io8 THE AMERICAN WHALEMAN 



who first labor in it must reap a most satisfactory harvest. 

 To none does it more appertain to take the first step, and push 

 earnestly onwards, than the owners of our mercantile marine, 

 and of our whaling fleet in particular." "^ But such occasional 

 expressions were like voices crying in the wilderness j and ap- 

 peals to efiiciency and to humanitarianism alike fell upon deaf 

 ears. 



Not all whalemen, of course, belonged to the class of dis- 

 sipated, social outcasts whose weaknesses and sins were en- 

 couraged and preyed upon by a system of vicious exploitation. 

 There were always those who had happy and respectable homes, 

 and who spent their time ashore in a normal manner. In the 

 early days of the industry, up to 1825, this type of man was 

 in the clear majority. But in the succeeding decades he gave 

 way more and more to the homeless, irresponsible, weak-willed 

 hand whose brief, intermittent periods on land were so sadly 

 misspent J and long before the Civil War the relative propor- 

 tions were reversed. At any time after 1 840 the discovery in a 

 single forecastle of two or three sober, thrifty, self-respecting 

 men who were happily married would have been unusual 

 enough to excite surprised comment. The ranks of the cap- 

 tains and mates contained a goodly percentage of such men, 

 since the best elements in the fishery naturally gravitated 

 towards the posts of responsibility. Nor was it uncommon 

 to find them amongst the coopers and ship-keepers, who were 

 often the oldest and most reliable members of a crew. But 

 it would have required a long search through many vessels to 

 find a corporal's guard of such mariners amongst the foremast 

 hands. 



But bad as conditions were in the seaman's home port, they 

 were even worse in the small, little-frequented places at which 

 the whalers commonly touched during the course of their long 

 and tedious wanderings. In his "Nimrod of the Sea" W. M. 

 Davis asserted that on the west coasts of both North and South 

 America there was not a single port in which there were any 

 doors to welcome the whaleman other than those of gaming 

 houses, grog-shops, and brothels. The coast of Australia dur- 



2* Wilkes, Charles, "Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition," 

 V, p. 503. 



