258 THE AMERICAN WHALEMAN 



tained another loan a year later, the annual rate of interest 

 would be 12^%} if he waited another year, the rate per 

 annum would be 25% 3 and if he borrowed again only six 

 months before the end of the voyage, he would be paying in- 

 terest at the rate of 50% annually. And since the rates of 

 8% to 15% per annum secured by the owners on the longer 

 advances were certainly adequate, justification for the usurious 

 percentages on the shorter loans seems signally lacking. 



Such justification, even if attempted, would have been all 

 the more difficult because the crew members were allowed no 

 interest whatever upon their accumulating earnings, which, 

 under the lay system, remained undistributed until the close 

 of the completed voyage. If annual or semi-annual settle- 

 ments had allowed the whalemen to receive a part of the earn- 

 ings actually due them, it would have been unnecessary, in 

 many instances, for them to ask for cash advances. In prin- 

 ciple, at least, there would seem to have been no reason for 

 charging interest on cash advances which would not have ap- 

 plied equally to the allowance of interest on accumulated but 

 unpaid earnings. If the owners were without their funds un- 

 til the close of the voyage, at least some members of the crews 

 were likewise without their earnings for a similar length of 

 time. And since the owners were the self-appointed custo- 

 dians of those earnings, the undistributed lays served to fill up 

 the financial gaps caused by the cash advances. From the 

 standpoint of the employers, the result was largely an ex- 

 change of like values. To the foremast hands, however, there 

 was no quid pro quo — except at a 25% premium! Noblesse 

 oblige was hardly applicable to the financial relationships ex- 

 isting between the forecastle and the counting-room. 



But exploitation, inherent in the lay system even at its best, 

 was often intensified, in the hands of over-thrifty agents or 

 masters, into usury and extortion. The rate of 14% per an- 

 num, paid by the men on the ship Magnolia during the years 

 1 854-1 858, was easily outdone by other vessels. During her 

 eleventh whaling voyage, 1 867-1 869, the bark Marcella ex- 

 acted a rate of 50% per voyage (though during this same 

 cruise a total of $490.95 was advanced to some thirty persons 

 without entering any interest charges whatever). Through- 



