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THE AMERICAN WHALEMAN. 57 



dom may a whaling captain plead stress of weather or error 

 in reckoning, ignorance of entrance to harbors, or the dan- 

 gers of bars, as a valid defense for the loss of his ship. I 

 was continually impressed by the unceasing vigilance of 



Captain B to keep the exact run of the ship. The log 



was as regularly kept as though we ran by dead-reckoning ; 

 and we were running almost in mid-ocean, with land hun- 

 dreds of miles from our known position. Yet every clear 

 night, or whenever a break in the clouds admitted the ob- 

 servation, the captain would glide silently on deck, sextant 

 in hand, and, taking his seat at the head of a quarter-boat, 

 would abide his time to get his meridian by the passage of 

 some star of the many brilliant constellations in the southern 

 heavens. Not once, but perhaps several times in a night, he 

 sat star-gazing and full of anxious care, while the thoughtless 

 youngsters were listening to the song and the yarn, thinking 

 of the good time the " old man " had, and wondering why 

 captains grew gray-haired so early. The highest testimony 

 to the seamanship of our whalemen is that the rate of insur- 

 ance on the American is just one-half of that on the British 

 vessels engaged in the service. In illustration of this point, 

 Macy informs us that the whole number of Nantucket ves- 

 sels lost, exclusive of captures in war, since the settlement of 

 the island to 1835, is 168; viz., 78 sloops, 31 schooners, 18 

 brigs, and 41 ships. Yet for many years Nantucket had 150 

 ships at sea, on voyages of great length, and in distant, dan- 

 gerous, and unexplored seas, unaided by correct charts or sail- 

 ing directions. The loss of lives by wreck in this time was 

 but 414. 



Unquestionably the seamanship of the American whaling 

 captain is of the highest order in every respect, and many 

 of the most successful and adventurous commanders of pack- 

 et and clipper ships graduate in this school. The seamen 

 educated in whaling have no superiors in the substantial el- 



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