90 WHALING 



When English privateers or men-of-war had captured American 

 vessels, the officers had given all whalemen in the crews their 

 choice of sailing in the British whaling fleet or in the British 

 Navy. Thus they got enough whalemen to man seventeen 

 vessels, who preferred whale hunting to fighting against their 

 own country. 



A pleasing story is told, too, that exemplifies the willing- 

 ness of the British to use a good man in one capacity or 

 another, with small regard for minor differences of opinion. 

 When in Halifax one day the Duke of Clarence, Admiral of 

 the British fleet (and later William IV, King of England) was 

 annoying a girl with his attentions, and one Mr. Greene, the 

 young mate of a Nantucket whaler, came to the rescue and 

 threw the Admiral down a flight of stairs. When the Admiral 

 had recovered his composure, he showed his sportsmanship by 

 sending for Mr. Greene, the mate, to offer him a commission 

 in the navy, but Mr. Greene, who had discreetly retired to his 

 own vessel, was unwilling to put his trust in princes and refused 

 to stir thence. 



Further, besides knowing that the British were glad enough 

 to get American whalemen for their own whaling fleets, we know 

 that the Government was trying its best at that very time to 

 promote British whaling for its own sake. But William Pitt, as 

 Chancellor of the Exchequer, kept the doughty Rotch a long 

 time waiting, and Lord Hawksbury, whom Pitt appointed to deal 

 with the American, stimulated by an ill-considered thrift, at- 

 tempted to drive a close bargain by offering Rotch £87 10s. for 

 the transportation of each family of five persons, instead of the 

 £100 for transportation and the settlement of an additional 

 £100 that Rotch asked. 



Rotch then went to France. There the five ministers who 

 had authority to handle the matter agreed to give him what he 

 asked, and closed the bargain in just five hours. 



This project of Rotch's introduces the brief passage in the 

 history of the Am.erican whaling fleet, that we may call its 

 Book of Exodus, and although to Rotch the response of Nan- 

 tucketers to his plan was disappointing, it affords an interesting 



