OLD WHALING DAYS. 199 



she brought home safely, whose vessel had been crushed by 

 the relentless ice. 



In 1835 the most disastrous year in the records of the 

 Da vis's Straits whale fishery the Truelove formed one of 

 the fleet in Melville Bay, when twenty staunch and true 

 vessels were totally lost, and twelve others were seriously 

 damaged by the ice. Although then exposed to the most 

 imminent danger, the subject of our narrative remained 

 unharmed. 



In 1836, she again returned in safety, when several of her 

 consorts were frozen up for the winter and more than half 

 of their crews perished from cold and starvation, while other 

 ships were entirely lost. Captain J. Parker, who had been 

 in command of the old ship on many a trying occasion, used 

 to relate numerous instances of her hair-breadth escapes. 



He told how, when exposed to a heavy squeeze among 

 the ice floes, the Truelove would quietly rise up on the 

 surface and rest there until the danger was passed, thus 

 avoiding the fate which many of her sisters suffered. This 

 lucky peculiarity is without doubt due to the remarkable 

 and almost unique model of the old ship. Though 

 antiquated, modern builders might do well to copy, in some 

 points at least. In 1861 we find her again among the floes 

 as tough as ever; and while two ships are wrecked the 

 Anne brig and barque Commerce close to her, she was, as 

 usual, squeezed up on the ice on several different occa- 

 sions, when her crew had the utmost difficulty in getting her 

 afloat again, by sawing and blasting the heavy ice from 

 beneath her. 



During another voyage she lay for six whole weeks upon 

 the ice in Melville Bay, and considerable labour was needed 

 then to launch her old frame into its proper element ; but 

 that was nothing as long as she had saved herself, and was 

 as sound as before. This wonderful vessel must have made 

 not less than eighty voyages to Greenland and Davis's 



