Cape Verde Islands. 

 The steward and carpenter hailed from New York, the cooper 

 from Ireland, and the cabin-boy presumably from Holland. 



^ This picturesque crew was described in Browne, J. R., "Etchings of a 

 Whaling Cruise," pp. 34 and 182-192. The original crew-list, dated 1842, is 

 now in the Old Dartmouth Historical Society Museum at New Bedford. 



