THE VOYAGE OF THE HURON AND THE HUNTRESS 



Governor Brooks, schooner-tender of the Nancy of Salem; and Captain Bur- 

 dick of Nantucket.°° 



On the following morning, January 26, 1821, the log of the Huntress con- 

 tinues the account: 



". . . At 6 A.M. Cap* Bruno of the Schooner Henry started in a boat 

 with the first officer of the schooner Express with a Circular Letter being 

 signed by all the masters to their respective officers at their camps to 

 muster all their men save one man at each camp, and with their Boat to 

 repair immediately under the guidance of Capt Bruno to a small Bay 

 [Blythe Bay] not far from Sheriff's Cape, where Captain Davis and Cap- 

 tain Barnard would meet them in the Shallop with the residue of the 

 men from the harbor. At 8 p.m. Captain Davis and Capt. Barnard 

 started in the Shallop with 5 boats and 33 men which would make in all 

 (when they met at the place appointed) 120 men They would have to 

 Land and by the best information we can git the English have but about 

 80 men there. So Ends." 



The American sealers had planned their campaign well. If there was to be 

 a fight, the Yankees were in a position to strike hard and with force. That the 

 appointed commanders of the expedition were Captain Davis, Captain Barnard 

 and Captain Bruno is a point well to record. It establishes acknowledged lead- 

 ership. Little is known of either Davis or Bruno, but their voyages indicate 

 men of superior ability. 



As for Captain Charles Barnard, his own book, "A Residence of Two Years 

 in the Falkland Islands," which was printed in 1831, shows all too well his 

 natural animosity for the British. In 1813, at the Falklands, he had rescued 

 the officers and crew (including His Majesty's marines) of a British ship 

 which had been cast away. With an amazing shift of circumstances, the British 

 then stole Barnard's ship, the Nanina, and marooned him and four companions 

 at New Island. After two years of an almost solitary existence, Barnard and 

 his companions were rescued. Under such conditions, it is not difficult to imagine 

 Barnard's frame of mind. 



On the afternoon of January 26, at 7 :00 o'clock, the Cecilia, with Davis and 

 Barnard aboard (together with several mates from other vessels), and accom- 

 panied by whaleboats and 33 men, started from Yankee Harbor. Just as the 

 expedition got well up Yankee Sound, at noon on the next day, they spoke Cap- 

 tain Robert Johnson, bound in for Yankee Harbor in his shallop, after having 

 been a 22-day cruise to the south and west (more about this later). This ad- 

 venturesome master of the Jane Maria promised to join the force of militant 

 sealers, which then continued on its way. 



At 5 o'clock in the afternoon, Saturday, January 27, 1821, the expedition 

 got out through the western entrance to Yankee Sound. Captain Davis wrote: 



". . . made the best of our way for Bligh's Harbour [Blythe Bay?] with 

 two boats a head a Towing it being almost Calm at 7 p.m. came too an 



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