THE VOYAGE OF THE HURON AND THE HUNTRESS 



The vessel was 68 feet long, 22 feet 8 inches in beam, depth of 10 feet 1 inch. 

 Her registry tonnage was 130.^^ 



The Hersilia sailed late in July, 1819 under the command of the veteran 

 sealing master. Captain James P. Sheffield, with a crew of 19 men. Her second 

 mate was young Nathaniel B. Palmer, then in his 20th year. The supercargo 

 was William A. Fanning, a principal owner. Just when she arrived in the South 

 Shetlands is not definitely known, but from headquarters at Rugged Island she 

 got a cargo of 9,000 seal skins in three weeks' time and could have obtained 

 thrice that but did not have the salt to cure them. The Espirito Santo must 

 have fared equally well. They were pioneers in a virgin territory. 



Returning home late in May, 1820, the Hersilia brought with her not only 

 her cargo but the verification of any news which may have arrived in the United 

 States before her arrival. In Captain Edmund Tanning's "Voyages and Dis- 

 coveries in the South Seas," is an account of the Hersilia's voyage to the South 

 Shetlands. Captain Fanning, writing as he did a full decade after this event, 

 states that the vessel was dispatched purposely to discover any new land to 

 the south of Cape Horn. This, of course, is hardly creditable in view of other 

 evidence, notably in a contemporary statement contained in a letter which de- 

 clares that Captain Sheffield heard a report of the new islands, went to look 

 for them, and found them in December, 1819.^^ 



In a letter to Captain N. B. Palmer from J. N. Reynolds, written in 1834, 

 it is stated: "Fanning has given a new version of your first visit to the [South] 

 Shetland Islands. Have you seen the old Dutchman's [Gherritz] chart? I don't 

 much believe in it." This letter was quoted by Balch in his article on the Ston- 

 ington sealers in the American Geographical Society's Bulletin, Vol. XLI, 1909. 



The Fanning account states they reached the islands in February, 1820, and 

 goes on to describe the Hersilia sailing south to latitude 63°; of sighting a 

 round, mountainous island which they named Mount Pisgah Island; of finding 

 a group they called the Fanning Islands, of coming to a harbor in one of 

 these, named "Ragged Island," and of calling this Hersilia Cove.^'* The account 

 continues with the sealers, from elevated positions, discovering more land to 

 the eastward, but they were anxious to get home and report the rich rookeries 

 and so did not make any survey. 



It would appear that the Argentinian sealer Espirito Santo, which arrived 

 at the South Shetlands just before the Hersilia and Williams in this first 

 1819—20 sealing season, may have been the same vessel as the San Juan Nepo- 

 muceno, of Buenos Aires, under Captain Carlos Timblom. This vessel took 

 14,000 skins in five weeks, returning to her home port on February 22, 1820, 

 the sealskins being consigned to Adam Grey, an English merchant. This suggests 

 that Grey may have been an associate of Captain William Smith. The news- 

 paper account states that the seals were obtained in "the Patagonias," but the 

 number of skins brought back would indicate the South Shetlands as the place 

 where they were obtained so comparatively quickly.^'^ 



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