518 iv.vonrAST action kespecting a avhale. [Arr. n*' v. 



ccssary for tlie transaction of business. When once an oath 

 loses its solemnity, pojury becomes a crime of little more 

 weiglit, in the mind of a person not over scrupulous in moral 

 duties, than the speaking of an untruth. 



No. V. 



ACCOUNT OF A TRIAL RESPECTING THE RIGHT OF THE SHIP 

 EXPERIMENT, TO A WHALE STRUCK BY ONE OF THE CREW 

 OF THE NEPTUNE *. 



Gale versus Wilkinson. 



Mr Solicitor-General said, this was an action of trover, 

 to recover the value of a whale, a harpoon, a line, and a boat. 

 The question arose out of the whale-fishery. The plaintiff 

 ■was owner of a Greenland ship called the Neptune ; and the 

 defendant was OAvner of the Experiment, another ship in the 

 same trade. One morning in the year 1 804, perhaps much such 

 another cold morning as this was, the two ships'" boats were 

 fishing neai' the North Pole. The Neptune's boat was looking 

 out near a vast field of ice, about thirty miles in breadth, when 

 the crew perceived a whale. The harpooner of the Neptune 

 instantly struck the fish, which plunged, and carried with her 

 above 1200 yards of line. The crew were determined not to 

 lose her, and therefore kept the line fast to the boat, and suf- 

 fered the whale to draw it under the ice. The crew themselves 

 got upon the ice, and erected a flag, as a signal to the Nep- 

 tune, that they had struck a fish. They knew the whale 

 must return in a certain time to get air. The Neptune's 

 people obeyed the signal, and sent off five boats to assist. 

 They arrived before any of the boats of the Experiment, 

 which were fishing at a distance, and which also came to the 

 spot, in consequence of a signal from that ship. It happen- 

 ed that the whale rose with her head towards the Experi- 



" For this important article I am indebted to James Qale, Es^. of Shad- 

 well, London. 



