II 



OFF SHORE 



IT WAS right whales that old New Englanders were fa- 

 miliar with, and since they found right whales near their 

 shores they hunted right whales with little regard for the possi- 

 bility that there might be more valuable game in deeper water. 

 But one day they found a dead sperm whale on the beach, and 

 great was the dissension that followed, for Indians, white men, 

 and an officer of the Crown claimed it, and each man's hand 

 was turned against his neighbour. The Indians claimed it be- 

 cause they found it; the white men, because they had bought the 

 island from the Indians and had got with the island the right to 

 all such treasure trove; the officer of the Crown, because prop- 

 erty without a definite owner belonged to His Majesty. Al- 

 ready, it should be remarked, a white man and an Indian, 

 gifted with foresight and common sense, by working industri- 

 ously before the vanguard of claimants arrived, had pried out 

 the teeth and, it is to be inferred, expeditiously departed! 



The whale eventually was shared by the white men who had 

 first come upon it. They formed a company to cut up the 

 beast and carry the blubber to their try- works and, regarding 

 sperm oil as a sure cure for all diseases, they held it was worth 

 its weight in silver. Thus Nantucketers became acquainted 

 with the products of the sperm whale, which were to play so 

 prominent a part in their subsequent history. 



Christopher Hussey, Macy says, killed the first sperm whale 

 that fell a victim to the irons of Nantucket whalers, and the 

 circumstances are odd. *'He was cruising near the shore for 

 Right whales, and was blown off some distance from the land by 

 a strong northerly wind, when he fell in with a school of that 

 species of whales, and killed one and brought it home. At what 



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