DEBITS AND CREDITS 263 



foremast hand, a fleeting glimpse of the home port between 

 two seemingly endless voyages, each occupying from thirty to 

 forty-five slow-moving months.^ 



The task of fitting a whaler for sea also explained a charge 

 in the agents' accounts; and if and when she returned, laden 

 with oil and bone, the laborious discharging of the cargo added 

 still another debit. Both fitting and discharging might have 

 been done, properly enough, by the regular crews. But tradi- 

 tion decreed that prospective hands be dumped aboard their 

 vessels only a few hours before sailing, and that the hardened 

 veterans of a long voyage were free to go ashore as soon as 

 they saw the anchor down and the sails furled. And so the 

 beginning and the ending of a whaling cruise required shore 

 labor in considerable quantities. While the owners and agents 

 acquiesced in this system, they insisted that the members of 

 each crew must reimburse them for the additional wages bill. 

 Hence the presence in virtually every man's account of two 

 more debit items — one for fitting ship and the other for dis- 

 charging the cargo. 



Theoretically the exact amount of expense entailed by these 

 operations was to be prorated among the men aboard each ves- 

 sel. But in practice the agents adopted a simpler expedient: 

 they collected two arbitrary sums from each whaleman. 

 These sums, deemed sufficient to cover the extra outlay, ranged 

 from $5 to $15 for fitting the vessel for sea, and from $2 to 

 $10 for discharging and cleaning her. The amounts appear- 

 ing most frequently were $10 for fitting and $5 or $6 for dis- 

 charging. For five successive voyages, covering the period 

 1848 to 1868, the ship James Maury was fitted for sea at a 

 cost of $10 per head; but larger cargoes or a greater attraction 

 for barnacles caused her discharging and cleaning bills to ad- 

 vance from $6 to $9 per man. The Samuel Robert sofiy sailing 

 in 1857, exacted $15 at the beginning of her cruise and $10 

 at its conclusion; while the bark Minerva^ returning in 1839, 

 cost her crew only $5 apiece for fitting and $2 each for dis- 

 charging. 



The owners exacted still another tribute from their crews 



8 For a more cjetajled description of the ^ctivitie? of the outfitters, see Chaor 

 tef VJ, 



