THE VOYAGE OF THE HURON AND THE HUNTRESS 



In the National General Files (Archiva General de la Nacion) of Buenos 

 Aires, there are documents which refer to the brig Espirito Santo alias Mer- 

 curio as escaping from that port illegally in 1806. The question is whether or 

 not this mysterious vessel could have likewise as conveniently changed its 

 name for its sealing voyage to the Shetlands a few years later. 



In the first of two important letters (dated August 25 and September 4, 

 1820) James Byers, a well-known New York sealing merchant, writing to 

 Brigadier-General Daniel Parker, stated that, upon the HersiUa's return home, 

 Captain Sheffield (formerly in Byers' employ) communicated the first informa- 

 tion he had received of the new islands. Byers claimed that Sheffield offered 

 to sail again in one of his ships and that a partner of Byers, a Walter Nexsen, 

 went to Stonington to interview Captain Sheffield. The latter supplied pertinent 

 information directly from his log. 



This information Nexsen obtained revealed that the Hersilia went to 61° 10' 

 south latitude (and not 63° as Fanning reported) and longitude 57° 15' west. 

 Captain Sheffield coasted along the "great new Island or Continent" for fifty 

 miles, saw no end southwest, returned to what Sheffield thought to be the south- 

 west end, and came to anchor between a number of islands, a short distance from 

 the mainland.^*' This is an accurate appraisal of a landfall off Livingston Island 

 (which the sealers called Frezeland), of sailing southwest and of coming to 

 Rugged Island and anchoring in Hersilia Cove. The report continued with the 

 statement that Sheffield and his men took 9,000 seal pelts in fifteen days (but 

 could take no more on account of running short of salt) and saw 300,000 seals. 

 The land ran about northeast and southwest, was uninhabited and destitute of 

 wood. All this nautical survey pretty much conforms with the facts as later 

 proven, and the Hersilia explored the northern shores of the South Shetlands, 

 where they found seals in abundance. 



This August 25, 1820, letter of Byers further stated that he had received 

 additional information from other sources, notably from another Captain 

 Edmund Fanning, late of the schooner Spartan (one of Byers' vessels which 

 had been wrecked on the Patagonian coast), and all nearly agreed on the 

 latitude and longitude. ^^ This Captain Fanning was a Nantucket man, a 

 nephew and not the son of his famous namesake. 



The other Byers letter (September 4, 1820), bears out the fact that, when 

 the Hersilia sailed in May, 1819, no one in Stonington then knew of the exist- 

 ence of the South Shetlands. The brig was then sailing on the same kind of 

 sealing voyage as her contemporaries, both in Britain and America, and to 

 "guard against a bad voyage in not finding seal, Captain Sheffield had on board 

 about half a cargo calculated for the Spanish market. "^^ 



But whether or not Captain Sheffield or William Fanning learned of the newly- 

 discovered islands while in the Falklands or at Staten Land, off Cape Horn, 

 the evidence is conclusive that somewhere in these waters they did find out in 

 time to alter their course and make a highly profitable voyage. And with it they 



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